1888: The How, The Why

Breaking down the walls of a cubicle, Jake Bernard shed his 9-5 to return to his positive, feel-good roots. Reflecting his inner-optimist, Jake's beach-pop sound meshes the more colorful sides of Jason Mraz and John Mayer, and he's appeared at the Hotel Cafe, The Peppermint Club, BMI's Acoustic Lounge (Genghis Cohen), The Levitt Pavilion (with American Idol's Nick Fradiani), and The Bitter End. The Huffington Post recognizes his beach-pop sound as "intoxicating," and his love letter and tribute to Philadelphia, "City of Love," was recognized by Mayor Kenney and the Philadelphia Phillies.Sounds + Stories is an eclectic music series featuring live performances and entertaining discussions with emerging and established artists. Produced in collaboration with Brew Sessions Live. Special episodes are filmed and edited into a short documentary compilation with the audio from each episode recorded and archived for podcast.Guest: Jake BernardProduced by Past Forward in partnership with Brew Sessions Live.

A live recording of the 1888 Center Podcast with Francesca Lia Block and guest host, Samantha Dunn. Francesca Lia Block is the Lifetime Achievement Award winning author of over thirty acclaimed and widely translated books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry. She has also written a screenplay for Fox Searchlight and contributed essays, interviews and reviews to many publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Nylon and Spin. Francesca teaches at Antioch University, Los Angeles and UCLA Extension. Samantha Dunn is an editor at Coast Magazine. Her debut novel, Failing Paris, was a finalist for the PEN Center Fiction Award. Her memoir, Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life rose to bestseller lists in Los Angeles and San Francisco and her second memoir, Faith in Carlos Gomez, has been in production at  Lifetime Television. Sam’s work is widely anthologized, including the short story collection, Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles, which she co-edi

A live recording of our educational podcast The Purpose of Past Tense with Pico Iyer. This program is themed on The Art of Stillness. Pico Iyer is the author of two novels and ten works of non-fiction, on subjects ranging from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism, from stillness to travel, and from forgotten nations of the world to the 21st century global order. An essayist for Time since 1986, he is a constant contributor to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s and more than 200 other newspapers and magazines worldwide, and he has published introductions to almost 60 other works. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages and both his 2008 meditation on the XIVth Dalai Lama, The Open Road, and his TED Book, The Art of Stillness, were national best-sellers. They have also made him a Guggenheim Fellow, a Pulitzer Prize nominee and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Between 2012 and 2016, Pico Iyer delivered three talks for ted.com, and between them they

A live recording of our educational podcast The Purpose of Past Tense with Nachoem M. Wijnberg. Nachoem M. Wijnberg (Amsterdam, 1961) is a Dutch poet and novelist. His poetry has received many Dutch and Belgian awards, including the 2009 VSB Prize for the best book of poetry and the 2018 PC Hooft Prize, the most important literary career award in the Netherlands. His poetry has been translated into many languages, ranging from Chinese to Italian, and published in a wide range of journals, anthologies and books. Books in English include Advance Payment (Anvil Press/Carcanet, 2013), Divan of Ghalib (White Pine Press, 2016) and Of Great Importance (Punctum, 2018 Link). He is also a professor at the University of Amsterdam Business School. This event is co-hosted by Tabula Poetica and the Office of the President of Chapman University; see more at www.chapman.edu/poetry.     The Purpose of Past Tense A creative podcast dedicated to commitment and accomplishment. Focused on that moment when an idea becomes a succe

A live recording of our educational podcast The Purpose of Past Tense with Geoff Manaugh and guest moderator, Ryan Gattis. Geoff Manaugh is the author of the New York Times-bestselling book A Burglar’s Guide to the City (FSG Originals, 2016), as well as a freelance writer covering design, crime, infrastructure, and more for publications ranging from The New York Times Magazine to Businessweek. He lives in Los Angeles. Photo credit: Sasha Maslov/Wall Street Journal. Ryan Gattis is the author of SAFE, KUNG FU HIGH SCHOOL, and ALL INVOLVED: A Novel of the 1992 L.A. Riots, which won the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Lire Award for Noir of the Year in France. He lives and writes in Los Angeles, where he is a member of street art crew UGLARworks, and a founding board member of 1888.     The Purpose of Past Tense A creative podcast dedicated to commitment and accomplishment. Focused on that moment when an idea becomes a success story, we ask innovative entrepreneurs to detail their journey from

