Podcast
Tell Me About Your Father
Hosted by Erin Hosier, Elizabeth Thompson & Matthew Phillp · EN
Everyone on the gender spectrum has to deal with men and that's enough of a reason to study their impact on our lives. Join hosts Erin Hosier, Elizabeth Thompson and Matthew Phillp for this bi-weekly podcast discussing dads, father figures and the paternal mystique. Episodes include interviews with people who have compelling father stories, recaps of father-centered TV and movies, and our talk show ‘Daddy Issues,’ featuring a cavalcade of brilliant guests who help us parse pop culture news through a dadly lense. If it's about dads, we'll be talking about it. It’s your mom’s favorite podcast!
tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com
tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com
15episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Finding Her Father in the Margins of His Books
Nov 2600:50:50Tap to summarizeIt’s not quite accurate to say that Hester Kaplan’s father Justin Kaplan was a man of few words because Justin Kaplan was a man of many. His first book, a biography of Mark Twain published in 1966, won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, a debut that ensured Kaplan would enjoy a long and prestigious career as an author and editor. It was an idyllic life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that he shared with his wife Anne Bernays, also a novelist, and their three daughters.But Hester doesn’t remember her father ever looking her in the eyes or letting any of his three kids call him ‘Dad,’ not out of any cruelty or neglect, but more of a mysterious inability to go there. Hester remembers the steady clickety clack of his typing behind the study door as a child as he wrote, his quiet retreat in a household filled with estrogen, and craved the connection over his own memories of growing up that were never revealed.Even after Hester became an author herself, she had never read any of her father’s work - nor had he read hers. But after his death in 2014, Hester embarked on a new book, TWICE BORN: Finding My Father in the Margins of Biography (available now), wherein she biographs the biographer, unearthing not only the parallels between Joe/Justin’s interior life and those of the literary giants he memorialized, but also finds intimacy in her memories of a surprisingly tender man who eschewed sentimentality but nevertheless always had a chestnut for the people he loved. Here’s more of my conversation with Hester Kaplan. Get full access to Tell Me About Your Father at tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com/subscribe
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Task Finale Recap: A Still, Small Voice
Oct 2301:13:33Tap to summarizeIn the Task finale, "A Still, Small Voice," TMAYF gets into three Fs that have always been at the core of the series: faith, forgiveness, and fatherhood. (Also, feathers, but this is our least bird-centric recap to date.) We also discuss Mark Ruffalo’s Phillies-cup redemption arc, say goodbye to DelCo’s saddest dads and the yawning expanses between their actions and self-awareness, and talk about the miracle of grace, even when it’s hard to find. Get full access to Tell Me About Your Father at tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com/subscribe
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Task Recap: Episode 6: "Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing, There is a River."
Oct 1600:47:53Tap to summarizeThe one thing we don’t discuss in this, our penultimate, recap of HBO’s Task is that the title of episode 6 is a play on a line from a poem by the 13th century Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi (sorry if you already knew that!). We just thought its meaning was self evident because there IS a river in this show.Here’s what we do cover:* Goodnight, snickerdoodle* There are still more moles! Stop it! Enough! * Tom’s search for a replacement son* Gertie's evocation as a Lego and what constitutes an impression of a chicken *Robbie's final moments. Golden Globe for Tom P or are we the only people watching this show? Get full access to Tell Me About Your Father at tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com/subscribe
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Julian Brave NoiseCat on Fathers and the Stories We Inherit
Oct 1400:56:57Tap to summarizeWriter and filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat joins Elizabeth to talk about We Survived the Night, his new book about his father, Indigenous North Americans, survival, and storytelling. Listen as he reflects on his dad—found as a newborn in an incinerator at a Catholic-run residential school—and how that legacy shaped his family and his understanding of love and forgiveness. Get full access to Tell Me About Your Father at tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com/subscribe
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Elon Musk, Part 2: Legion
Jun 13, 2025Tap to summarizeIn Part 2, we strap ourselves into the roller coaster of Musk’s chaotic romantic relationships, his obsession with fathering a “legion” of children, and the dumb pro-natalist ideology behind it. From pay-for-silence pacts with exes to a compound in Austin for all the sister wives, this episode is about how Musk parents his kids, and by extension, the world he thinks he’s going to save.. Get full access to Tell Me About Your Father at tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com/subscribe
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