Making Connections, Part 1 of 3
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The Making Connections series kicks off with author, activist, and innovator Rachel Cargle; Alysia Reiner, renowned for her starring role as Fig in Orange is the New Black but less so for her real-life role as a volunteer firefighter in her community; and author, playwright, and activist V (formerly Eve Ensler). These three remarkable guests will discuss how acts of service, advocacy, and activism can help us feel more connection.
Everyone is welcome. Bring your most pressing questions!
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
About the series Making Connections
Join New York Times contributor and author Allison Gilbert for the latest Making Connections series exploring ways we can reduce social isolation and increase feelings of belonging.
Loneliness is an underdiscussed aspect of the grief experience and research shows that it can increase the risk of disease, mental illness, and shorten life expectancy. Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy – a previous guest on Allison’s series – declared loneliness an epidemic and announced a strategy to help reverse this alarming trend.
The host of Making Connections is Allison Gilbert, one of the most influential writers and speakers on life’s deepest challenges, including grief and loss, caregiving and chronic illness, and the growing public health crisis of social isolation and loneliness. In partnership with Reimagine, she is hosting her latest series to reveal concrete strategies we can all use to build deeper connections. Allison is co-author of Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s final book, The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life.
The series kicks off with actor Alysia Reiner, renowned for her starring role as “Fig” in Orange is the New Black, but also for what she does off screen: Alysia serves as a real-life volunteer firefighter in her beloved community. She and other guests will discuss how acts of service have the capacity to help us feel a greater sense of well-being and connection.
The second session addresses loneliness at work. This discussion features Eddie Garcia, Founder and Board Chair of the Foundation for Social Connection; Susan McPherson, author of The Lost Art of Connecting; and Ann Shoket, CEO of TheLi.st and co-author of the Ten Minutes to Togetherness Report and Tool Kit.
And in the final program of the series, we will forecast innovations to reduce loneliness in the year ahead with journalist Julia Hotz, author of the new book The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service and Belonging, and Frederick J. Riley, Executive Director of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute.
Speakers
Rachel Elizabeth Cargle is an author, activist, entrepreneur, and philanthropic innovator. She is founder of The Loveland Group; a family of companies including Elizabeth’s Bookshop & Writing Centre, a literary space that celebrates marginalized voices and The Great Unlearn, an community learning space that centers the teaching of BIPOC thinkers. In 2018, she founded The Loveland Foundation, offering free access to mental health care for Black women and girls. Cargle is a regular contributor to Cultured Magazine, Atmos, and The Cut, and her work has been featured in Time Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Her debut memoir A Renaissance of Our Own published with Penguin Random House in May 2023 with the paperback released in March 2024.
https://thelovelandfoundation.org/
A Renaissance of Our Own: A Memoir & Manifesto on Reimagining
Alysia Reiner (she/her) is best known as Fig on seven seasons of Orange Is the New Black (SAG Award) and for originating Agent Sadie Deever in the 2023 Emmy and Critics Choice Award-winning Ms. Marvel. She is currently filming The Diplomat for Netflix. In addition to being an actress and producer, children’s book author, momma, and partner, Alysia is also a volunteer firefighter, foster mom, and an advocate for women's rights and climate change initiatives.
As a producer, Alysia produced and stars in the motherhood dark comedy Egg with Christina Hendricks and Anna Camp. Additionally, Alysia conceived of, developed, produced and starred in the feature film Equity distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. Equity was Alysia's first feature as both actress and producer, but she has acted in countless critically acclaimed and award winning films and shows, working with film masters like Alexander Payne, Jodie Foster, Richard Loncraine, Matt Weiner, Jenji Kohan, and Pamela Adlon. She currently has three television projects and two films in development as a producer/star, including Science Of A Slam Dunk, an IFP Fast Track supported project which won the Sloan Prize last year.
She serves on the board of the Geena Davis Institute and Earth Day Initiative. She also serves as an advisory board member for Air Protein, and as an ambassador for Project Dandelion, the Fossil Fuel Treaty, and Plastic Pollution Coalition. She is the face and zero waste eco-emissary for Izzy Beauty and started eco-fashion zero waste initiative, Livari. Alysia has been invited to speak and keynote at The White House, The United Nations, Google, Cannes Lion, Women's Media Summit, Collision, and countless film festivals and events about breaking barriers for women in all fields, specifically the entertainment industry.
V (formerly Eve Ensler) is the Tony award-winning playwright, author, and activist. Her play The Vagina Monologues is an Obie award-winning, Olivier-nominated theatrical phenomenon that has been translated into 48 languages and performed in 140 countries. She is the author of numerous books, including the recently released bestseller Reckoning, heralded by the Washington Post as “gutting and gorgeous.” Other best-selling books include The Apology, translated into 20 languages, In the Body of the World, and The New York Times bestseller I Am an Emotional Creature. She starred on Broadway in The Good Body and, most recently Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in the critically acclaimed In the Body of the World. She helped create That Kindness: Nurses in Their Own Words, presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music in collaboration with theaters across the US, as a tribute to nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. V is currently writing the story and co-writing lyrics for the musical Becoming (formerly WILD), which made its world premiere in December 2021 at The American Repertory Theater. She recently wrote This is Crazy, a play about mental illness commissioned by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Her film credits include The Vagina Monologues (HBO), What I Want My Words to Do to You (Executive Producer, Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Freedom of Expression Award, PBS), Mad Max: Fury Road (Consultant), and City of Joy documentary (Netflix). She is the founder of V-Day, the 26-year-old global activist movement that has raised over 120 million dollars to end violence against women, gender-expansive people, girls, and the planet—and founder of One Billion Rising, the largest global mass action to end gender-based violence in over 200 countries, as well as a co-founder of the City of Joy, a sanctuary and revolutionary center for women in the Congo who have survived sexual assault. She writes regularly for The Guardian.
@eveensler
Photo: Kate Peters
Host
Allison Gilbert is host of Reimagine’s Making Connections and Passed and Present conversation series and co-author of Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s final book, The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life.
Allison is also author and co-author of numerous other books, including Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman; Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive; and Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors and is a past Board Member of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief. A regular contributor to the New York Times and other publications, Allison launched Pub Day, a literary consultancy, to help women writers best-position their book ideas for publication.
