Women Living the Questions

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Phyllis Rosenblatt, an artist and teacher whose work has been a lifelong quest to discover what art can reveal beyond words.Phyllis found her calling early and has taught generations of students. She shares her thoughts on growing older, artistic bravery, and endless curiosity, as well as the mysterious territory between what we can experience and what we can explain.This is a conversation about a life devoted to seeking, and about learning to look beyond ourselves, and to stay open to what we find there.Learn more about the guest: https://phyllisrosenblattpainter.com/Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Linda Marks, a body psychotherapist and musician whose work brings together somatic healing, trauma recovery, and music.Linda did not speak a single word until she was three years old, finding her first voice at a piano. At sixteen, she survived a life-threatening street attack that forced an immediate choice to survive. She later attended Yale and MIT Sloan and built a clinical practice centered on the body, while continuing to make music.They talk about Linda’s 2025 album, The Silence Of The Stars, and the connection between music and her work as a psychotherapist. Their conversation moves through trauma, survival, and the ways the body and music can offer languages beyond words.Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Carol Adams, feminist writer, activist, and author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, whose work examines the connections among feminism, animal rights, violence, and the treatment of female bodies.Carol shares how growing up among her parents’ libraries nurtured a lifelong relationship with books, and how her work took her from advocating for women’s studies and volunteering at an abortion clinic to organizing around domestic violence, homelessness, housing, and racism. She also recounts the death of Jimmy, her pony, and the startling realization that followed. That moment led first to vegetarianism, then veganism, and eventually to the ideas that became her landmark book.They explore grief as a source of consciousness, the connections Carol sees between feminist politics and animal agriculture, the practice of journaling, and her decision to preserve letters, postcards, papers, and journals so that the lives and visions of women from another era remain available to future generations.Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Sally Jean Fox, an author, artist, organizational storyteller, and educator who taught management and leadership for twenty-five years. After a career in international development, startups, and nonprofits, Sally began asking what might nourish the part of her life that could not be satisfied by achievement alone.Sally shares how returning from Japan and suddenly hearing the word “peonies” became a doorway into beauty and creative expression. At sixty-nine, after believing she wasn't an artist, she began drawing and discovered creativity as a form of healing.Her memoir, Meeting the Muse After Midlife: A Journey to Meaning, Creativity, and Joy, grew from conversations with a mysterious muse. Sally also talks about Zumba, her younger self, and letting go of the need to be smart, credible, and accomplished.This is a conversation about choosing a life beyond achievement, listening for what wants to come alive, and the courage to share it with the world.Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Judith Dupré, an architectural historian, Brown University and Yale Divinity School graduate, and bestselling author whose books on skyscrapers, bridges, churches, and monuments have changed how readers understand the built world. After decades of writing nonfiction, she is now completing her first novel, inspired by the unlikely meeting of philosopher William James and showman P.T. Barnum.Judith discusses why architecture is as much about human experience as engineering, and the delight she finds in following questions wherever they lead. This is a woman who has spent a lifetime observing the world, and is now turning her attention inward.Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0