This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jennifer Hickson. In this hour, stories about control, wanting it, wrestling it from the powers that be,

or happily surrendering it to those more capable.

Whether it's a mighty battle for absolute command or a slight power adjustment,

so you maybe could just, you know, get a little sway.

The battle for control begins in childhood with your parental overlords and sometimes extends

into adulthood, which is the case with our first storyteller, Dame Wilburne. You may recognize

Dame's voice, either from her first moth mainstage story, where she attempts to take control

by lifting a curse. Highly recommend that one.

Or maybe you'll recognize her as one of the guest hosts on our radio hour and podcast.

If you know Dame, you know that she rarely follows the rules.

Dame is a rebel.

In this first story, we get to meet the woman who inspired the rebellion, Dame's mother.

A woman so fierce,

Dame weaves a tangled web to avoid her wrath. Live in her home city of Detroit, where we partnered with Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, here's Dame Wilburn.

My father died the sophomore year that I was in college. And this made me the

sole focus of my mother, the dragon. Now, she got that name because she wanted me to be

a free spirit, but she was never prepared when I did

free-spirited stuff. And she would always respond to these moments with volcanic levels of fury

that could only be described as dragonesque. She was five, ten, and heels.

She kept her talons sharpened.

She would wear $2,000 worth the power suits and accoutrement.

And she would smoke under no smoking signs for kicks. She also once sent a man a pink slip. He was in a coma, and she sent it to the hospital and had his wife sign for it.

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