Featuring Léonicka Valcius

Haviah Mighty drops by the Cavern after a big win: She’s the winner of the 2019 Polaris Prize for the album, 13th floor. Lauren and Haviah get into how to work with a producer, writing for discomfort, and using your voice as an instrument. “My approach is to open up minds so that the ignorance won’t be so wilful.” Our favourite moments: “I’m talking about these themes that can constitute discomfort, depending on what the listener looks like. My intention when giving the information is for there to be a dialogue based on the information.” [4:30] “When you say ‘I don’t see color,’ you’re dismissing all of the people that do… My approach is to open up minds so that the ignorance won’t be so wilful” [7:05]“I’m not DIY in the ‘I want to do everything myself way’; I’m DIY in the ‘I want my input to be considered way.” [10:19] “I was listening to the new Da Baby record…He has a cool energy.” [14:28] “You can pull inspiration from anywhere” [15:25] “I’m very into music. I have a great ear. I feel like I know enough about how things sound to know what notes I can’t hit…” [17:26] “I took one hip-hop class and I wasn’t even the best one! I just know that I don’t consider myself to be a dance so it’s funny when people are like, “You’re such a good dancer.” [18:55] “[My sisters] are just really talented people. Involving them just makes the most sense.” [20:00] “I don’t have to be as critical of being a good music because my standards are really high.” [25:08] “My competitiveness, my musicality? That’s kind of instilled.” [26:12] Haviah Mighty's 2019 tour is coming to Halifax (October 26), Mississauga (October 27), Edmonton (November 7), Calgary (November 8), and Brampton (November 30). Tour dates can be found on her site. CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel. 

Author, funny woman and busy person Eden Robinson calls into the Cavern from Kitimat, British Columbia to talk nail polish, carting around family in a big car and the gift that menopause gives you. Eden’s books include Traplines, the Giller-nominated Son Of A Trickster, and Blood Sports. Her trilogy, the Trickster series, is becoming a miniseries for CBC and her novel, Monkey Beach, is becoming a film. “If you need stories, take the bus.” Our favourite moments: “Dad had Parkinson’s. He found that seal fat was very helpful. The cousins who hunted - in the beginning, they would bring us neat little packets of seal...but towards the end, they were just leaving, like, half a seal in a bucket.  [5:40] “He was always embarrassed that I wasn’t a lady. And I was always like, 'You taught me to buck wood and change oil. I don’t remember any tea parties.'" [7:00] “I find [that] if I try to write to an outline or if I write to a plan, my muse gets inhibited.” [14:14] “I was realizing how few years I have left if I’m writing a book about every five years. Okay, there are books I won’t be able to write.” [21:30] "I also don’t have a lot of anxiety about what people think about me. I remember being very concerned about that. And them menopause just wipes that out.” [22:40] CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel. 

Carly Lewis, journalist, kind woman and spectacular human being, joins host Lauren Mitchell in the Cavern. Carly has written for the Globe and Mail, New York Magazine, the Atlantic, Hazlitt and more. She talks about the value of feeling isolated, getting away from your anger and making sure your parents drink water. “I feel like everybody has a little invisible suitcase with them and in that suitcase is their anger.” Our favourite moments: “You should strive to be the person you needed when you were younger.” [3:27] “I had to learn how to feel safe in myself. And that was a hard-fought lesson.” [7:40] “It was also really important to me to be a strong loner.” [8:45] “Anytime I have made a platform for myself that is based on anger or taking up space to be vocal about sexual assault or harassment or anything like that, I have left that space feeling tremendously guilty.” [9:20] “I feel like everybody has a little invisible suitcase with them and in that suitcase is their anger.” [11:17] “Now that I’ve gotten more powerful just by virtue of getting older, I’m less angry. Even though there’s so much to be angry about, but I’m not walking around the world furious in the way that I kind of used to be.” [12:35] This is when I learned to ask for forgiveness, not permission: When I asked my mom if i could sleep over in an orchard in Grimsby Ontario with a bunch of boys and my mom was, like, absolutely-the-fuck-not.” [15:35] “I’ve stopped thinking about happiness as a state or a promised land or a quest. I’ve started thinking about it as a fog that just kind of comes or goes away…” [22:30] “Something out there does not want me to have a stable place to live...Something out there wants me to get used to be transient.” [26:45] CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel. 

