LET IT OUT

Instead of the usual interview, this is a casual conversation I have with writer Maggie Harrison and Brian Stoothoff, co-founder and owner of the Brooklyn coffee shop Daughter. They each introduce themselves and explain how we met, cover creative process (including how crucial focus is to creativity), loving and leaving where you grew up, seasons and lacking them, and more. They are both founding...

This week I have a conversation with award-winning storyteller and audio producer Megan Tan. You may know Megan (like I do) from her first audio series from 2014—a wildly successful documentary/memoir show with Radiotopia called  Millennial . I’ve always admired her unique style of storytelling, and since Millennial she has gone on to produce shows and episodes for Gimlet Media’s  The Habitat , TE...

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. After studying acting at NYU and attending grad school, she found herself on what she calls, "the other side of the call sheet": producing. We talk about her transitioning to a more creative role through the lens of Julia Ca...

When Emily Gellis hears rumors of people suffering horrible side effects from a trendy diet she springs into action. Armed with over a hundred thousand Instagram followers, Emily launches a social media crusade to expose F-Factor and its founder, Tanya Zuckerbrot. It’s the start of a feud that will attract trolls, lawyers, and, eventually, national media all because of fiber. From Wondery, this is...

This week marks the 400th episode of this podcast. For this celebratory episode, I have a conversation with my friend and fellow podcast host Alyssa Benjamin. She’s a brand strategist who has worked with values-based brands from Eileen Fisher to Buffy on meaningful experiences and compelling content. Her podcast,  Our Nature , explores the methods, systems and practices that bring us into greater...

This week I spoke with Jennie Edgar, who has led (as she says) many lives, from starting a pie business to working as a freelance editorial and art director. Since 2018, Jennie has been writing and designing for thoughtful brands to refine their editorial voice and aesthetic expression.  Additionally, she’s a visual artist and the founder of So Textual, a platform that promotes community around re...

This week, I had a conversation with Jocelyn Kelly Reid. With 15 years of sales and marketing experience, she now helps women around money and finance in a unique way. She’s personally lost everything and built it back up and now she has the ability to help others do the same. She’s sensitive, sweet, and honest, as you’ll hear in this conversation. We talked about trauma, burnout, needing open spa...

This week’s conversation is with Virgie Tovar: author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. She holds a Master's degree in Sexuality Studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. She is a contributor for Forbes and she’s written several books. Her podcast, Rebel Eaters Club , is now in Season 3 and is Transmitter...

This week’s conversation is with Virgie Tovar: author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. She holds a Master's degree in Sexuality Studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. She is a contributor for Forbes and she’s written several books. Her podcast, Rebel Eaters Club , is now in Season 3 and is Transmitter...

This week I spoke to Brendan Francis Newnam, the former longtime host of  The Dinner Party Download , who went on to create and executive produce The Paris Review Podcast.  He is the author of the book  Brunch Is Hell  and (most relevant to this conversation) he’s the host of the podcast  Not Lost . It's a travel show Brendan started after the end of both his long-term relationship and his decade-...

This week’s episode is part two of my conversation with visual 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. Kimmy is one...

This week’s episode is the first half of my conversation with visual artist Kimmy Quillin. We spoke for nearly three hours over Zoom, her from her home in Brooklyn and me here in LA. We begin by talking about mornings, her coffee routines and how being heliotropic, time of day, and color inform her painting. How both her Wisconsin roots and her love of New York City, the city she’s lived in for ov...

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. She tells me about her trajectory of growing up in Venezuela, moving to the states to go to Harvard Law School and becoming a corporate attorney before making her own ca...

This week, a conversation with Sam Salad. As you'll hear, Sam 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. As he says about himself, he writes and he makes clothes.  Sam with his partner Rebma are the designers behind the LA-based clothing line MEALS. As Sam writes, “the brand prepares non-gendered clot...

This week, a very important person in my life—Sacha Jones—hosts the podcast. Every year for nearly a decade Sacha has come back on to host the episode the last week of April (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 special rapid-fire round. I truly knew none of this was hap...

This week, a conversation with iconic designer Norma Kamali. Recorded over Zoom from her office in Manhattan, we cover her 50-year career, from graduating from FIT with a degree in illustration to working for Northwest Airlines—which allowed her to fly to London on the weekends for only $29. It felt like a time capsule to hear her talk about the cultural revolution in London in the 1960s and how s...

I'm sharing a special preview of A Slight Change of Plans, a podcast all about who we are and who we become in the face of change. Dr. Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist who is an expert on human behavior, and she’s here to help us navigate the changes we all experience in our lives. She sits in intimate conversations with celebrity guests like Tiffany Haddish and Kacey Musgraves as well as eve...

This week I spoke with herbalist and author Vanessa Chakour. At 17, a life-threatening accident led Vanessa to heal her eating disorder and work through sexual assault trauma, which in turn led to her becoming a professional boxer, eventually bringing her to New York City where she began studying herbalism. Now, she’s an author and educator who trains others in her field of helping people to conne...

Back for the first time in 7 years is my good friend Valerie Chaney. Val is a meditation and mindfulness educator, writer and the co-host of the We Made It Weird podcast with her husband, comedian Pete Holmes. Val is hilarious, gentle, wise, incredibly smart and one of my favorite people. It was no surprise when we talked for over three hours, so I’m splitting up this episode into two parts. Val t...

Back for the first time in 7 years is my good friend Valerie Chaney. Val is a meditation and mindfulness educator, writer and the co-host of the We Made It Weird podcast with her husband, comedian Pete Holmes. Val is hilarious, gentle, wise, incredibly smart and one of my favorite people. It was no surprise when we talked for over three hours, so I’m splitting up this episode into two parts. Val t...

Today’s conversation is with author and mindfulness teacher Rosie Acosta. Growing up in East LA in the 90s as a first-generation Mexican-American, Rosie suffered from agoraphobia, panic attacks, and anxiety. After being arrested a few times, at 16, she began to feel disillusioned with her family’s unwavering Catholic faith and soon after discovered meditation and yoga, eventually leading her to he...

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. Prior to joining The Times in 2018, Kyle was a senior editor at Vulture, where he covered the movie industry.  Appropriately, he gives advice on writin...

Today's guest, Nadine Artemis, is known for talking and writing about beauty. Her latest book is Renegade Beauty though she’s probably best known as the founder of natural beauty brand Living Libations. Nadine's journey began by combining vials of essential oils to recreate a perfume she liked for a school science fair. In 1994, she opened North America’s first full concept aromatherapy store,  Os...

This week's episode is a conversation with artist Derick Melander. He's a sculptor who works with secondhand clothing to create clothing sculptures that explore the intersection between global consumerism and the intimate relationship we have with what we wear. My dear friend Sacha Jones has known Derick for years through being core members of their Record Club, which started in the late nineties...

Today's episode is part 2 of my conversation with Natasha Zoë Garrett. Genuine, wise, thoughtful and truly one of the most effortlessly stylish people I’ve ever met, Natasha (founder of  Roam Vintage ) is one of a kind, just like the vintage gems she discovers. She’s incredibly honest, open and vulnerable about her challenges and wins in everything from her career to her mental health. She begins...