City Dweller

Kat is originally from Perth, Western Australia. She grew up all over the state, from small towns, to farms, to the city. She spent a lot of time exploring the area with her parents and took countless road trips. In 2005, her dad took her on her first overseas trip, to Egypt, and she was hooked with the travel bug. She moved to the United Kingdom in 2013 on a UK Ancestry Visa. Once the excitement...

Matt, the Editor-at-Large of Londonist , is probably the most London-obsessed person in the world, reaching parts of the capital others can’t reach. In the cause of exploring London, he has waded along the buried River Fleet, spent the night in a haunted plague pit, caught a lung infection by climbing Soho’s tallest steeple, and walked along the tracks beneath Leicester Square at 2am. Matt has liv...

Laurence grew up in England and became fascinated with the United States at an early age. Along with his wife, he moved to the US in 2008, and they currently live in Chicago. He is the creator of the YouTube channel Lost in the Pond . The title refers to those things, including word differences and cuisines, that were lost in translation when he moved to the United States.

Nick first made a name for himself as a food writer in 2006 when he co-founded the home cooking blog The Paupered Chef . He went on to be the editor of Grub Street Chicago and founding editor of Serious Eats Chicago. His food writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Newsweek, Epicurious, Baltimore Sun, Serious Eats, Grub Street, New York Magazine, and Tasting Table, among others. Nick joined t...

Natalie Moore is an award-winning journalist based in Chicago, whose reporting tackles race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence. Her work has helped shift the way Chicagoans today think about segregation in the region. Natalie’s acclaimed book The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation received the 2016 Chicago Review of Books award for nonfiction and wa...

Gail Morse is the Director of Volunteers for Big Apple Greeter , the world's first free “Welcome Visitor” program. Big Apple Greeter was founded in 1992 and has nearly 300 volunteers who accompany about 5,000 visitors a year to over 100 neighborhoods in all five of New York City's boroughs. Today, there are free Greeter programs in over 120 cities across more than 30 countries.

Eric Rogers is the Manager of Events and Communications at the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy . He joined the Conservancy staff in early 2020 after six years at the Chicago Architecture Center , where he worked on and ultimately managed the major annual event Open House Chicago . Eric is passionate about exploring cities by bike, transit, and foot, and photographing the built environment,...

Billy Lombardo is the 2011 Nelson Algren Award winner for Fiction. He is the author of four books of fiction – The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories, How to Hold a Woman, The Man with Two Arms, and Meanwhile, Roxy Mourns. His novel, How to Hold a Woman was re-issued as Morning Will Come by Tortoise Books in January 2021.  A high school English Literature and creative writing teacher for 25 yea...

Wendy Bright grew up in the Milwaukee area. She has lived in both Milwaukee and Chicago, and she was a tour guide in both cities. Her podcast, Cream City-Windy City explores the connections between Milwaukee and Chicago. Wendy currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she works as the Marketing and Communications Manager at Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate , a museum that promotes the legacy of s...

Serena is a Londoner with a passion for supporting locally owned restaurants. As a vegetarian, she focuses on vegetarian and vegan-friendly spots. On Instagram @serenalikesfood, she shares her restaurant recommendations, along with vegetarian and vegan recipes.  Here are her restaurant recommendations:  Bubala in Shoreditch  Booma in Brixton  etch. by Steven Edwards in Brighton  Lissome in Dalston...

Justin Kaufmann is a reporter for Axios Chicago and part of the ensemble that created Chicago4Real , a new Twitch channel that features great Chicago content. He's also part of Schadenfreude, a Chicago sketch comedy group. Justin previously worked in Chicago radio, both at WBEZ and at WGN .

Ghian Foreman is the President and CEO of the Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative , a group that works to develop and support South Side communities through a focus on commercial-corridor expansion, sustainable housing, and workforce development. Foreman sits on several boards including serving as President of the Chicago Police Board and member of the Rebuild Foundation . He earned h...

