The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

This week, I share an essay from The Catastrophe Hour . There's no audiobook available (yet), so I offer this reading of the final essay in the collection, The End Of The Personal. It's a meditation on first-person writing in a world that seems to have overdosed on oversharing. The era of the personal is over. The writer sees this now. One day, she just gets it. Everything is personal so nothing i...

✌️Upgrade your subscription if you want to hear the full conversation: http://bit.ly/3OJJRO9 🔔 Did you like this episode? Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment down below. [DESCRIPTION] You can upgrade your subscription here: http://bit.ly/3OJJRO9 ————————— GUEST BIO Peter Moskos teaches in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay Colleg...

In this much-anticipated interview (at least by me), humorist and journalist Henry Alford joins me to discuss his recent bestselling book I Dream Of Joni: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell in 53 Snapshots . In a Joni nerd-off that may be unrivaled in podcast history, Henry and I talk about his research and reporting for this book, what he learned about Mitchell's contradictions and complexities, why he...

Writer and podcaster Louise Perry returns to the pod to discuss her new book,  A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century,  in which she   takes ideas from her 2022 book  The Case Against The Sexual Revolution  and adapts them for teenagers and young adults .  In this conversation, we pick up from where we left off in our 2022  interview ,   catching up on the evolving discourse around the winners and...

Journalist and political commentator Emily Jashisnky, host of Undercurrents and co-host of Counterpoints, is a 31-year-old Evangelical Christian from Wisconsin. She's also (for my money) one of the sanest, smartest, and most principled voices in the information landscape these days. In this conversation, we talk about Emily's philosophical and political roots, her college years during the height o...

For the last several years, we yelled about the left eating itself. Is the right now feasting on the same poisonous meal? This week Meghan is joined by Free Press reporter River Page, whose February 19 article The Online Right Is Building A Monster , articulated a phenomenon she'd long observed but could never quite parse; the phenomenon of right-wing trolls making antisemitic and misogynist memes...

Recorded February 13, 2025 On my birthday, with my laryngitis almost gone, I share some audio reflections about my recent New York Times opinion essay about losing my home in the fire, my current housing situation, and my former housing blunders. Most importantly, I offer a sneak preview of my ironically-titled forthcoming book, The Catastrophe Hour.   New York Times, Jan 31, 2025: The L.A. Fires...

February 10, 2025 edition Recorded December 16, 2024 Chloé Valdary was last on the podcast in May 2021, talking about Theory of Enchantment, an enterprise devoted to more nuanced and art-focussed approaches to DEI. She's back to discuss what she's been up to since then. A lot! In this conversation, recorded in December, Chloé talks about her journey from prolific tweeting to long-form writing and...

It's been three weeks since my house burned to the ground in the Los Angeles wildfires. Here are some thoughts on r ent gouging, couch surfing, and the lifestyles of the rich and unhoused.    A note on this photo. I took it from Farnsworth Park in Altadena  on New Year's Day, one week before the fire. That thing in the sky is the  Goodyear Blimp hovering over Rose Bowl Stadium during the game.   E...

In the hours of January 8, my house burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire in Altadena, CA. Here are some thoughts I recorded on January 15.   How to help? Become a paying  subscriber  to this podcast on Substack. Or leave a  donation  in any amount in the tip jar.   Housekeeping  Visit The Unspeakable on YouTube.  The Unspeakeasy has new retreats for 2025. Find out where we're going. Join The Uns...

I've lost my home. I am safe.   HOUSEKEEPING  Visit  The Unspeakable on YouTube !  Unspeakeasy 2025  retreats . We're going to Texas, Los Angeles, upstate NY  and beyond. See where we'll be!  Join  The Unspeakeasy , my community for freethinking women.

This week, Meghan is joined by filmmaker, YouTuber, and "experience design architect" Topaz Adizes. He is the founder of The Skin Deep, an experience design created to foster connection in human relationships, often through innovative products and curated live events. In this conversation, Topaz discusses the evolution of relationships in the digital age, the importance of asking the right questio...

