Episode 534
with Casey Parks and Thunderstorm Artis
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello set out to solve some mysteries; Washington Post reporter Casey Parks unpacks her new book Diary of a Misfit, wherein she reckons with her own sexuality, her Southern identity, and her complicated relationship with her mother; and singer-songwriter Thunderstorm Artis explains how his music went from The Voice to Grey's Anatomy, before performing his new single “Stronger".”
Casey Parks
Writer
Casey Parks is a Portland-based reporter for The Washington Post who covers news stories ranging from gender to family issues. Parks was awarded the 2021 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for Diary of a Misfit, her new book that combines memoir and journalism to explore the themes of sexuality, identity, otherness, and love. She was previously a reporter for the Jackson, Mississippi Free Press and The Oregonian. Her powerhouse articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Oxford American, ESPN, USA Today, and The Nation. Website • Twitter
Thunderstorm Artis
Singer-Songwriter
Exceptional singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thunderstorm Artis is quickly becoming an unmatchable force in the music world. Born into a highly musical family and raised in Hawaii, making meaning within a song has been central to Thunderstorm’s entire life. With his debut EP Haunted released in 2018, and as a finalist on NBC’s The Voice in 2020 and a mainstay at Wanderlust festivals throughout North America, Thunderstorm is a star on the rise. With a vocal styling described as being warm, vibrant, and powerful, his latest body of work is “a genre-bending batch of songs built on both emotionally raw storytelling and incisive soul-searching.” Website • Listen