A live recording of our educational podcast The Grammar of Science and Technology with Rebecca Skloot. This special program, entitled Dialogue on Bioethics: A Conversation with Rebecca Skloot, will be moderated by Dr. Andrew Lyon. Rebecca Skloot, a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Her award winning science writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; and many other publications. She specializes in narrative science writing and has explored a wide range of topics, including goldfish surgery, tissue ownership rights, race and medicine, food politics, and packs of wild dogs in Manhattan. She has worked as a correspondent for WNYC’s Radiolab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW. She and her father, Floyd Skloot, co-edited The Best American Science Writing 2011. You can read a selection of Rebecca Skloot’s magazine writing on the Articles page of her site This event is co-hosted by Tab

A live recording of our educational podcast The Grammar of Science and Technology with Dr. Michael Shermer. Dr. Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He is the author of The Moral Arc, The Believing Brain, Why People Believe Weird Things, Why Darwin Matters, The Mind of the Market, How We Believe, and The Science of Good and Evil. His next book is Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for Immortality, the Afterlife, and Utopia. His two TED talks, viewed nearly 8 million times, were voted in the top 100 of the more than 2000 TED talks. Michael Shermer on stage at TED2014 - The Next Chapter, All-Stars Session 5 - The Future of Ours, March 17-21, 2014, Vancouver Convention Center, Vancouver, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman     The Grammar of Science and Technology In 1902, Albert Einstein gifted a book, Karl Pearson’s The Grammar of Science, to his colleagues to start a conversation about the universe.

A live recording of our educational podcast The Grammar of Science and Technology with Adam Becker. Adam Becker is a physicist and science writer. He has written for the BBC and New Scientist, and has also recorded a video series with the BBC.  Adam earned a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Michigan and a BA in philosophy and physics from Cornell. He is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Office for History of Science and Technology; he lives in Oakland, California. Produced in partnership with Chapman University, Institute for Quantum Studies.     The Grammar of Science and Technology In 1902, Albert Einstein gifted a book, Karl Pearson’s The Grammar of Science, to his colleagues to start a conversation about the universe. Expanding on that conversation, we invite a variety of experts to share the stories behind landmark advancements and discoveries in the fields of science and technology. Recorded in front of a live audience at the 1888 Center, this educational program is designed as

Héctor Tobar is the Los Angeles-born author of four books, including the novels The Tattooed Soldier and The Barbarian Nurseries. His non-fiction Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of Thirty-Three Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that Set Them Free, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize: it was also a New York Times bestseller and adapted into the film The 33. The Barbarian Nurseries was a New York Times Notable Book and won the California Book Award Gold Medal for fiction. Tobar‘s fiction has also appeared in Zyzzyva and in Best American Short Stories 2016. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Irvine, and has taught writing and journalism at Pomona College and the University of Oregon; he is currently an associate professor at UC Irvine. As a journalist, he was a foreign correspondent with the Los Angeles Times in Buenos Aires and Mexico City, and a part of the reporting team that earned a Pulitzer Prize

We took our Why We Write project on the road with an Orange County Tour. Live events were produced throughout Orange County and featured author readings from curated essay submissions. This event was recorded live at 1888 Center in Orange, California. Produced in partnership with Brew Sessions, Anaheim Packing District and The LAB.  1888 Center programs are recorded and archived as a free educational resource on our website or with your favorite podcast app including Apple and Spotify. Each interdisciplinary episode is designed to provide a unique platform for industry innovators to share stories about art, literature, music, history, science, or technology. Producers: Trevor Allred and Kevin Staniec Audio and Video: Brew Sessions Host: Sara Guerrero Moderator: Eric Morago Guests: Fisayo Adeyeye, Shelley Armenta, Abigail Ayulo, Jonathan Donabo, Elias Fulmer, Sara Guerrero, Liz Harmer, Carla Huezo, Jose Jaimes, Rebekah LeRoux, Brian Lin, Nick Mauer, Corin Reyburn, T.J. Reynolds, Julie Schulter, and Kristy Tat

