Stefan Diethelm [https://stefandiethelm.com/about] is a Swiss and German artist, originally from Uzwil, Switzerland. He fell in love with performing at a young age, was trained in classical voice throughout his teens, and studied musical theatre in Hamburg, Germany. He moved to New York City to further his craft, and studied at the HB Studio under instructors like Lonny Price, Peter Francis James and Theresa McElwee. HB Studio is also where he met Eduardo Machado and started writing plays while in his class. Since graduating from the studio, he has been a working playwright, actor, producer, and director here in the city.

He has acted on various stages, from Off- and Off-Off-Broadway to Switzerland and Germany, and his plays have been performed in a variety of theaters and festivals in New York and beyond, garnering positive national and international reviews.

His biggest influences as a playwright include Sarah Kane, Samuel Beckett, Adrienne Kennedy and the European classics. He aims to create original, human art for our commercialized times.

Bradly Valenzuela [https://www.bradlyvalenzuela.com/bio] is a New York City based director, playwright and producer. He is originally from Rocklin, California and attended university in Southern California at California State University, Fullerton. He graduated with a BA in Theatre with an Emphasis in Directing. Bradly is a recipient of the Honorable Mention Directing Award for Region 8 of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. For the past 5 years, he has worked within many theater companies such as Bated Breath Theatre Company, Mabou Mines and Theatre for the New City. He also has worked in multiple festivals, including the Rogue Theater Festival and the New York Theater Festival.

Along with collaborating in these given spaces, Bradly shows continued commitment to workshopping and developing new works, both as a director, playwright and as a producer, being responsible for 6 debuts in the last 2 years.

This is Something Rather Than Nothing [https://www.somethingratherthannothing.com/]

'Connoly' with Stefan Diethelm and Bradly Valenzuela

Crystal Skillman [https://www.crystalskillman.com/] is an internationally award-winning playwright, fictional podcast writer, and comic book author who has written for Stories Podcast (Wondery Kids), Girl Tales, Adventure Time comics, as well as Marvel comics. In addition to Open and The Rocket Men, Crystal is the dramatist of RAIN AND ZOE SAVE THE WORLD (premiered in the UK in 2022) and the NYTimes Critics’ Pick plays GEEK, CUT, and KING KIRBY which you can listen to on Broadway Podcast Network.

We talk about the big issues of history, war, justice and art. We focus on her new play 'The Rocket Men.' The Rocket Men is a unique theatrical experience that carries us through time in a blink of an eye to present the story of the German "Rocket Men" who used their scientific skills to flee Nazi Germany and settle in the most unlikely of places...North Alabama. These men form the backbone of NASA’s rocketry program.

In this modern play, women (employees at Space Camp), step into roles playing the men focusing on Heinz- Hermann Koelle, a lesser-known young German rocketeer, who joined this "Operation Paperclip" team years later; Rocket Men explores the dynamic relationship of Wernher von Braun and Koelle as these two have set their sights on getting us to the Moon and beyond.

But as the play counts down to the launch of Apollo 11, Koelle is befriended by a Jewish engineer hell-bent on exposing the truth: the Germans' technology is based on the V-2 rockets built by slave labor.

Played by six female-identifying women who force us to theatrically re-examine this explosive story - still widely not known in America - “The Rocket Men” asks who gets to be remembered in the history books, and why?

Crystal Skillman

Patricia Lynn [https://www.patriciamlynn.com/] is a playwright/actor who has worked extensively in NYC independent theatre. As a writer, Patricia fancies herself to be a gothic feminist; she loves to subvert the classic genre by creating provocative plays inspired by traditional gothic stereotypes. Her plays have been developed at Triad Stage, New Perspectives Theatre Company, The Secret Theatre, Rogue Theater Festival, and Phillips’ Mill Community Association. As an actor, Patricia has worked at TheatreWorksUSA, Trinity Repertory Theatre, Soho Playhouse, Capital Fringe, NYC Fringe Festival, and many more. MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University; MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Repertory. 

In this episode we talk about her new play The Truth about Transylvania debuting during Halloween week October 24, 2025.

Patricia Lynn

Victoria Astuto is a musician, composer, videographer, and educator based in the Hudson Valley.  Her debut EP, The Place features clarinet, saxophone, flute, bass clarinet, synthesizers, and vocals to create dreamy, lush, and atmospheric textures.  The album is inspired by a cross country trip she took which influenced many of the themes ranging from loneliness to finding a place in the world to escaping a place you’re already in. Additionally, Victoria scores films for indie filmmakers in NYC, utilizing her large palette of instruments to create dense orchestration inspired by the works of Johnny Greenwood, Gerald Busby, and Bernard Herrmann. You can find her album and music videos on YouTube, Tidal, Apple Music, Spotify, and Band Camp.

Band Camp [https://victoriaastuto.bandcamp.com/album/the-place]

Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/1Szbfx5xiWxWOq2dLyMrLM?si=bF8rQh8QQJqRuLcHKj0org]

Tidal [http://www.tidal.com/album/445223885]

Apple Music [https://geo.music.apple.com/album/the-place/1823740295]

YouTube [https://youtube.com/@victoriaastuto5043?si=mjwnR7P9JcMbU4Ar]

SRTN Podcast [https://www.somethingratherthannothing.com/]

Victoria Astuto

Leanna Renee Hieber [https://www.leannareneehieber.com/about-1/] is an actress, playwright, ghost tour guide, audiobook narrator and the award-winning, bestselling author of over Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy, Supernatural Suspense and Non-Fiction books for adults and teens with publishers such as Tor, Sourcebooks and Kensington Books. A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts, co-authored with Andrea Janes, was a 2022 Bram Stoker Award finalist for "Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction". The book explores the intersection of women's history and ghost stories. America's Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction, releases 9/30/25 from Kensington.

