So from the earliest age, my guest today, Brian Broome, was taught that a man was basically everything, that he wasn't the model of masculinity that was handed down to him from his father to local kids, community, even the local barbershop.
It made him feel like his very existence was in some way an affront.
So he started hiding and then began to play different roles in the name of belonging.
And eventually the weight of it all led to years of doing nearly everything he could to effectively destroy himself, sinking into addiction, his body, his heart and his mind just couldn't take it anymore.
And returning to writing, which he loved as a kid, Ryan began to pour out stories, at first for no one but him.
But it was his form of exorcism, of coping, of sense making.
And when he began to share those stories and poems in the form of spoken word, everything began to change.
Now an award winning writer, poet and screenwriter and Kay Leroy Ervis fellow and instructor in the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh moth storyteller, he shares his journey in a really powerful new memoir called punch me up to the gods.
We dive into it all, including a hard yet revealing and important look at how cultural norms about masculinity, sexuality and race shape our lives.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
I'm excited to dive into sort of like a whole different bunch of different areas with you.
Yeah, the book is just fantastic.
So, so powerful, so moving.
I mean, the stories, the events, like the moments in your life, and also the writing, which is part of what I want to talk to you about also.
You know, that's the part that's not covered in the book, really.
But I'm just really fascinated about you as an artist, you as a, you know, a devotion to craft, which I think is something that, as a maker myself, I am always fascinated by that, like, how that arises in people in the process.
Sure.
But let's do.
Let's take a step back in time a little bit.