Pempod
People
Hosts
Daniel Moore
Daniel Moore has been living with moderate and sometimes severe ME since 2018. He was also ill with ME for 6/7 years as an adolescent, with a 20 year break in between. During these 20 years he married and had a 17 year career in social care and then registered social work, working with older people and then after qualification, in fostering and latterly disabled children's services. Daniel lives with his wife and two children on the family farm where he grew up in the North East of England. He's a long time supporter of Sunderland Association Football Club. He misses live music a lot. He's not particularly into seafood. Doesn't like eggs too much either. He sometimes writes songs about living with ME. He shares a home with an awkward chihuahua called Hugo. Daniel is learning to live with ambiguity.
He’ll soon have a video on MEAction telling some of his ME story, stay tuned.
Dov Zeller
Dov Zeller was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and grew up in Allentown. He lived in Northern CA for over a decade (moved to San Francisco in 1995 with a duffel bag and a one way ticket and stayed in the Bay Area while waiting for it to be a bit safer to be trans on the east coast), moved back east in 2006 and lived in Brooklyn for three years, then moved to Western MA in 2009 to do an MFA in fiction. Though he missed NY at first, he soon fell in love with the bike paths and rivers and relative quiet and wound up staying. He has been homebound with ME since 2014.
Essays
Narrative Movement in Sick time (piece Dan mentioned Intro podcast?)
Fingerprints on Ocean Waves (thoughts on Soutine and chronic illness…)
Books
The Right Thing to Do at the Time (novel)
Book of Hats (novel)
Guests & Contributors
For contributing poets please see our poetry page.
Lu Baker
PEMpod logo artist and contributor in Sydney, Australia. Check out her website and Instagram! And also see some of her work in our Art & Photography section and our Lu Baker Exhaustion Enterprises page!
Anna K. Wood
Bird photographer in Glasgow, and guest in podcast 3! Check out her book 25 Birds (note this link is for Amazon U.S. but the book is available on Amazon worldwide). You can also see some of her photos on Instagram! We also have a few of her photos in our Art & Photography section.
Chiara Chiarel
Photographer in France, maker of cyanotypes. Check out her Instagram and also check out some of her work in our Art & Photography section.
Vlad Vexler
Vlad is a philosopher and podcaster living in England and our guest in Pempod Episode 6! He helps people build skills analyzing the rhetorical strategies and level of expertise of various public figures. He talks on topics including ethics, musicology, war, tyranny, climate change, democracy and the importance of solidarity. And he talks about life with ME. Learn more about Vlad and consider supporting him on his Patreon. This is his main Youtube channel. This is Vlad’s ME Diary on Youtube. And this is his “chat” Youtube channel.
Jessica Wolfe
Jessica is a Pempod listener and contributor from Perth in Western Australia. Before getting ME she did a lot of painting, Now she makes earrings, a more manageable way for her to make art with ME. Check out her Instagram page!
Alison Larkman
Alison is planning a significant roaming art installation project next summer called I Would Be Here If I Could. Learn more about it in Episode 9 Amplifying Absence.
You can learn more and take part at: www.iwouldbehereificould.com
And check out Alison’s website!
Maeve Owen and Sarah Boothby
In Episode 10 Dan talks to Sarah Boothby in part 1 and in part 2 Sarah reads from the unpublished novel of her daughter, Maeve Owen who died from medical neglect of ME in 2021. The novel is titled (as yet unpublished): The Alchemists; or Economic Consequences of the Peace. Character list and excerpts here. If you haven't heard part 1, we'd suggest you start there!
Jessica Taylor-Bearman
In Episode 12 Dan interviews author, artist, and blogger Jessica Taylor-Bearman who wrote The Girl Behind Dark Glasses! You can find information about all her books as well as her blog here.
Christina Baltais
In Episode 13 Dan interviews artist Christina Baltais, creator of the Words As Medicine blog. In her own words: “I use my paintings, photography, writing, and art videos, to help raise awareness for this life altering disease. I believe art to be a powerful communicator of experience, and my hope is that my projects reach not only the ME community, but beyond.” Her art and writing can be found here and here and you can learn more about bake4ME/CFS here.
Sally Doherty
In Episode 14 Dan interviews Sally Doherty, author of Toby and The Silver Blood Witches/the Toby Trilogy. Sally talks about her ME journey, the importance of writing characters with ME into her work, and how she manages her writing alongside living with ME. Sally's books can be found on Amazon here.