If you’ve seen Chiemi Karasawa’s award-winning film “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me,” you already know that Chiemi is a great storyteller. (If you haven’t, put it at the top of your streaming queue!) Chiemi's story is one filled with magic, mettle and a very healthy dose of hilarity. She landed one amazing job after another upon graduating from college: as script supervisor for lauded directors like Spike Jonze, Jim Jarmusch, Stephen Frears and Martin Scorsese, and then as an independent filmmaker and producer at Isotope Films, the company she founded in 2007. We were delighted by Chiemi’s “industry” stories, moved by her narration of her family's experience in and after the WW II Japanese American internment camps, and spellbound by her brief encounter with on-line dating, leading to her first marriage at 50 this past June. Chiemi likens herself to a “pioneer woman” in how she makes her way through life without a roadmap, on her own terms and relying on the cycle of giving with generosity and receiving with deep gratitude that fuels “sacred reciprocity.

TOB listeners probably know that co-host Joanne Sandler worked at the United Nations for nearly 20 years. One of the many UN stories that fascinated her was a famous sexual harassment case.: Catherine Claxton was a fairly junior UN staff member who brought charges against an Under-Secretary General for grabbing her in his office in 1988 and then blocking her career after she rebuffed him. Catherine’s courage and tenacity in the face of profound intimidation (she and her closest friend were shot at, her apartment was broken into, her office was ransacked, senior women in the UN joined together to support the perpetrator) are the stuff of motion pictures. Catherine passed away in 2009. To make sure that her story is remembered and to honor Catherine’s courage and colleagues who supported her, Joanne and Julie Thompson – another long-time UN staffer –  interviewed scores of people, including her extraordinary pro-bono lawyers – Mary Dorman and Ellen Yaroshefsky. This episode of Two Old Bitches shares a curtain-opener for the 5-part radio series they hope to launch this Spring. While the story is 25-years old – and despite #metoo and Time’s Up -- the wall of patriarchy and privilege that Catherine confronted is almost as impenetrable today as it was then. (And, if you are (or know) a film producer/director, Joanne and Julie want to talk with you!)

Julie Cajune is an educator, cultural historian, artist and activist who believes that the challenges we face today “demand that which story nurtures: imagination, compassion, creativity and connection.” A member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe, she was born and lives today on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Northwest Montana where, straight out of college, she developed and taught their first bilingual education program. Julie went on to run the Department of Education on the reservation, train hundreds of teachers in Montana and lead two major educational projects documenting tribal histories and stories in Montana and across the country. Her passion for storytelling is not limited to the classroom. Julie also created and produced Heart of the Bitterroot, an album of Salish and Pend d’Oreille women’s stories that she collected and enlisted poet Jennifer Green to write. This past September, Julie appeared in the New York premiere of her one-woman show, Belief, based on her own life experiences and the true stories of generations of women in her family. You may have missed the show, but luckily you can catch our brilliant conversation with her now.