MILK Podcast: Lost and Found, Season 3, Episode 1: Midlife Limbo, Death, Dogs and Separation Anxiety with Author Laura Zigman

Laura Zigman joins Mallory in the MILK Studio to talk about her latest novel “Separation Anxiety,” some difficult creative and personal years that led to the book’s publication, and how we talk about women’s mid-life crises.

The author of “Animal Husbandry,” “Dating Big Bird,” “Piece of Work,” and “Her,” contributor to The New York Times and many other publications, and a ghost writer of books she can’t tell you about, Laura’s writing is a gift at this moment in time.

Laura writes from a truthful, humorous and chaotic place that lays bare the secret of adulthood: that most of us have no idea what the hell is going on. She opens MILK Podcast Season 3 with her stories of loss and finding her way through them. Follow her @LauraZigman on IG.

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season, Episode 12: Banksy Angels, Frolicking Dolphins, and Our Friend Heather

Mallory is joined in the MILK Studio by Moms she Already Knows: Veracelle, Lindsay, Kerri, Meg, Leslie and Stephanie discuss the loss of their dear friend, Heather Wheat Tilev, who died in February of 2019.

Heather is the blonde in the hat. Photo taken by a timer propped up on something executed by Lindsay, February 2017

The culmination of The Loss Season explores how grief can manifest in a tight tribe of women, and Mallory talks to the MILKs about Heather's life and death. Heather's recent loss has devastated the group, as well as her family and community, and the women speak to Mallory, in interviews over the past 9 months, about her life, her work, her vibe, and her legacy.

They remember trips they took, running into her other on the street, and laughing over group text -- all the mundane things one does not realizing it will be the last time. They also speak honestly about the variety of ways they cope individually and within the group, and how motherhood is the ultimate lens for loss. 

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season, Episode 11 Losing Both Parents, Book Clubs, Memoirs and Old Friends

Author Dina Bryk Pearl joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Dina is a former strategy consultant, a graduate of Cornell University and Columbia Business School, and the mother of three kids.

Dina’s parents, Sy and Carol Bryk, passed away in quick succession at the end of Dina’s twenties. Despite the depth and heartbreak of those losses, Dina used the strong relationships she had with them to find her way through the grief, while beginning a new life as a wife and mother. Several years ago, then in her 40’s, Dina took a writing workshop and wrote "Raised," a deeply felt memoir about losing her parents at a formative age. The book explores of the foundation of love, honesty, and humor she absorbed from her late parents, and how Dina has found strength and wisdom to parent her own children and herself.

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season, Episode 9: Frogs with Feelings, Dealing with Divorce, Blending Families and Other Transitions with Children’s Book Author Nadine Harumi

Children’s Book Author Nadine Harumi joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Nadine is the author of the Freeda the Frog™ children’s book series, which follows a frog family as they encounter various life issues or different types of family situations, including divorce, blending families, transitioning to a new town, and the death of a loved one.

These books are for parents, educators and psychologist to open up a conversations with kids about difficult real life events, and have all won the Gold Mom’s Choice Award for excellence in the picture book category.

Nadine has gone through a divorce herself and is now re-married with five children. She has been a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and the Independent Book Publishers Association. Aside from writing, she also teaches Restorative Yoga and is a practicing attorney.

The Freeda The Frog books are sold on various websites (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart, Books A Million), and can also be found in select Barnes & Noble and other bookshops. More information about her books, froggy interviews and news & events can be found at www.freedathefrog.com. Follow Freeda on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter @freedathefrog.

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season, Epsiode 8: Vows, Contracts, Divorce and Death and How Writing Saves with Molly Rosen Guy

Molly Rosen Guy is in the MILK Studio with Mallory. Molly is a writer, editor, teacher, author, mother of young daughters, and truth teller.

As Creative Director and Founder of Stone Fox Bride, a wedding dress company with a cult Instagram account, Molly was responsible for the hashtag #stonefoxrings which created over five thousand original engagement stories on her feed. Her book, Love, Lust, and Wedding Planning for the Wild at Heart was published by Random House. When her father, Robert, got diagnosed with leukemia in the summer of 2017, Molly was also filing for a divorce from her husband of 8 years.

Photo by @mikeyneff

 After her father's passing, she started a new instagram account, @mollyrosenguy where she wrote daily, for one year, about her dad’s diagnosis, rapid decline, and death. Her words about the gritty realities of love, anger and pain in death and in divorce were riveting, and especially compelling as a daughter and as a mother.

Named one of the “Most Creative People” by Fast Company and Refinery29’s “Top 30 Visionaries,” Molly is also contributing editor at Vogue and founder of the Brooklyn Writers Collective where she teaches nonfiction writing workshops and retreats. She is also at work on a memoir about her dad and can be found @stonefoxride and @mollyrosenguy.

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season, Episode 7: The Magic of The Moth, Storytelling about Life and Death, and an Office Filled with Moms with Artistic Director Catherine Burns

Catherine Burns is in the MILK Studio with Mallory. As The Moth's longtime Artistic Director, Catherine is a producer and frequent host of their Peabody Award ­winning "The Moth Radio Hour," and the editor of "Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible" (Crown Archetype); The Moth: 50 True Stories (Hachette) and All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown. Catherine has directed theater, produced television and independent films, interviewing such diverse talent as Ozzy Osbourne, Martha Stewart and Howard Stern. Born and raised in Alabama, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and young son.