As you make your new year's resolutions or plan for Dry January, returning guest Ruby Warrington has another idea for better living in 2025: go on a "content diet." In this conversation, Ruby describes the overwhelming nature of content consumption and its impact on mental health and wellbeing. She draws parallels between the "sober curious" movement, which she spearheaded, and the need for consci...

Do journalists ever regret the way they cover events? This week, veteran YouTube journalist and political commentator Ana Kasparian discusses her journey from the progressive left to finding herself politically unaligned, the regrets she still harbors, and the complexities of navigating controversial issues with nuance. She also discusses her thoughts on the election and on Biden's mental decline,...

What purpose does "wokeness" really serve? Is it a way of thinking that helps lift up marginalized groups? Or is it a convenient way for elites to pay lip service to social justice while maintaining the status quo that benefits them? This week, I'm joined by sociologist Musa al-Gharbi to discuss his new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions Of A New Elite . In addition to disti...

Until 2018, sports betting was almost a sport unto itself. To place a bet, you had to call your bookie, go to the race track, or make a trip to Las Vegas. But in 2018, the Supreme Court put an end to a longtime federal ban on sports betting, and it is now legal in most states and accessible on smartphones. For years, we've been hearing alarm bells about the addictive qualities of online pornograph...

Journalist Ben Ryan returns to the podcast to reflect on the role of the trans debate in the recent election as well as discuss the impact of the Cass Review on pediatric gender medicine and on journalists covering the issue.  He also talks about various aspects of gender transition treatments, explains what is known about rates of surgeries among minors and to what extent medical care for trans a...

Playwright and performer Sandra Tsing Loh returns to the podcast (after four years!) to discuss her surprise hit play Madwomen of the West , which featured a superstar cast including Caroline Aaron, Marilu Henner, Melanie Mayron, and JoBeth Williams. After the Los Angeles theater establishment deemed the show too woman-centric, Sandra mounted an independent production, which she eventually took to...

🔔 Did you like this episode? Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment down below. ✌️Upgrade your subscription if you want to hear the full conversation: https://bit.ly/3LgpZ3A For this first post-election episode, Meghan welcomes back author Lionel Shriver, who is arguably America's (and the U.K.'s) most controversial woman of letters. They talk about the over/under on the end of democ...

In this premium episode, writer, editor, and friend of the pod Leigh Stein returns to talk about the state of book publishing, including the importance of promotion via digital platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Leigh may be the Jane Goodall of BookTok. She has spent countless hours in the wild, studying the platform's users and creators for insights into its addictive magic. As a book coach who h...

This week, journalist and legendary feminist activist Julie Bindel talks about her new podcast series, Julie in Genderland , which explores the complexities surrounding gender identity, particularly from the perspective of parents of children who've become caught up in gender ideology. Julie discusses the role of social services and educators in shaping children's understanding of gender, the inte...

Stephanie Lepp is a video artist and producer whose work focuses on bringing together different viewpoints to arrive at a perspective that goes beyond "common ground" and emerges as a true integration, or synthesis. She was on the podcast in July 2022 to talk about a project called Deep Reckonings. In it, she considered the cases of public figures who'd responded to personal controversy in less-th...

To doomers and nihilists, the whole world is a joke — and it's not even funny. Writer Neal Pollack may be a natural skeptic, but he thinks that's nonsense and he returns to the podcast to talk about better living through laughter (and not in a "live, love, laugh" kind of way). He discusses his various careers — professional writer, professional poker player, three-time Jeopardy champion — his thou...

If you have a pet, you've probably wondered lately what in the world has happened to veterinary medicine. Why is it so expensive? Why is it so hard to get an appointment? And why, despite all of that, do domestic animals seem to have more health problems than ever? In this conversation, financial reporter Helaine Olen, a longtime dog owner and author of the April 2024 Atlantic article Why Your Vet...

This interview with Kat Timpf is free to all subscribers. To hear bonus conversations and get early access to other episodes, become a paying subscriber  here . Meghan interviews Kat Timpf, Fox News analyst and co-host of Gutfeld, about her new book "I Used to Like You Until... (How Binary Thinking Divides Us)." They discuss Kat's education and early political evolution, her frustrations with ideo...