We took our Why We Write project on the road with an Orange County Tour. Live events were produced throughout Orange County and featured author readings from curated essay submissions. This event was recorded live at Cooks Chapel, Packing House in Anaheim, California. Produced in partnership with Brew Sessions, Anaheim Packing District and The LAB.  1888 Center programs are recorded and archived as a free educational resource on our website or with your favorite podcast app including Apple and Spotify. Each interdisciplinary episode is designed to provide a unique platform for industry innovators to share stories about art, literature, music, history, science, or technology. Producers: Trevor Allred and Kevin Staniec Audio and Video: Brew Sessions Host: Michael Martin Moderator: Eric Newman Guests: Shauna Barbosa, PJ Colando, Amanda Fletcher, Ryan Gattis, Ashli Lomeli, Bridget Lyons, Michael Martin, Joanna Nelius, Toti O’Brien, Lydia Oxenham, Mai Pham, Linda Ravenswood, Cindy Rinne, Kathryn Ross, Vincent Sca

We took our Why We Write project on the road with an Orange County Tour. Live events were produced throughout Orange County and featured author readings from curated essay submissions. This event was recorded live at The LAB Anti-Mall in Costa Mesa, California. Produced in partnership with Brew Sessions, Anaheim Packing District and The LAB.  1888 Center programs are recorded and archived as a free educational resource on our website or with your favorite podcast app including Apple and Spotify. Each interdisciplinary episode is designed to provide a unique platform for industry innovators to share stories about art, literature, music, history, science, or technology. Producers: Trevor Allred and Kevin Staniec Audio and Video: Brew Sessions Host and Moderator: Trevor Allred Guests: Jonathan Alexander, Peter Dingus, Gwen Goodkin, Mike Gravagno, Natalie Green, Billie Kelpin, Nancy Klann, Annie Moose, Sam Ortiz, and Elizabeth Vasquez 1888 Center Podcast music composed and performed by Dan Reckard     Inspired

A very special ALL Moon Tide Press edition of  Writers’ Block Live with Eric Morago, Daniel McGinn, Alexis Rhone Fancher, and Peggy Dobreer. Friend of YourPopFilter and two-time Writers’ Block guest Eric Morago is the publisher at Moon Tide Press, and in the spring of 2018 the press published three amazing books of poetry: Daniel McGinn’s The Moon, My Lover, My Mother, & The Dog, Alexis Rhone Fancher’s Junkie Wife, and Peggy Dobreer’s Drop and Dazzle. Daniel, Alexis, and Peggy read from their respective collections and discussed the power of pop songs, the allure of erotica, why movement matters, and so much more! Daniel McGinn is the author of The Moon, My Lover, My Mother & The Dog (Moon Tide Press, 2018) and 1000 Black Umbrellas (Write Bloody, 2011) He’s a native of Southern California who’s led workshops at Half Off Books, The Orange County Rescue Mission, charter schools and poetry venues. Daniel received his MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been married to the poet and p

Today our podcast connects with Namrata Poddar. Namrata Poddar writes fiction, non-fiction, occasionally translates Francophone writers of Afro-Asian diaspora into English and serves as Interviews Editor for Kweli where she curates a series on Race, Power, and Storytelling. For over a decade, her work has explored the intersection of storytelling and social justice via race, class, gender, place and migration. Her creative work has appeared in The Margins, Transition, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, The Feminist Wire, Necessary Fiction, Longreads (forthcoming) and elsewhere. As a literary critic, her work on islands and coastal cultures have appeared in English and in French in anthologies on the Caribbean, Pacific, and Indian Ocean across the world. She holds a Ph.D. in French Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, an MFA in fiction from Bennington Writing Seminars, and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Transnational Cultures from UCLA where she taug

To celebrate the launch of Steven Sanchez’s first full-length poetry book, Phantom Tongue, Mike sits down with Steven, Michelle Brittan Rosado, and Mathieu Cailler to talk about the process of putting a book together, how one manages to keep making love poems interesting, the power of persona poems and so much more! Mathieu Cailler’s poetry and prose have been widely featured in numerous national and international publications, including the Los Angeles Times and The Saturday Evening Post. A graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, he is the recipient of a Short Story America Prize for Short Fiction and a Shakespeare Award for Poetry. He is the author of Clotheslines (Red Bird Press), Shhh (ELJ Publications), and Loss Angeles (Short Story America Press), which has been honored by the Hollywood, New York, London, Paris, Best Book, and International Book Awards. His newest book, May I Have This Dance? (About Editions), was recently named poetry winner of the New England Book Festival. Michelle Brittan Ros

