The Make Meaning Podcast

Sometimes inspiration comes from sources very close to home. While spending more time with his family during the Covid-19 pandemic, Jeffrey was inspired to pass on his experience and values to younge…

As a young woman, Dorit Sasson moved to Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces as a lone soldier. After 18 years, Dorit returned to the United States, and those decisions, along with the deta…

It took 10 years for Karen Baum Gordon to write and publish her memoir, The Last Letter: A father’s struggle, a daughter’s quest, and the long shadow of the Holocaust, under the guidance of a friend…

The colonizing of America separated Indigenous people from their nourishing “first foods,” plant and animal species that native communities relied upon for subsistence, ceremony and medicine. More th…

Stephanie Steinberg always knew she wanted to be a writer. From a young age, she chased her creative nature, which led her to become a published author, a successful journalist, and an inspiring entr…

Jacqueline Suskin has been a poet all her life. It’s something she was born with, she says, and this passion for poetry has led her to build a career where people pay her to write poems about their e…

Noor A’wad and Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger may have come to the question of how Palestinians and Israelis can co-exist on land that they both claim as sacred from different perspectives, but through the…

Elizabeth Gowing’s life changed when she moved from London to Kosovo in 2006 for her partner's job on what was supposed to be a six-month contract. Fifteen years later, Elizabeth speaks Albanian, te…

Steven Wingate writes to learn foundational truths such as: Who are we? And, why do we behave the way we do? A resident of South Dakota, Steven sets his novels in the center of America, known as the …

In a way, every person is a storyteller, according to Jake Neher, senior producer for Detroit Today on 101.9 FM WDET in Detroit. As co-host of the weekly series and podcast MichMash,  not only does J…

Dean Stark began working at Sacramento Waldorf School when he was 21. That was 37 years ago, and when he began, he had no intention of staying so long because he imagined he would go on to coach at b…

Nancy Sharp experienced an exceptional grief when her husband died from brain cancer at the age of 39, when their twins were toddlers. She eventually left New York City for Denver to start over amid …

When Ramona Pintea turned 40, she decided to close her interior design business and start a new path following her true passion — art. During the beginning of the pandemic, she created a piece called…

The reason John Wynn has built an entertainment empire and impact school children is because he begins each day with daily devotion and family check-ins. That, and the way he keeps his father’s legac…

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world in so many ways. For some people, the past year has led to a major shift in the work they do, either by necessity or by desire – both of which are reaso…

Margaret Trimer has created a varied and fascinating career with a focus on building educational opportunities for children and girding communities with value and voice. She does this, she says, by …

For Michael Ziman, life has been relatively easy. He grew up enjoying the nature of the Jersey Shore, and built a career building vacation homes in his favorite place. But when the COVID-19 pandemi…

The past year was a challenge in so many ways, and relationships were impacted in many ways by long lockdowns, economic turbulence, and the need to work at home while guiding children in doing school…

After 20 years as a teacher and school principal, Jan Tinetti knows the damage period poverty can do to young girls and women seeking to build a better life. Children as young as six would miss a we…

When Lynne Golodner pivoted from journalism to public relations and marketing, she had a love-hate relationship with the PR field; it felt like crossing over to the dark side, she recalls. But Nancy …