Life & Work with Maya Chupkov

Today we’d like to introduce you to Maya Chupkov.

Hi Maya, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers. 
It took me 29 years to “come out” as a woman who stutters. 

I spent years of her life trying to hide my stutter. Comments from peers and colleagues telling me I seemed shy or lacked confidence only worsened my anxiety. 

For my entire life, I felt misunderstood and misjudged because of the way I communicate. I was bullied constantly as a kid. 

I turned a corner the day I decided to take pride in my disability rather than hide from it. “Coming out” as a stutterer and embracing speech diversity can help de-stigmatize speech differences, and it’s this that makes me keep going with my podcast, Proud Stutter. My drive to de-stigmatize stuttering has led me to now producing a documentary on the diverse experience of Californians who stutter. I am hoping these projects will lead to people finding others who share their identities or allies to support them. Since the podcast launched on International Stuttering Awareness Day on October 22, 2021, listeners have reached out to me saying they have never felt more seen and understood since discovering the show, helping in their own coming-out journey. 

For so long, I would spend so much of my energy trying to hide my stutter. As soon as I started opening up about it, I felt a huge weight had been lifted and found that people understood me more. There has always been a disconnect between me and other people who I meet because of stuttering; someone wouldn’t know right away that I have one. But after they find out, they might understand my mannerisms more. 

So, I had always had this negative view of speech therapists until I met Bailey Levis, a person who stutters and who is a speech therapist in San Francisco. I learned there are speech therapists who stutter; there’s an understanding there, and they can learn from us. We are all in this together. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There’s a huge overlap between mental health and stuttering. The shame that I feel about my stutter carries into my own anxiety, and I know it’s very common for people who stutter to have mental health issues come up. It’s this lifelong feeling of being misunderstood and not being listened to. I feel that in my own experience. 

I started my career in the PR world, and being in public relations with a stutter was quite challenging. There is a lot of ableism in PR. I don’t think it’s on purpose; there’s just a lack of awareness. When I started to become more client-facing and pitching stories to reporters on a daily basis, I faced a lot of ableism. They said I sounded nervous and not confident. That was really tough. 

I left the corporate PR world, not entirely because of my stutter, but because I needed a mental break from the working world. It was exhausting having to hide my stutter daily and to constantly feel misunderstood at work. I ended up going back to school and received a master’s in Public Affairs. After I graduated, I transitioned to communications director at a nonprofit and then for a state government office. I had a very hard time there. There were very lovely people who worked there, but I did experience some emotional abuse, which made my stutter worse. I left that job. But an important part of that was while I was so miserable at that job, I really wanted to find a creative outlet, which led to me starting Proud Stutter. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am the founder, host, and creative vision behind Proud Stutter, a multi-award-winning podcast and advocacy organization that is de-stigmatizing stuttering and embracing speech diversity. 

I specialize in movement building and community organizing. I am merging this experience with my media advocacy expertise and stuttering advocacy work through Proud Stutter and producing a documentary. 

I am also a writer and a strategic communications professional with over nine years of marketing and public relations experience in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. 

What sets Proud Stutter apart from other stuttering organizations and podcasts as our value in reaching audiences behind stuttering and building community between people who stutter, allies, and loved ones. We are stronger together and that is why Proud Stutter is building bridges between stutterers and other social justice movements. 

One of my proudest moments is helping shape ABC’s documentary “More Than My Stutter.” This experience inspired me to work on my own documentary, which I am producing right now. Another proud moment is getting a $35,000 grant from Cal Humanities to produce the documentary. 

Since launching her first episode in October 2021, I have released over 60 episodes, secured over 57,000 downloads, and appeared in over 70 news outlets and newsletters. Proud Stutter has appeared on an ABC documentary on stuttering, Apple Podcast’s New & Noteworthy list, The Guardian’s Top 5 Podcasts of the Week list, NPR, and much more. 

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
I started Proud Stutter during Covid-19. It allowed me the space to find a creative outlet through podcasting. 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.proudstutter.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mayachupkov/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProudStutter
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proud-stutter
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProudStutter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@proudstutter
• Other: https://pod.link/1588336626