This is a conversation with writer Maggie Harrison and coffee shop co-founder Brian Stoothoff, both founding members of Creative Underdogs--now called In-Process. The group encourages connection while making often solitary projects. They talk about what happened to them as a result and I explain why I stopped doing it so abruptly and how I’m bringing it back in a new format this fall.
Megan Tan is an award-winning storyteller and audio producer who has created shows such as Radiotopia's Millennial, Gimlet Media's The Habitat, and her most recent podcast, Snooze. Her episode on WILD about love in the pandemic is my favorite of her recent work. I felt particularly inspired by Megan’s bits of wisdom from her experience and Buddhist faith. I hope you find it uplifting as well.
This week I spoke to my friend Carolina Mesarina. An artist with a background in production, she's currently in the midst of a career pivot, which we unpacked in this episode. She’s so genuine, smart, and creative--and one of my close friends--making the episode unique. We cover creativity, identity, money, support, feeling on the outside, procrastination, and career transitions.
To celebrate the 400th episode of this podcast, I talk to my friend and fellow podcaster Alyssa Benjamin, a strategist who works with values-based brands. Her podcast, Our Nature, explores the methods, systems and practices that bring us into greater alignment with the natural world. Our conversation covers finding “inner stability”, career pivots, leaving New York, dating, and more.
This week I spoke with Jennie Edgar, a visual artist and founder of So Textual, a platform that promotes community around reading. She also writes and designs for thoughtful brands to refine their editorial voice and aesthetic expression. We talk about styles of reading, affect theory, book culture, literary artists we love, and what it means to be a narrative-led person.
Jocelyn Kelly Reid has 15 years of sales and marketing experience and now helps women around money and finance in a unique way. We talk about trauma, burnout, needing open space, working through financial blocks, the importance of directly communicating needs, and more. This episode ends with my lovely conversation with midwestern mattress maker Tim Masters, founder of My Green Mattress.
This week’s episode is the second half of my conversation with Virgie Tovar: author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. Part 2 features the end of our over-two-hour Zoom conversation as well as clips from previous conversations and a special guest, our mutual friend Isabel Foxen Duke.
Virgie Tovar--author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image--is back on the podcast! I’ve been eager to talk to her again ever since last summer's episode. We talked over Zoom for two hours and our conversation covered dressing rooms, letting go of a normative timeline, control, markers of success, happiness research, and more.
This week I spoke to Brendan Francis Newnam, host of the travel podcast Not Lost. We talk about how he made the show and I picked out a few clips that particularly landed with me, including the balance between sharing vulnerably and holding back, how our trauma impacts our openness to relationships, and thoughts on loneliness, rejection, and connection.
This week's episode is part two of my conversation with artist Kimmy Quillin. In this second half of our nearly-three-hour Zoom conversation, we talk more about her process—how she creates conditions for creativity, incorporating chance in her work, and what she calls intentional chaos. We end the episode with questions I gathered from a bunch of our mutual friends to ask her.
This episode is part 1 of my conversation with artist Kimmy Quillin. We begin by talking about mornings, her coffee routines and how being heliotropic, time of day, and color inform her painting. She talks about working in different mediums, the realties of living as an artist, our mutual love of Craigslist, highs and lows of releasing art and how she takes care of herself throughout it all.
This episode is a conversation with art advisor, curator, and author Maria Brito about career and creative pivots when things aren’t working, reinvention, using intuition in work and art, the importance of solitude, and much more. Maria's kindness is always evident throughout and she gives me gentle and wise advice, which I’ve since been working on.
Sam Salad is not only hilarious, but he’s also humble, original, creative, and truly one of the best writers—and especially copywriters—I’ve ever met. Sam with his partner Rebma are the designers behind the LA-based clothing line MEALS, which "bakes 'food culture' into apparel, blurring the lines between the clothes we eat and the food we wear.”
Every year for nearly a decade, Sacha Jones has hosted the episode the week of my birthday. This year she really outdid herself: she shocks me with questions sourced from my friends and family and a special guest joins us to host a rapid-fire round. I hope you come away from this conversation feeling the energy of it.
This week, a conversation with designer Norma Kamali, whose 50-year career is as rich as her designs are iconic. She’s full of wisdom and perspective and gently gives me advice on everything from aging, to dating (she fell in love again ten years ago at 65), to how she views busyness. We get into her thoughts on her evolving industry, upcoming generations, and so much more.
Vanessa Chakour is an herbalist, author (Awakening Artemis) and educator who trains others in her field of helping people to connect to their environments. Her work is rooted in the natural world and what she calls our own inner-wild, or our intuitive connection to ourselves.
Val Chaney is a meditation and mindfulness educator, writer and the co-host of the We Made It Weird podcast with her husband, comedian Pete Holmes. She's hilarious, gentle, wise, incredibly smart and one of my favorite people. Part 2 of our conversation is a bit sillier than part 1! We cover therapy, what we were like as teens, rom coms and style trends we love from the early 2000s.
Val Chaney is a meditation and mindfulness educator, writer and the co-host of the We Made It Weird podcast with her husband, comedian Pete Holmes. She's hilarious, gentle, wise, incredibly smart and one of my favorite people. Part 1 covers anger, Internal Family Systems, learning to inhabit your body, attachment styles, fear of being alone, and how to approach all these insights with gentleness.
