In December I was interviewed by Lisa Godfrey, an audio documentarian with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for a CBC Ideas podcast episode on group therapy, both the history and the practice of it. While doing research for the episode, she’d come across my essay “How AA Helped Me Recover from a Mental Breakdown—Even Though I’m Not an Alcoholic” (The Temper, February 2020). The essay was about how and why I’d found 12-step groups more useful than traditional group therapy in the aftermath of my breakdown.

InterviewsHeather L. HughesMarch 4, 2024Mental Health, Therapy, 12 Steps

Ageist, and Proud of It

When I turned 50 last year, the number didn’t hit me so hard on my actual birthday as it did when I received my first AARP membership offer shortly after. The membership offer included a free sturdy and spacious trunk-size tote. But I don’t have a car; I get around by bike.

I also don’t own a house or an apartment. I’m not married, divorced or widowed; I don’t have children. And “retirement” isn’t a word in my vocabulary — as a freelance copy editor and writer, I’ll probably be working for the rest of my life.

InterviewsHeather L. HughesJuly 15, 2020Aging, Gen X, Society, Lifestyle

Taking a Big Bite

July: the month when fireworks, backyard barbecues, pool parties, and sharks reign supreme in America. Jaws was arguably the first movie to capitalize on a common human fear of the lethal ocean inhabitants, and 41 years later the fear and fascination are still going strong. In 2013, Syfy had a monster hit with Sharknado, an unapologetically low-budget and over-the-top TV movie that involved Los Angeles, hurricanes, helpless humans, and, yes, airborne sharks. The following year saw Sharknado 2 and the advent of “Sharknado Week,” a seven-day buffet of shark-themed movies made under the Syfy original-movie umbrella.

Among last year’s “Sharknado Week” offerings was Zombie Shark, whose bare-bones plot (sharks + diabolical experiment = menacing zombie sharks) wasn’t anything unusual for the franchise. What made Zombie Shark notable was its director, Misty Talley, the first woman to helm a Syfy original movie.

InterviewsHeather L. HughesJuly 27, 2016Movies, Directors

Type Artist

I first encountered Tim Youd’s performance art mid-performance, in front of Faulkner House Books in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Seated at a card table, pecking away on an Olivetti Studio 44, the Los Angeles–based performance artist was retyping, word for word, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, the fortieth entry in his 100 Novels Project. “I’m an unorthodox typist,” Youd said wryly. “I’d say that I’m probably as good as I’m going to get.” For the project, Youd was retyping, as the title suggests, 100 novels, each on a single, continuously rolled sheet of paper.

InterviewsHeather L. HughesMarch 1, 2016New Orleans, Literature