Photo credit: Aly Nicklaus

A semi­-accomplished fire performer (!!!) she also directed the New York City portion of the Burning Man Festival's Fire Conclave for three years, coordinating a 70­-person fire show performed in front of 50,000 people. Catherine and Mallory talk about the magic of live storytelling, how to hold space for our loved ones through narrative, and how her job listening to stories is a gift.

Catherine shared some memorable stories about loss from The Moth:

The House of Mourning, by Kate Braestrup

Love and Loss on Valentine's Day, by Autumn Spencer

Forgiveness, by Hector Black

Inside Jokes, by Ophira Eisenberg

Stumbling in the Dark, by John Turturro

A Kind of Wisdom and Lost, by Ellie Lee

MILK Podcast The Loss Season Episode 6 Losing Patience, All That Rage, and The Myth of Equal Partnership at Home with Clinical Psychologist Darcy Lockman

Darcy Lockman joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Darcy is the author of "All The Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and The Myth of Equal Partnership," and  is a clinical psychologist practicing in New York City. 

"All The Rage" takes a close look at why in this modern era, full-time employed mothers continue to bear 65 percent of the childcare labor. 

Mallory and Darcy talk about how anger and resentment led Darcy to action. Using her marriage as a case-study, she chronicles the experiences of a cross-section of women raising children with men — visiting new mothers’ groups and pioneering co-parenting specialists; and interviewing experts across academic fields, from gender studies professors and anthropologists to neuroscientists and primatologists. She identifies three tenets that have upheld the cultural gender division of labor and peels back the ways in which both men and women unintentionally perpetuate old norms. If we can all agree that equal pay for equal work should be a given, can the same apply to unpaid work? Can justice finally come home? 

Darcy Lockman is a clinical psychologist practicing in New York City. Her first book, "Brooklyn Zoo," chronicled the year she spent working on a city hospital psychiatric ward. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and many others. She lives with her husband and daughters in New York. Find her at darcylockman.com 

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season, Episode 5: Compassion, Checklists, and Treating the Whole Patient with Integrative Oncologist Lanie Kasdan Francis

Dr. Lanie Kasdan Francis joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Lanie is board certified in hematology and medical oncology and practices at The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center.

Lanie is the founder and director of the Wellness Integrative Program Oncology at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, where she a embraces holistic approach to care in the context of conventional cancer therapy. She was appointed by the state of Pennsylvania to the Medical Marijuana Task Force, and is a certifying provider. Lanie is Associate Medical Director, Medical Oncology for UPMC International, and is an assistant clinical professor at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Lanie is the mother to three boys, a fitness enthusiast, and Mallory’s younger sister. Follow her at @integrativecancerdoc.  

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season, Episode 4 : Funerals for the Living, Considering Alternatives, Missing Your Parents No Matter Your Age with Funeral Director Caroline Schrank

Caroline Schrank of Down to Earth Funerals joins Mallory in the MILK Podcast studio during The Loss Season.

With a background in fashion photography production, event and party planning, and the mother of two boys, Caroline Schrank was no stranger to handling details. But when both of her parents died within a few years of each other, she plunged deeply into the world of death, dying, and funerals. Caroline went back to school to become a funeral director, and Down to Earth Funerals, or DTE, was born. 

As a funeral director, Caroline aims to take the confusion and complexity out of end of life planning. Her goal is to educate and inform people that death and funerals aren’t “one size fits all,” and that there are options and ways to enhance life beyond loss. She and Mallory talk about their own wishes, about handling bodies, mitzvahs and wanting to connect loved ones who have passed.

Follow Caroline at www.dtefunerals.com/

MILK Podcast: The Loss Season Episode 3: Motherhood, Marriage and Loss of Self with Clinical Psychologist and Author Molly Millwood, PhD

Clinical Psychologist Molly Millwood joins Mallory in the MILK Studio to discuss her new book "To Have and To Hold: Motherhood, Marriage and the Modern Dilemma."

When Molly first became a mother, she was fully prepared for what she would gain: an adorable baby, hard won mothering skills, and a chaotic, beautiful life. But what she was not prepared for – and what she did not expect – was what she would lose: aspects of her identity, a baseline level of happiness, a general sense of well-being.  And though she had the benefit of a supportive partner during this transition, she also envied and at times resented the fact that the disruption to his life seemed to pale in comparison.  

Photo by Kathryn West

As a clinical psychologist, Molly knew her experience was a normal response to a life-changing event. But without the benefit of such a perspective, many of the patients she treated in her private practice grappled with guilt, self doubt, and fear, and suffered the dual pain of not only the struggle to adjust but also the overwhelming shame for struggling at all.

In her book, “To Have and To Hold: Motherhood, Marriage, and the Modern Dilemma,” Molly surveys the complex terrain of new motherhood, exploring the ways it affects women psychologically, emotionally, physically and professionally, as well as how it impacts their partnerships.

Dr. Molly Millwood holds a Ph.D in clinical psychology with advanced specialized training in marital therapy and intimate relationships. Molly is a licensed psychologist in private practice, where she is particularly known for her work with couples and with women navigating the transition to parenthood. She lives in Vermont with her husband and two children.  Find her at www.mollymillwood.com