Tapestrywith Mary Hynes

This week on Tapestry@25, we go back in time with two award-winning interviews. Two people who were on roughly the same path – but headed in completely different directions.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of CBC's Tapestry, you'll be hearing some of our most popular and most requested interviews from over the years.

The latest seasons of The Bachelorette and The Bachelor sparked vigorous discussions about sex, “purity culture”, and the double standards for men and women. Political journalist Li Zhou weighs in.

After a bad breakup, writer Rax King started to think differently about the things she hadn’t allowed herself to enjoy. She says we should disregard the naysayers and unapologetically embrace the things we love.

Writer Rax King explains why she stopped paying attention to critics and embraced her own "guilty pleasures". And political journalist Li Zhou analyzes the interplay of sex, religion, and morality in the world of the Bachelor and the Bachelorette.

Writer Lauren McKeon, life coach Laurie Sanci and writer Nav Alang share three different perspectives on the experience of being childless. From cultural pressures to societal expectations about women, all three are finding ways to navigate a life without kids.

We chased Staples for two years before the singer agreed to an interview. This 2011 conversation is rich with her reflections on the power of music to lift the human spirit, stories about her family’s close connection with Martin Luther King, Jr.

It might be the single-most requested interview we’ve ever broadcast. In this conversation from 2004, John O’Donohue shares his poetry and soulful wisdom about what it means to live a good life and die a good death.

The Silent Hike is a group walking meditation created by New York composer Murray Hidary. It’s all-quiet on the outside - but a world of wonder, once you put on the headphones.

Over the years, the Saskatchewan Roughriders have built one of the most loyal and devoted fan bases in the CFL. Speaking to Tapestry host Mary Hynes, Saskatoon professor Chris Hrynkow makes the case for why football fandom in the province could be considered a "civil religion."

The state of the world making you a little anxious? Tapestry has your back this week with secular rituals: the traditions that human beings find soothing, or helpful, or somehow inspiring, in a world that can put you on edge.

Six friends pooled their resources and bought a house together. It was a creative way to break in to Toronto’s intense housing market, but their main motivation was to create a new kind of household in a society that idealizes romantic partnerships and nuclear families.

Writer Miciah Bay Gault grew up with an intense sense of solitude and loneliness. She didn't always love the feeling. But now, amid her busy days as a teacher and a parent to three children, she longs to feel lonely and realizes it remains a core part of her identity.

New York-based writer Briallen Hopper was always taught that romantic relationships were the most important of all. In her new collection of essays Hard to Love, she challenges that old narrative and imagines a full rich life where friendships come first.

Stories about how loving relationships with our friends and ourselves can shape us more than romantic relationships.

After spending a year keeping track of all the delightful things he encountered, poet Ross Gay published his insights in “The Book of Delights.” He says observing small joyful moments is a social and political act in a world that prefers proficiency.

Visual art was Taylor Katzel’s passion and he wanted to teach art for a career. But just before he started teacher’s college, he was struck by an unexpected condition that left him blind. In Luke Williams' doc Art-cessbility, Katzel tells his story and makes a trip to the AGO to discover how inclusive design — a paradigm which focuses on making art and design accessible to people with disabilities — could allow him to continue to explore and experience visual art.

Discovering moments of delight and making art accessible.

Steven Stosny is a psychologist who coined the term 'headline stress disorder' during the 2016 election in the United States. It’s a state of fear and anxiety brought on by the intense onslaught of provocative news headlines, and it’s a condition he says has only intensified in the past few years. In a conversation with Tapestry host Mary Hynes, Stosny dissects headline stress disorder and offers some concrete ways to deal with it.

London-based writer Marianne Power spent one month trying to get turned down, intentionally. She asked retailers for free stuff, she asked people to let her skip ahead in line, she pitched to magazines she felt were way out of her league — all in the name of getting better at dealing with rejection.

Feeling stressed? Rejected? Tapestry wants you back on your feet. Here's how to deal with headline stress and rejection - from experts who have personally suffered from both.

James Vlahos built a chatbot that responds like his dead father. Now he wants everyone else to have what he has — a lasting interactive memento of a dead loved one. But can software truly capture a human spirit?