Georgia Webber, writer and illustrator, comes to the Cavern of Secrets to talk about what it means when you can’t express yourself, learning to draw again, and allowing the possibility that someone will say ‘yes’ and help you. Georgia’s graphic memoir, Dumb, is about what it means to become voiceless and how it changes you. Our favourite moments: “If there’s something that calls for my voice to be raised at all in a really loud way, I can push it if I want to and I most of the time really want to. But it’s a bad idea.” [4:43] “I had always wanted to make comics but I didn’t feel like I was good enough to start. Which is a terrible trap to be caught in.” [5:34] I hit send. I woke up the next morning and I felt - god, I’m gonna sound like such an asshole right now - I felt the closest thing I can to enlightened.” [10:05] It’s much harder for us to accept something that changes constantly and it’s much harder for the wide broad us to accept complication” [14:55] “It’s also fascinating to collaborate with someone and have her voice at the centre of it but she can’t see what I’m doing. She’s exercising a massive amount of trust…” [17:00] “This idea of disability as a shift in health paradigm as the rest of the world to accept is something that I’m grappling with” [24:00] “I could see all the accommodations that were being made for people who had those different needs and being in that space and sharing it with them was not a detriment to my experience in any way” [28:05] CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel. 

Sarah Hagi, writer and queen of Twitter @geeklylonglegs, comes to the Cavern of Secrets to talk about the Garfield restaurant, the Blackest cartoons and how to have fun (again) as a writer. “It was intended to be a joke piece where I was like, yeah, Bugs Bunny is black.” Our favourite moments: “In a lot of ways, editors only hit me up when it’s like ‘ooh, we need a little spice here’ which is annoying.” [9:55] The thing about when you make something your brand. And I don’t know how it happened but I associated myself with Garfield but it happened somehow. And to this day, people are always sending me something to do with Garfield. Like, people who do not know me. And it feels great But again, I’m like, “Oh no is this why I’m single?” [10:50] “I was walking down Bloor with my friend and I was really sad and crying, then I was like “What’s Garfield doing on that storefront?” [11:59] “I spent my whole life thinking, “Julia Stiles? She’s got RHYTHM. Only to realize now that she cannot dance” [21:37] “I didn’t go to my prom. I went to Dairy Queen.” [23:51] CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel. 

Monica Heisey, author, comedian, TV writer and all around warm and funny individual joins host Lauren Mitchell in the Cavern to talk about the years that have passed. After a three year hiatus, Cavern of Secrets is back. Since then, Monica has become even more successful, gotten a divorce, and moved to London where she’s delighting the locals with her British accent. “I was more of a Greek mythology girl than a horse girl…” Our favourite moments: “My friend Lindsey [Weber] who is a host of and creator of Who Weekly says the best dirt - the worst dirt - is in a little-known podcast before [someone] got super famous.” [3:12] “I’m not sure confidence is real. I think it’s something we’re projecting onto other people…” [6:01] “Everyone’s trying and not sure they’re doing it right” [9:18] “One thing that [divorce] gave me was: I was so sad, I was just very heartbroken that it didn’t work. It led to this wonderful freedom. These petty occupations that have taken up so much of my time ... I care a lot less about things but in a way that feels good.” [10:18] “In a way, the very difficult emotional things was...very good?” [12:54] “I’m doing a lot of developing [tv shows] right now and production companies will say, we don’t want to limit you, you’re the creative. And in theory, that’s nice. I feel like that episode where school closes and Lisa Simpson is jumping around in front of Marge and saying “Grade me! Please! Grade Me” [15:00] “It’s such a disaster to say you’re writing a second book because everyone believes you.” [16:15] “On LUSH products, there's a picture on the bottom of the person who made the product and it was this man named Brandon and he had big ear spacers. Every time I was putting my thigh chafe cream on, I just pictured Brandon saying "Good for you. You do whatever's good for you."” [18:57] “All my favourite shows are British comedies so I just want to go over there and [say] “Please please, here I am!” [25:12] “They have a list of awards that you can win “or equivalent”. And I had to say that the Canadian Screen Awards is the Emmys for Canada. Just put it on your list! It’s real!” [26:55] CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Jay Cockburn, Vicky Mochama, and Sarah Daniel. 

The specific way men interview women (5:05), Rory Gilmore, journalist (17:17), and the Avril Lavigne riots of 2021 (48:27)

Saving lives and fighting fires (13:58), protesting at Standing Rock (23:16), and riding in cars with cops (37:18)

The glamorous life of an intern (8:20),the incredible whiteness of CanLit (22:15), and playing video games for the story (44:40).

The O.C. at the height of its O.C.-ness (7:00), is this bolognese feminist? (19:00), and where were you when A Seat at the Table dropped? (39:38)