Ye Gods with Scott Carter

Can art create empathy? Scott talks to two guests: First, playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith. You may know her for roles on THE WEST WING, INVENTING ANNA, BLACK-ISH, AND THE BURROUGHS. She tells Scott about how she developed her documentary theatre technique, plus what it was like adapting her landmark one-woman-play TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES,1992 for a full cast.

Then Scott talks to Riaz Patel an Emmy nominated TV producer and founder of Connect Effect: A 53-minute experience that turns strangers into community. He tells Scott why how we introduce ourselves is key to healing polarization and what can be done to cure the loneliness epidemic.

What is your brain’s thing? Michael Schur, best known as the creator of PARKS AND REC, BROOKLYN NINE-NINE, THE GOOD PLACE, and MAN ON THE INSIDE, talks about his new book, co-written with sports writer Joe Posnanski, called BIG FAN: TWO FRIENDS, 82,490 MILES, AND THE WILD, WONDERFUL SPORTS WE LOVE. Plus, the origins of his book HOW TO BE PERFECT and why he thinks AI is a threat to us each finding that special thing that makes our brains happy.

Have you ever rebelled by becoming more religious? Torah teacher, and author of WHEN WE ARE BORN WE FORGET EVERYTHING, Alicia Jo Rabins. She tells me about her spiritual journey through Orthodox Judaism as a young woman and where she is now. Plus, why being a street musician became one of her most practiced spiritual rituals. And her GIRLS IN TROUBLE albums honoring the women of the Hebrew bible.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, musician, composer, performer and Torah teacher. She combines words, music, ritual and performance to create works of experimental beauty exploring the intersection of ancient wisdom texts, feminism, and everyday life. Rabins tours internationally as a musician and performer; she has performed and presented at Lincoln Center, Joe’s Pub, and in countries including Sweden, Guatemala and Estonia.

Rabins’ spiritual memoir, When We’re Born We Forget Everything, was published by Schocken Books in March 2026; in a starred review, BookPage calls it “a balm against all the hurt places of humanity.” Her debut collection of poetry, Divinity School, won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize; her second poetry collection, Fruit Geode, was a finalist for the Jewish Book Award. She is also the author of Even God Had Bad Parenting Days, a collection of short personal essays about early parenthood and Jewish spirituality, and Hallelujah: The Story of Leonard Cohen, a children’s picture book (illustrated by Gene Pendon).

As a musician and performer, Rabins is the creator and performer of Girls in Trouble, an indie-folk song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women with accompanying curriculum (now being made into an indie web series!) and A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, which began as a one-woman chamber-rock opera and was adapted into an award-winning independent feature film.

A Jewish educator, DIY bar/bat/b’nai mitzvah tutor, culture-bearer and ritualist for over twenty-five years, Rabins is passionate about progressive Jewish education. She tours internationally as a violinist, singer, lecturer and performer from her home base in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband, two kids, and way too many houseplants.

Her trilogy of albums about the women of the Hebrew bible is called GIRLS IN TROUBLE with two sequels subtitled HALF YOU, HALF ME and OPEN THE GROUND. All are available on Spotify and on her website aliciajo.com

Jesse Thorn, the host of BULLSEYE and a co-founder of the Maximum Fun podcast network. Both projects grew out of Jesse’s college radio program, THE SOUND OF YOUNG AMERICA, and they’ve become a completely worker-owned network, producing over 40 podcasts.

We talk about growing up in San Francisco and how he came to love his father’s commitment to Christ’s principles, though choosing the path of atheism for himself

Rabbi Susan Goldberg is the founder of Nefesh, which calls itself “an open-hearted Jewish community, welcoming all identities, and cultivating empathy, love and justice.” Nefesh calls its members “kin” and practices implementing their shared values through social action.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg has also served on the Los Angeles Unified School District's Faith Advisory Council, and the L.A. County Department of Mental Health’s Interfaith Roundtable. She is a Stanton Fellow of the Durfee Foundation, and received the New Ground Change Maker award and T’ruah’s Rabbinic Human Rights Hero award. Rabbi Susan was the consulting rabbi for the Emmy-winning Amazon Prime series TRANSPARENT and is seen in the documentary Re/Pair. 

Susan is a 5th generation Angelino born to activist parents. Her mother, an early childhood educator and advocate, founded the Echo Park Silver Lake People's Childcare Center, also known as The Play Group and the Center for Nonviolent Education Parenting (Echo Parenting). Susan’s attorney father started the Working People's Law Center, which is still operating 50 years later.

Bill Cain, writer and Jesuit priest, discusses his two most recent books: THE DIARY OF JESUS CHRIST, which re-imagines the carpenter from Nazareth, and THE BOOK OF CAIN: ON ADDING A NEW BOOK TO THE FAMILY BIBLE, which tells of Bill being the primary caregiver for his dying mother.

You can check out some of his writing on Showtime’s YOUR HONOR, starring Bryan Cranston, as well as HOUSE OF CARDS and BLOODLINES on Netflix. A deeper dig would be his 1996 series, NOTHING SACRED, about a young priest trying to be true to his church in an evolving cultural landscape. Bill tackled, with a clear-eyed humanity, tough issues like abortion, domestic abuse and even the politics of the Catholic Church.

Author, translator, and mystic teacher, Mirabai Starr, whose newly revised edition of her 2013 book, GOD OF LOVE: A GUIDE TO THE HEART OF JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM, may be a balm to a world weary of politicization, polarization, ignorance and fear. She is also the author of WILD MERCY: LIVING THE FIERCE AND TENDER WISDOM OF THE WOMEN MYSTICS, in which she explores how women across faith traditions have found strength in personal connections with the holy. 

Mirabai’s other books include translations of works by Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross, as well as CARAVAN OF NO DESPAIR: A MEMOIR OF LOSS AND TRANSFORMATION. In CARAVAN, Mirabai chronicles her back-to-the-land, counter-culture upbringing in Taos, New Mexico. 

Amy Ephron, author of the new mystery novel UNSEASONABLY COLD, says was fueled by a feeling of “collective grief”. You can hear Amy talk more on that subject in the documentary "Everything is Copy" about her eldest sister, Nora Ephron. 

In addition to her books for adults, Amy has also written a trilogy of books for middle-grade readers: CASTLE IN THE MIST, CARNIVAL MAGIC and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL. She also has a collection of autobiographical essays, LOOSE DIAMONDS, the title chapter being written in the wake of her house being robbed.

Samuel D. Hunter is a playwright best-known for THE WHALE, which he adapted for the film, directed by Darren Aronsky, for which  Brendan Fraser won the Oscar for Best Actor. 

His New York Drama Critics' Award winning play A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, opens September 5th at the Rogue Machine Theatre in Los Angeles. The play is set in a cubicle in which two people are seated: Keith is a mortgage broker, and Ryan is a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that many decades ago belonged to his family. 

My guest is Lee C. Camp, the host of the NPR show NO SMALL ENDEAVOR, which explores what it means to live a good life. Before the break, Lee described his childhood Christian community, the Church of Christ. Despite that church’s founding principle being unity with other Christians, Lee absorbed many doctrines that left him with what he calls “theological baggage.”

Lee also works on another podcast, THE SUBTEXT. Lee’s co-host is Gen Z writer and artist Savannah Locke, Each week, internet expert Savannah reports on pop culture phenomena to ethics professor and theologian Lee, who is almost 30 years her senior and doesn’t own a cell phone. And, somehow, on each episode, they make their way to “the intersection of faith and culture.