Rocky Kuner is a 20 year old singer songwriter from Orange County. She graduated from the Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana and studied Commercial Music and Music & Theater. She plays mulitiple instruments including guitar, dulcimer, bass, drums, cajón and piano. She is currently in a Rush Tribute band called YYNOT as the lead vocalist and has already traveled to play in Florida with them. They play originals and covers and their online fans are so kind and supportive. She plays her own music locally throughout OC and LA including The Troubador, The Mint, OC Fair’s Hangar stage, The Gaslamp, and many others. She plans to keep writing and recording and tour with YYNOT this year.Sounds + Stories is an eclectic music series featuring live performances and entertaining discussions with emerging and established artists. Produced in collaboration with Brew Sessions Live. Special episodes are filmed and edited into a short documentary compilation with the audio from each episode recorded and archived

Today our podcast connects with Steve Martinez. Los Angeles native Steve Martinez is a fine artist, muralist, photographer, graphic designer, and painted a 20’ x 8’ mural in the 1888 Center. His contemporary work deals with the discourse between the symbolic and the realistic within daily urban life. The thread of Mayan symbols and hieroglyphs—both representative of Martinez’s history and culture—is inescapable in his work, always connecting the present to the past by uplifting, preserving, and honoring a significant layer of meaning and identity.     1888 Center programs are recorded and archived as a free educational resource on our website or with your favorite podcast app including Apple and Spotify. Each episode is designed to provide a unique platform for industry innovators to share stories about art, literature, music, history, science, or technology. Produced in partnership with Brew Sessions.   Producers: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Kevin Staniec Manager: Sarah Becker Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels Guest: St

Mike sits down with novelist Liz Harmer, poet and community organizer Trevor K Allred, and a poet Shauna Barbosa to hear the work from their individual projects and discuss the power of audience, politics, the meaning of portals, the meaning of water, the magic of astrology and why fake bluster is important (AND SO MUCH MORE)! Trevor Kaiser Allred has work published in Boned Stories, Eunoia Review, and Pomona Valley Review, and was a poetry judge for DASH Literary Journal Vol 9. He is the Community Relations Manager at 1888 Center, and is a poet at The dA Center for the Arts. Liz Harmer is a Canadian writer living in California. Her essays, stories, and reviews have been published widely. In 2014 she won a National Magazine Award for Personal Journalism, and was a finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her first novel, The Amateurs, is available in Canada. Shauna Barbosa is the author of the poetry collection Cape Verdean Blues (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). Her poems have appea

Driven by their love of music Bright Is My Sun formed a group that would be inspirational and positive. As a collective, they have many different influences and use their experience and tastes as a tool for success in making music. Bright Is My Sun has the ambition and talent to settle into the industry just nicely… especially with their message of positivity, considering everything else is about drugs and violence. They have set out on a mission for a Hip Hop Intervention. “Dope inside, cant no one change it”. We truly love our fans and they are our Rays of Hope and inspiration to be better!Sounds + Stories is an eclectic music series featuring live performances and entertaining discussions with emerging and established artists. Produced in collaboration with Brew Sessions Live. Special episodes are filmed and edited into a short documentary compilation with the audio from each episode recorded and archived for podcast.Guest: Bright Is My SunProduced by Past Forward in partnership with Brew Sessions Live.

Today our podcast connects with Sarah Nicole Smetana. The Midnights (HarperTeen / HarperCollins) is her first novel. Sarah Nicole Smetana grew up in Orange, California, where she wrote songs, played in a few bands, and successfully pilfered all of her parents’ best vinyl records. She received her BFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University and her MFA in Fiction from The New School. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their three-legged cat.     1888 Center programs are recorded and archived as a free educational resource on our website or with your favorite podcast app including Apple and Spotify. Each episode is designed to provide a unique platform for industry innovators to share stories about art, literature, music, history, science, or technology. Produced in partnership with Brew Sessions.   Producers: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Kevin Staniec Manager: Sarah Becker Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels Guest: Sarah Nicole Smetana