Today’s conversation is with author and mindfulness teacher Rosie Acosta, whose struggles with identity and mental health as a teenager eventually led her to yoga and meditation. We spent a morning catching up, first in an episode of her podcast, then in this conversation, where we cover navigating cycles in relationships, disillusionment and faith, and her new book and the process of writing it.
This week I spoke to New York Times journalist and author of Blood, Sweat & Chrome, Kyle Buchanan. He reports on pop culture and writes the NYT awards season column, The Projectionist, which he took over from the late great journalist David Carr. Kyle and I talk about the craft of interviewing, creating safety in conversation, movies, the process of writing an oral history, and more.
Nadine Artemis is known for talking and writing about beauty. Her latest book is Renegade Beauty and she's the the founder of natural beauty brand Living Libations. Nadine shares her journey from combining essential oils for a school science fair, to opening North America’s first full concept aromatherapy store, to her dissertation on the female orgasm and so much more.
Derick Melander is a sculptor who creates clothing sculptures that explore the intersection between global consumerism and the intimate relationship we have with what we wear. We met at a record club on my dear friend Sacha's roof in the East Village. Our conversation covers his work, creative habits, navigating change, the power of the neighborhood, and much more.
Today's episode is part 2 of my conversation with Natasha Zoë Garrett. We get into the origin of Roam, inclusivity and the importance of role models, connection, shifting out of her styling career to focus on her business, travel, finding purpose, and more. Be sure to listen to part 1 if you haven't already!
Genuine, wise, thoughtful and truly one of the most effortlessly stylish people I’ve ever met, Natasha Zoë Garrett (founder of Roam Vintage) is one of a kind, just like the vintage gems she discovers. As you’ll hear in this two-part episode, she’s incredibly honest, open and vulnerable about her challenges and wins in everything from her career to her mental health.
This week I spoke to Cuban-American author Nikki Novo, whose many certifications and qualifications include certified hypnotherapist, Reiki healer, and more. In this episode, we talk about Nikki's recent move from Miami to Asheville and what moving taught her about her identity. We get into intuition and decision making, and she brings her unique perspective on dating, love, and sex.
Rae McDaniel is a non-binary gender and sex therapist who works with transgender/non-binary/questioning folks who feel lost while transitioning their gender identity. Our conversation covers direct communication in sex and elsewhere, the importance of sex education and resources, naming fear rather than ignoring it, and approaching gender from a place of curiosity.
This week I spoke to actress, advocate, philanthropist, and producer Torrey Joël DeVitto. She talks about growing up around icons like Stevie Nicks and Billy Joel, her volunteer work in hospice, and navigating change within her industry. Torrey is also an advocate for women's safety, health, and rights; we speak about consent, safety, and education around sexual assault.
There’s no better person at explaining esoteric concepts to me than my friend Isabel Foxen Duke. When she told me she was learning about cryptocurrency, I was all ears. We used my beginner's mind and recorded a non-intimidating introductory discussion, specifically about the economic problems millennials and Gen-Zers are facing and how Bitcoin can be a potential solution.
Madeleine Dore (of Extraordinary Routines) is a Melbourne-based writer and interviewer exploring how we can broaden the definition of a day well spent. We talk about insights from her recent book, I Didn’t Do The Thing Today, as well as leaving space for surprise in our days, two kinds of perfectionism, the difference between standards and expectations, cringing at old work, and more.
This week, actor Joshua Jackson (*Dawson's Creek*, *The Mighty Ducks*, and most recently, *Dr. Death*) candidly shares what he’s learning as a new parent, lessons on love and feeling worthy of it, navigating young fame, and how the vulnerable messiness of being alive is how we grow. Joshua has enormous depth in his life experiences and I loved talking to him even more than I expected.
Back on the podcast this week is Jules Bakshi, a professional dancer, choreographer, and founder and CEO of GOOD MOVE, a dance and mindful fitness studio for all genders, races, and sizes located in Brooklyn. We caught up for hours at my kitchen table and reflected on the growth, change, and lessons she’s learned this year as well as what she's excited about for the coming year.
Erin Lovell Verinder is an herbalist, wellness expert, and writer. Her husband Noah is a fellow plant enthusiast, prolific designer, and strategist who most recently designed Erin's latest book, The Plant Clinic. They are also some of my dearest friends. In this episode we discuss prioritizing beauty, creative process and collaboration, lessons on friendship and change, and more.
This is the second half of my conversation with friend and mentor Christy Harrison, a registered dietitian, certified eating disorders specialist, journalist, and host of the weekly podcast Food Psych. We talk about emotional eating and shame in eating habits (like eating alone or standing up), body image in the pandemic, body image in pregnancy and postpartum, anorexia nostalgia, and much more.
This week I spoke with my friend and mentor Christy Harrison, a registered dietitian, certified eating disorders specialist, journalist, and host of the weekly podcast Food Psych. In this conversation, we focus on intuitive eating and also discuss the overwhelming life season Christy is in. We could talk forever, so we're breaking this into two parts.
This week I spoke with Grace Park and Jesse Dalton, two members of the Austin-based band The Deer (recommended by previous podcast guest Buck Meek). We chat about the beginning of the band, being back on the road after quarantine, their new album, their process, trial and error, acceptance, friendship, grief, and much more.