Jen Rubin is the Executive Producer of Love Wisconsin, leads storytelling workshops around Madison, co-produces the Moth StorySlam, co-hosts Inside Stories Podcast, and teaches social policy class at the University of Wisconsin School of Social Work's Part Time Program. Jen is an obsessive maker of mixed tapes, quite possibly the best challah baker in town, and has worked for social change throughout her career |
An Engrossing Memoir" The Progressive
|
Jen co-hosts Inside Stories Podcast with Takeyla Benton, exploring Madison one story at a time. Check out what The Isthmus, Madison 365, and the Capital Times had to say about the podcast.
|
|
I am fairly obssessed with multi-generation family owned small businesses. There is so much to be learned about history and policy and changing social times by reading a story of a century old business and the family that owns it. I am slowly but surely featuring the Wisconsin ones for Love Wisconsin.
|
For 15 months of the pandemic I followed three Madison small busineses. I heard time and time again from my dad after our family business was destroyed in the 1977 NYC blackout, that after the headline grabbing disaster is over, no-one stayed to see what happened next. So I decided to follow an independent bookstore, a downtown bar, and a newly opened recording studio to ask them what happened next to their businesses once things started to shut down. Each fared differently with support from banks, access to Covid relief grants, and ability to go virtual. Each survived as of the summer of 2021 and government grants, community support, and hard work are the reasons why. Check out part one, part two and part three.
|
