In this episode, we meet Alice Guy, a woman of filmmaking firsts. She was truly inspired by the moving image in its earliest form, and her innovations changed film and entertainment forever. She became the first filmmaker to incorporate narrative, certainly the first woman director, and probably the only one until 1906. After moving to the US, she was then the first woman to own a studio, in the pre-Hollywood moviemaking hub of Flushing, New York. Few of her films have survived, but her legacy is lasting.
Berlin-based, Australian-born writer and editor Alina Hoyne tells Alice’s story, while DLS-cofounder Katy Derbyshire and host/producer/host Susan Stone are on hand to do the introducing.
In this episode, we meet Una Marson, a Jamaican writer, journalist, and radio producer, who shared her talents and voice in poetry, plays, and on the BBC, after her ambition took her to London in the 1930s. She described as the first Black feminist to speak out against racism and sexism in Britain. We know little about her life post-1945, when she returned to Jamaica and continued writing poetry and fighting discrimination – but a recent rediscovery in the UK has led to a TV documentary and a library named in her honor.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire tells Una’s story, and joins host/producer Susan Stone to set the scene.
We kick off Season Nine of the podcast by meeting a woman who could be called the godmother of true crime.
Producer/host Susan Stone tells the story of F. Tennyson Jesse, an English journalist, criminologist, and writer. The daughter of a vicar who dragged the family around the British empire, she trained as a painter before moving to London in 1911. Journalism beckoned, but she was not put off by losing the use of her right hand in a plane accident, learning to type left-handed. Known as Fryn to her friends, she reported from the ground during World War I and published fiction, before moving into criminology and true crime writing. Her 1924 book Murder and its Motives set out six basic motivations for killing, a very influential theory, and she wrote about several of the most notorious crimes in the first half of the 20th century. Fryn also had a rather dramatic private life thanks to her doctor-turned-playwright husband Tottie, who kept their marriage secret for several years.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins Susan to introduce our new season.
It’s our last episode of 2025, and the final episode of Season 8! Susan, Katy and Florian meet up to toast the end of another season, and of course to clink glasses in honor of our featured Dead Lady, Eileen Agar.
Eileen Agar was the sort of artist who looked at a hat and thought, What if it grew feathers, sprouted seashells, and started whispering secrets to strangers? Born in Buenos Aires and raised in Britain, Agar was a painter, collagist and sculptor with a delicious taste for the absurd. She danced on the edges of Surrealism—sometimes elbowing her way in, sometimes pirouetting just out of reach—and exhibited alongside the likes of Dalí and Ernst, though she never let their mustaches overshadow her own wildly imaginative vision. DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens brings us her story.
This time around we head back to New York to hear about Italian antifascist Carla Capponi. Professor Suzanne Cope, author of WOMEN OF WAR: The Italian Assassins, Spies and Couriers Who Fought the Nazis brings us Carla’s lively tale, which is full of bombs, intrigue, and bravery. DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce the talk.
We’re back with a delightful episode about Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, the first female chief of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Host Susan Stone dives deep into the history of the Seminole Indians and Betty Mae’s unusual life and times, via a talk recorded in front of a live audience in Berlin. As a mixed-race child, Betty was ‘born a crime’ according to Seminole medicine men, but she endured to lead her community as a nurse, journalist, leader, and a storyteller.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce the talk.
In this episode, we hear a bit of our lovely 10th anniversary show in Berlin, and DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire gives us the rundown on Caroline of Brunswick, who was officially queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover for three whole weeks before she died in 1821, long-estranged from her horrible husband, her cousin King George IV. They had separated shortly after the birth of their only child, and Caroline’s access to her daughter was restricted. She later moved to Italy, celebrated the right to bare arms, and lived with a handsome secretary, prompting huge amounts of gossip and countless caricatures. When George ascended to the throne, Caroline tried to cash in on her popularity and become queen, but she was literally locked out of the coronation.
In this episode, we hop over to New York to encounter our Dead Lady of the hour, May Ziadeh, a Lebanese-Palestinian poet, writer, translator, and feminist, whose work explored themes of love, identity, and the liberation of women. Books were her beloved companions throughout her life, and proved more steadfast than people. May began writing at an early age, started an important literary salon, and had moments of fame, but is perhaps better known for the years of isolation and tragedy that marked her life. She deserves more. May wrote in her diary: “After my death, I hope that someone will do me justice and find the sincerity and honesty contained in my small writings.”
Our presenter is Rosana Elkhatib, a designer, researcher, and curator. She is a co-founding principal of feminist architecture collaborative f-architecture and has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation.
DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce the talk.
Thanks to the team at Dead Ladies NYC for sharing this presentation with us: Molly O’Laughlin Kemper, Sheila Enright, Christopher Neil and the KGB Bar’s Lori Schwarz.
In this episode of our podcast, DLS co-host Florian Duijsens tells us about journalist, writer, and witness to history Dorothy Thompson. As a foreign correspondent in Germany, she was among the first to caution against the growing tides of fascism, warning urgently against the Nazis and Hitler. Unfortunately, the world didn’t listen. Dorothy continued to speak out throughout her life, and during her career peak, was read and heard on the radio by millions.
Her personal life at times also made the news — she was married to Pulitzer Prize-winning author and alcoholic Sinclair ‘Hal’ Lewis but was also less openly involved with German-Hungarian novelist, playwright and sculptor Christa Winsloe, the author of the notorious girl’s boarding school lesbian story which became Mädchen in Uniform, an even more notorious film starring Dead Lady Romy Schneider.
Katy Derbyshire, our other DLS co-founder joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce the story.
We’re back with Season Eight of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast!
In this episode, DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire brings us the story of Boudica, an ancient British queen who fought the Romans. Though she led her Iceni tribe in a rebellion, the Romans prevailed, but wrote a fair bit about her in the history books.
In her afterlife, Boudica became a mascot for the suffragettes but also co-opted as a symbol for all things British; also, Enya wrote a song about her.
DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens joins producer/host Susan Stone to set the stage.
The Dead Ladies Show 