This is Something Rather than Nothing [https://www.somethingratherthannothing.com/]. . . 

Leanna Renee Hieber

Born on the East Coast, and home to the West, Blair Borax’s relationship with music began unexpectedly in 2016, when a friend gifted her a cheap guitar.

Since then, Borax has become a prolific songwriter, recording artist, and performer, known for her distinctive voice, captivating melodies, and thoughtful songwriting that taps into the heart of being human. Since she quit her day job in 2022, she has released two full length albums and played over 300 shows across the country.  

With more sophisticated songwriting, a newfound confidence in fingerpicking guitar, and a move towards dynamic acoustic folk production, her latest record, “Tender Lately” (2024),  offers gentle reminders to quiet the inner critic, find joy in the small things, and embrace the precious brevity of our time on Earth. She is poised to release her third full length record, The Color Green, in 2025.

Since 2021, Blair has performed over 350 shows across 18 states, captivating audiences with her honest songwriting, lyrical melodies, and intimate performances. She has graced notable stages including Mississippi Studios (Portland, OR), Parlor Room (Northhampton, MA), Radio Bean (Burlington, VT), and Berlin (New York, NY), among many others.

Along the way, she has shared the stage with acclaimed artists such as John Craigie, Marty O’Reilly, Glitterfox, and Melt, further shaping a dynamic and eveolving musical voice.

Blair Borax

Jesi Bender [https://www.jesibender.com/child-of-light.html] is an artist from Upstate New York. 

Her work leans towards experimental historical fiction that interrogates the tension between language's utility & malleability.

Jesi's gorgeous new book A Child of LIght is out now date-of-episode August 12, 2025!

Jesi Bender

Jen Michalski [http://www.jenmichalski.com/]currently lives in Carlsbad, California. She graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a BA in English and received her MS in Professional Writing from Towson University. She was voted one of the best authors in Maryland by CBS News [http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/top-lists/best-authors-in-maryland/], one of "50 Women to Watch" by The Baltimore Sun, and "Best Writer" by Baltimore Magazine (Best of Baltimore issue, 2013).

Her new novel ALL THIS CAN BE TRUE was released by Turner/Keylight in June 2025. Her debut novel THE TIDE KING was published by Black Lawrence Press (2013; winner of the Big Moose Prize and "Best Fiction," Baltimore City Paper, 2013), and also her second novel, THE SUMMER SHE WAS UNDER WATER (Black Lawrence Press, December 2017). Her last novel, YOU'LL BE FINE, was a 2021 Buzzfeed "Best Small Press Book," a 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist, and was selected as one of the "Best Books We Read This Year" by the Independent Press Review. She is the author of three collections of fiction, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS (Dzanc Books, 2007) and FROM HERE (Aqueous Books, 2014), and THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS (Braddock Avenue Books, 2023), as well as a collection of novellas, COULD YOU BE WITH HER NOW (Dzanc Books, 2013). She also edited the anthology CITY SAGES: BALTIMORE (CityLit Press 2010), which Baltimore Magazine called "Best of Baltimore" in 2010.

Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast [https://www.somethingratherthannothing.com/]

Jen Michalski

Ophelia Darkly [https://linktr.ee/opheliadarkly?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=70ca5d26-b0a4-4c3c-b223-727de50f78ef] is a DJ, model, writer, performer, and Doll Tarot reader based out of Portland, Oregon. Magic, dreams, and storytelling are the threads that bind all of her creative ventures together. She believes that art, in all its forms, is one of the most sacred forces of the universe.

Enjoy this wonderful conversation with Ophelia and the many magickal places she takes us . . . 

Episode 301 of The Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast! SRTN Website [https://www.somethingratherthannothing.com/]




Ophelia Darkly

Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast Episode 300!!! We talk ABOLITION.

Calvin John Smiley, [https://www.cjsmiley.com/] Ph.D. is an associate professor of sociology at Hunter College-CUNY. His research and scholarship broadly focus on issues related to justice, inequality, and race. Smiley is the co-editor of Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives of Coming Home (Routledge, 2020). He is the author of the award-winning Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition (University of California Press, 2023), which explores how system-impacted individuals navigate and negotiate the reentry experience with diminished legal rights and amplified social stigmas. Further, he is the author of Defund: Conversations Towards Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024), which considers how #defund can bridge the divide between reform and abolition, becoming a catalyst to help organizers realize abolitionist visions. Finally, Smiley has published in an array of peer-reviewed journals and public outlets.

Beyond his academic work, Smiley is committed to public sociology and praxis. He has been a regular contributor to several news and talk show outlets. Additionally, he is the founder and director of Till Everything Better LLC, which works with system-impacted youth through restorative justice practices within New York City youth detention facilities. Finally, Smiley is the Project Director for the CUNY New Paths and Administration of Children’s Services (ACS) program to offer system-impacted youth college-credit courses. 

Calvin John Smiley

Why is there something rather than nothing? This podcast is a philosophical and psychological exploration into the act of creation (poets, musicians, writers, painters, thinkers, all of us) by: Ken Volante

Something (rather than nothing)