GD Deckard

PODCAST INVITATION

by Joseph Carrabis

This is a wonderful opportunity to help trauma survivors get their stories and work out to a wider audience.

For those who don’t know, Katie Koestner was on the cover of TIME Magazine at the age of 18 as the first person to speak out nationally and publicly as the victim of “date” rape. She is now the Producer and Host of the Dear Katie: Survivor Stories podcast.

My function is two fold. One, to find any creatives (not just authors) whose work deals with trauma and healing, and engage them in podcast conversations regarding their work and their lives post trauma. Two, to help find trauma survivors who’ll share their stories for the main Dear Katie podcast, review episodes before they go to air, edit, and make suggestions as necessary.

Please leave a comment if you or someone you know has written a fiction or non-fiction book, article, or story about surviving trauma. Include the title of the published work, the publisher, a synopsis of the story, and a link to where I can find it online.

Thanks.
– Joseph Carrabis

My own work in this area can be seen in the material listed below. Your work doesn’t need to mirror or echo my subject matter to be considered; it only needs to be well-written and deal with survivor issues.

Published novel: The Augmented Man (graphic violence; sexual trauma; child abuse; PTSD; emotional, physical, spiritual, and psychological abuse)
Published short story: “The Boy in the Giant” elsewhere in this blog and in Harvey Duckman Volume 6 (myth/folktale about overcoming childhood abuse)
Published short story: “The Settlement” (violence, child abuse)
Unpublished series: Recovery Triptych available on this blog starting with “Recovery Triptych: The Echo” (you name it, it’s in here)

Post Title – Producer, Dear Katie: Survivors on the Page Book Club; Editor, Dear Katie: Survivor Stories I joined the Katie Koestner organization as Producer, Dear Katie: Survivors on the Page Book Club, and Editor, Dear Katie: Survivor Stories.

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GD Deckard

Severely beaten as a child by a WWII hero and combat-induced-PTSD stepfather, the author, as a teen, faced the old man down with a shotgun and earned his blessing to join the military at the time Americans were learning about a country called Vietnam. The “lazy, no good son-of-a-bitch” opted out of combat and hard labor by becoming an Air Force medic, stamping out suffering and misery on Freedom’s Frontier at Clark Airbase in S.E. Asia and earning some kind of medal pinned on him personally by then Secretary of the Air Force, Harold Brown, for “Saving lives, etc.” There followed a summer in Europe ending in the first of happy marriages. Then graduation with University Honors, kids worth dying for and a career in business. Life is good. Author, The Phoenix Diary, Penguin, 2015. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-phoenix-diary-g-d-deckard/1122175645 Founding Member, Writers Co-op. https://WritersCo-op.com Co-Editor, The Rabbit Hole anthologies. https://www.amazon.com/Rabbit-Hole-Weird-Stories/dp/1691225355/ref=sr_1_1 Founder, SciFi Lampoon Magazine. http://scifilampoon.com/ Contributing Editor, A Celebration of Storytelling https://www.amazon.com/Celebration-Storytelling-GD-Deckard/dp/1951716167 Current WIP: Code Blue and Little Deaths, stories from Clark during the Vietnam War. Recipient of the Psi Young award for Creative Biography.

12 responses to “PODCAST INVITATION”

MamaSquid

June 13, 2022

Thanks for putting this out there. I wish I could participate, but my work is not yet published, and though I have a complete draft, I’m not happy with it, and I’m still trying to decide what the final product will look like. My first novel is a love story between a woman with sexual trauma and a man conceived by rape, and how they work toward healing through a consensual kink relationship. If they are just looking for survivor stories, I definitely have one of those, having fled my home at age 17 to escape sexual and psychological abuse, only to find disbelief, blame, and ostracism when someone in the social services field “outed” me to my family. While psychologically devastating, it taught me a lot about human nature. And love helped me to heal, which is why I write about love, and will continue writing about love until the day I die.

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Ayi Ariquater

June 13, 2022

Nice

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Sue Ranscht

June 13, 2022

Thanks for sharing this, GD.

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Sue Ranscht

June 13, 2022

Reblogged this on Space, Time, and Raspberries and commented:

For those who need to heal or wish to help others heal.

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Joseph+Carrabis

June 13, 2022

Hello and thank you all for responding.
I truly believe this is important work and appreciate any and all spreading the word and letting others know help and healing are available. Please contact me as the Dear Katie organization can direct you to providers if you wish.

Mamasquid – that’s a powerful story. I’d love to see it when you’re ready to share.

Thanks again, all. – Joseph

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1. GD Deckard
  
  June 13, 2022
  
  Thank you, Joseph. The Dear Katie: Survivor Stories podcast is precisely the kind of thing that allows us to live in Charlotte Ahlin’s “unvarnished reality” and not become cynics.
  
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victoracquista

June 15, 2022

Thanks for putting this out and for raising awareness. As a species, we are storytellers. When we share our stories, the bonds of human connection and compassion are strengthened.

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1. Joseph+Carrabis
  
  June 15, 2022
  
  I agree completely, Victor. “It is silence which isolates.” (Thomas Mann)
  
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mimispeike

June 15, 2022

Here’s a quote from Katy Tur, who just wrote about her abusive father in a memoir, Rough Draft:

“No one is so amazing that they’re able to solve all of their own problems. Find an outlet, [don’t] bottle it up … The best way for me to do it was to get it down on the page, for someone else it’s talking to a therapist or their loved one or maybe it’s writing a diary that no one ever sees.”

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1. Joseph+Carrabis
  
  June 15, 2022
  
  So true, Mimispieke. And thanks for the Katy Tur/Rough Draft reference. I’ll look it up.
  
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mimispeike

June 15, 2022

My father’s family came from Switzerland around 1916. In Switzerland, my grandfather abandoned his family for several years, moved in with my grandmother’s sister, and had a family there. He eventually returned to his wife. She took him back! In Sly, The structure of the Zendegi/ Zambrano families mimics my grandfather’s betrayal. I USE EVERYTHING.

My mother’s mother was a tyrant. Mom didn’t have it in her to to stand up for herself; she gave in. After years of having boyfriends chased off by her mother, Dad bopped onto the scene. He needed a woman who would never confront him, who would give in always. That was my mother to a T. Nanny wasn’t able to frighten him off. Something bad had happened in Nanny’s family also. My sister said Nanny had told her once to never be alone with our brother. To me, that says abuse happened there.

My father bullied my mother and she drank to escape it. I could not talk to Mom about our family dynamic. She would get a look on her face like a puppy being beaten to death, and I’d drop it.

A brilliant man (but lacking in people skills), Dad felt he had not reached the professional success he was entitled to. (This despite that he wrote the curriculum and directed the Electrical Training program for a major government program of the sixties and seventies.

He was a near genius (pronounced so by an IQ test) and his kids were supposed to be the proof of his superiority. We all three let him down. I’m filled with anger, and I’m filled with guilt. My pain is on the table in Sly. I intend to have some good of the shit I’ve been through.

I’ve thought about seeing a therapist, but I can’t see myself doing anything other than crying, unable to speak. Why bother now? I’m almost seventy-six.

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1. Joseph+Carrabis
  
  June 15, 2022
  
  Hello again,
  I’m unfamiliar with your work. Would you be willing to contact me via LinkedIn (http://nlb.pub/LinkedIn) or Facebook (http://nlb.pub/Facebook) so can continue this conversation?
  
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