Since 2009, fine art photographer Charise Isis has been taking topless portraits of women  who have had mastectomies for breast cancer as part of The Grace Project. The goal? Photographing 800 women, which represents the number of American women diagnosed with the disease each day.

The images are inspired by sculptures like the Venus de Milo, and like it, the women are celebrated as beautiful and their brokenness revealing the delicate nature of life, endurance and the inherent beauty that still radiates.

Here, Charise talks about the power in the portraits as well as marginalized parts of breast cancer that awareness programs seem to miss altogether.

Our  theme music - "Please Irene" by Lynn Riley and the World-Mix - is used with their permission. Find their release "Say What" on iTunes, Amazon Music, Bandcamp, CB Baby and via their website. 

For public relations specialist and event planner Kimberly Hodges, producing live events and award shows for DC-area businesses, government entities and non-profit organizations is a norm, but a different  calling led her to put pen to paper and create her latest project "99 Things to Do With Your Pants Up!: A Faith-Filled Girls' Guide to Things to Do Instead of Doing 'The Do'"  while locking-down due to Covid. Here, she talks about the divine inspiration for the project and the casual conversation that pushed her to turn the idea into a tangible guide to helping young women live their best lives and find their purpose.

Find out more about the book and workshops at 99thingsguide.com.

Our  theme music - "Please Irene" by Lynn Riley and the World-Mix - is used with their permission. Find their release "Say What" on iTunes, Amazon Music, Bandcamp, CB Baby and via their website. 

After a stint with dance that left her off of the competition and performance teams, Sensei Katie began a karate class in grade school and never stopped. She has been learning, training in and teaching Goju-Ryu, Kyokushin, Shotokan, Judo and other martial arts for 30 years, adding Krav Maga classes and coaching and training youth students for weapons and kata competitions on the NASKA and NY Tournament League circuits to her repertoire.

She talks about how karate became a family affair for her siblings and her dad, why she kept going to class when everyone else in the family stopped, the parallels of  teaching in the classroom and teaching martial arts, how creative competition kata can be, the inherent challenges of sometimes being the only woman on the mat and why she takes the "Always a Student, Never a Master" mantra to heart.

Her schools are Fighting Spirit Martial Arts and Fitness and Krav Maga New York.

Our opening theme music - "Please Irene" by Lynn Riley and the World-Mix - is used with their permission. Find their release "Say What" on iTunes, Amazon Music, Bandcamp and CB Baby.