In this episode, I speak with Ryan Tova Katz . Ryan is a Chicago-based artist and muralist. In 2009, she started her first custom art and mural company. She has painted murals in hotels, private homes, schools, restaurants, galleries, orphanages, and on buildings in 9 countries.

In this episode, I speak with Caroline MacMillan. Caroline is a tour guide who offers both group tours and private walks around West London. She has also written multiple books about West London that are part of the Wild About series, including books about Hammersmith and Brook Green, Shepherd's Bush and Askew Road, and Fulham. We talk about why she loves exploring London on foot and giving tours...

In this episode, I speak with Elaine Glusac. Elaine is a freelance travel writer based in Chicago. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the Gold Medal as Travel Journalist of the Year in 2019 from the Society of American Travel Writers, and the Silver Medal as Travel Journalist of the Year in 2018. Her work has appeared in many publications, including the New York Times where she wr...

In this episode, I speak with Fred Schübbe. Fred was born in Flensburg, Germany, along the Danish border. He moved to the Hamburg area in 1989, where he lives with his wife and son. For over 25 years, he worked in Human Resources Management. Since 2019, he's been a volunteer greeter for Hamburg Greeters. He's also a project manager for the Worldwide Greeter Communication project that encourages co...

Monica Eng is reporter for Axios Chicago with a specialty on food, health and the environment. Monica came to Axios from WBEZ where she was a reporter for 8 years. Before that she spent 25 years editing and reporting at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times . Monica has won multiple writing awards and been nominated for the James Beard Award five times. The daughter of Chinese and Puerto...

Tonika Johnson is a photographer, social justice artist and life-long resident of Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Englewood. She is also co-founder of the Englewood Arts Collective and Resident Association of Greater Englewood , which seek to reframe the narrative of South Side communities, and mobilize people and resources for positive change. Tonika’s art often explores urban segregation, d...

In this episode, I speak with Darley Newman , a media entrepreneur, TV host, writer and multimedia producer. She is the creator, producer and host of Emmy Award-winning "Equitrekking" and "Travels with Darley." We discuss her love of travel and her love of living in New York City.

In this episode, I speak to Chris Nix, Assistant Director at the London Transport Museum and one of the hosts of the Hidden London Hangouts , a weekly YouTube series that explores the secret and mysterious spaces of London’s transport system. In addition to discussing the inspiration behind the hangouts, we discuss Chris' experience of growing up near Manchester, England and now living in London.

In this episode, I speak with Robert Loerzel . Robert is a freelance journalist and photographer in Chicago. He was born in Anchorage, Alaska, where he lived until he was 9; later in his childhood, he lived in Onarga, a small town in central Illinois. He received a bachelor’s degree in news-editorial journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he has lived in the Chicago ar...

In this episode, I speak with Lee Bey , a writer, photographer, consultant and lecturer, whose work deals with the documentation and interpretation of the built environment—and the often complex political, social and racial forces that shape spaces and places. We discuss his experiences as a South Sider and a Black architecture writer. We also discuss the complex political, social and racial force...

In this episode, I speak with Katie Law, the creator and manager of Chicago Greeter , a free visitor service for the City of Chicago that taps locals to highlight what they love about their city and share it with visitors. Katie shares her experience of moving from the West Coast to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and why she decided to remain in Chicago. She also discusses her e...

In this episode, I speak with Eliza Fournier from the Chicago Botanic Garden's Windy City Harvest department about the ways that they promote urban agriculture in Chicago. For more information about topics discussed in this episode, please check out the following: Farm on Ogden VeggieRx Windy City Harvest Apprenticeship Windy City Harvest Collaborations

In this episode, I talk with Jenny Vyas , a Chicago-based artist, about her work and her perspective of living in Chicago. Her art is influenced by the beauty in complex emotions and in the human condition. Her art emerged from the darkest period in her life, and it explores vulnerability to bring healing to herself and hopefully to others.