Jo Salas is a writer, a social activist, and devoted grandmother. She grew up in New Zealand and now lives two hours north of New York City near woods and mountains. Jo’s fiction includes the novels Dancing with Diana (Codhill Press, 2015), and Mrs. Lowe-Porter (JackLeg Press, 2024). Her short stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies. Her story “After,” in the anthology Facing the Change: Personal Encounters with Global Warming was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Other short stories have won or been shortlisted for awards.
Jo is also the cofounder of Playback Theatre, an original form of interactive theatre based on personal stories now practiced worldwide. Her nonfiction writing has chronicled and explored Playback Theatre since its inception, with many publications including Improvising Real Life: Personal Story in Playback Theatre, now published in ten translations and a 20th anniversary edition.
Today, we spend much of our time discussing MRS. LOWE-PORTER which is based on the life of Helen Lowe-Porter, a brilliant, ambitious, warm-hearted, and self-deprecating woman who struggles for her own literary voice against the conventions of her time and the demands of the two male luminaries in her life: the legendary novelist Thomas Mann, whose works she translates, and her charismatic husband Elias.
It’s “[a]n exploration of the complicated life of the translator of Thomas Mann – who is a writer in her own right. Salas asks difficult questions about work and gender – whose words should take precedence? Whose work? Whose needs? Salas uses the real life of Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter as the foundation for this fascinating novel.”
–Roxana Robinson, author of Dawson’s Fall.
Jo shares about what led her to write the book, her own resonance with Helen’s story, what women contend with professionally and creatively when the world is not necessarily asking for their output, and then also another of Jo’s major contributions to the world in her 50 year effort to develop and share Playback Theatre. They have a new series of performances beginning October 6th at the Muse in Rosendale.
Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.
Our show music is from Shana Falana!
Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org
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