Featuring interviews with creative people at the crossroads of artistic media. The Prickly Pear Podcast is hosted by Blue Cactus Press publisher and poet Christina Butcher, and sponsored by Libro.fm, the first and only company which lets you purchase audiobooks directly from your favorite local bookstore.
You can get free audiobooks from Libro.fm and support The Prickly Pear Podcast at the same time when you sign up using our special code: PRICKLY. Read more about our sponsorship on our blog. The music in our podcast was created by Tacoma-based Austin Scheen, a Tacoma-based DJ, producer and artist. Now, get to scrollin’ to find out who we’ve been chatting with! Episodes are below!
Poetry, Motherhood & Activism with Shin Yu Pai
We lucked out earlier this fall when we snagged a podcast interview with the multi-talented Seattle artist Shin Yu Pai! We hopped onto Zoom late one evening in September to chat with Shin Yu about poetry, motherhood, the artistic process, and publishing and activism during pandemic times. We also chatted about Shin Yu’s newly released, hybrid…
Poetry as Activism
Sure, the media hype surrounding national and local protests for social justice has died down, but the issues are still present, the protests continue, and our conversations about our roles as artists and community members in this collective struggle continue to deepen. As part two of a collaboration with Write253, a youth literary arts non-profit…
Poetry as a Tool for Self-Healing
Everything is a mess nowadays (we’re looking at you, COVID-19, rampant and continued racism against BIPOC , the unsettling state of local and national economy, zealous over-policing, etc.) and it can feel incredibly overwhelming to just get out of bed some mornings and trudge through the day. For some of us, though, poetry and art…
Tashawn Deville
Hello there. Its been a hell of a year so far, friends, but we’re doing our best to keep moving forward and to do so as community members with a standing responsibility to fight for social justice and ending institutionalized racism. In a beautiful synthesis of timing and energy, we just finished our newest podcast…
Artist Interview: DJ Smokey Wonder
Yeah. A whole podcast episode of nothin’ but good-good music by one of our favorite, Tacoma-based musicians, DJ Smokey Wonder. Why? Because life is hard and sometimes it’s refreshing – and necessary – to participate in things that bring us joy and don’t expect a damn thing in return. So take a break from worrying…
Lucien Vedego & The Great Avocado
We’re having trouble keeping up with all the cool arts events happening around town for Tacoma Arts Month, so naturally, we retreated to the great garage to catch our breath and *settle down.* We convinced Lucien Vedego, a multi-disciplinary artist with work in the fields of music, painting, writing, acting, and modeling, to join us…
Therapy Isn’t A Death Sentence with Robert Lashley
It’s been a contemplative spring, friends, one as heavy with emotional processing as the branches of a flowering peony bush (you know, the ones near Chinese Reconciliation Park in Tacoma, with milky-white flowers larger than our fists and a melancholy that drags at the bush). We’ve been absorbed with emotional processing all year, it seems,…
Abby E. Murray’s Snack Pack PhD Regalia
That’s right, Blue Cactus Press snagged an interview with Abby E. Murray, award-winning author, educator, and the 2019 – 2021 Tacoma poet laureate! Abby joined us earlier this spring for a delightfully weird conversation about expensive-AF writing retreats, juggling balls and spinning plates, and figuring out how many snacks one can fit into their PhD…
Good-Ass Hot Chicken ft. José Olivarez and Britteney Black Rose Kapri
Earlier this month, Blue Cactus Press sat down with poetry giants José Olivarez and Britteney Black Rose Kapri for a live podcast recording at King’s Books! José and Britteney joined The Prickly Pear podcast host, Christina Butcher, and local poet Michael Haeflinger, in a discussion about poetry, creative influences, and life as teaching artists and…
Weird Flex But Okay … with Jonah Barrett
We’re bringing the weird, friends! We’ve been stuck indoors all winter and we’re LOSING OUR MINDS! Luckily, though, we’re losing our minds with filmmaker, writer and multimedia artist Jonah Barrett. In this episode, Jonah chats about their obsession with dark places (we’re talking caves, abandoned houses and creepy forests), “finite experience on the YouTubez,” and…
Experimental Artist & Library Gangster, Nicole McCarthy
Put down the holiday cookies and pick up your headphones, friends, because we snagged an exclusive podcast interview with experimental artist Nicole McCarthy! Nicole is from the pacific northwest. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell. Her work has been performed and encountered through installation pieces throughout Seattle & Tacoma. In this episode,…
Samuel Snoek-Brown, Badass Women & Whiskey
Featuring Tacoma-based author and educator Samuel Snoek-Brown. Sam is the author of the new short story collection There Is No Other Way to Worship Them, the Civil War novel Hagridden and short-fiction chapbooks Where There Is Ruin and Box Cutters. He also serves as production editor for Jersey Devil Press. Pour yourself a glass of whiskey and…
Kellie Richardson on the Mic
Featuring Tacoma Poet Laureate, educator, writer and collage artist Kellie Richardson. Kellie is also the badass creator and blogger of Brown Betty and author of What Us Is. In this episode, Kellie Richardson talks about her artistry and explains the importance of bringing your true self to the stage. And yeah, we gripe about changing neighborhoods and community…
The Sh*t You Don’t Know About Creative Colloquy
Featuring Creative Colloquy founder, professional booze-slinger and freelance writer Jackie Casella. Listen in as we set the record straight about how Creative Colloquy got its start, dive into who (in the hell) Jackie Casella really is, and put a few people on blast. Oh, don’t think we forgot about all the rad CC events coming your…