The Urban Exodus Podcast

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Cig Harvey. Cig is an award-winning fine-art and commercial photographer. She has published five sold-out books and her photographs and books are in the permanent collections of museums across the world.  Cig and her partner bought a crumbling farmhouse in Midcoast Maine in 2007 and moved there full time in 2011. She left a tenured track teaching p...

I am excited to invite you to my conversation with Cory Murchy. Cory is a professional musician and fine artist who spent nearly two decades playing bass for the Seattle-based indie-rock band Minus the Bear . Cory reached a level that most musicians only dream of - being able to support himself entirely off of his music. He toured all around the world, playing sold out venues from New York to Japa...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Molly Nakahara. Molly is a farmer and the farm institute director at the nonprofit Sierra Harvest, she has also worked to support farmers through the UC Cooperative Extension and as a member of the EcoFarm Board of Directors. Molly grew up in the Bay Area but moved with her partner to Grass Valley in 2010 to build Dinner Bell Farm, which offers cer...

I’m so excited to invite you to my conversation with modern-day Renaissance man, Jonathan Wilkins. Jonathan is a former firefighter and landscape designer turned professional hunter, outdoor guide, chef, podcaster, historian, musician, and writer.  Currently, Jonathan operates Black Duck Revival , a hunting lodge in Brinkley, Arkansas, where he offers stays, excursions, and educational experiences...

I’m so excited to invite you to my conversation with Dr. Jeanine Canty. Jeanine is a writer, and professor with in the  Transformative Studies Doctoral program at the California Institute of Integral Studies .  Her teaching examines issues of social and ecological justice connected to the process of worldview expansion. She specializes in ecopscyhology, which is the study of how ecology and human...

I was so excited to reconnect with Franchesca Hernandez for this episode of the podcast. I met Franchesca on my Urban Exodus cross country roadtrip in the Spring of 2015 . Back then, she was living in a yurt on her Whirlaway Farm in Garfield, Texas. When she first bought the property, it was little more than a scrubby 3-acre lot covered in weeds, but through sweat and hard work she transformed it...

I’m so excited to share my thoughtful and powerful conversation with Mariah Gladstone, the founder of Indigikitchen . Mariah is a community leader, food sovereignty activist, self-trained chef, digital entrepreneur, aerialist teacher and performer and so much more. She grew up on and off the Blackfeet Nation Reservation, located near Glacier National Park in Northern Montana. She moved to New York...

I'm excited to invite you to my conversation with Jean Voronkova. Jean was born and raised in Singapore, but now lives with her husband Vitaly in Bali, Indonesia. Together, they have built passive income streams and investments to be able to live a slow, simple and fulfilling life in Bali. They have intentionally opted out of the workaholic 9-5 culture, and now prioritize joy and peace over t...

I’m excited invite you to my conversation with Walter Brooks Jr. Walter is a serial entrepreneur and the owner and operator of Brooksmade Gourmet Foods - a global food company specializing in clean-label, locally sourced sauces & rubs made in Georgia.  Walter grew up in a large family in South Central Los Angeles. As one of nine kids, money was tight and he didn’t always know where his next me...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Clara Infante. She is an artist, maker, marketing professional and mother to three young boys. After the birth of her first son, Clara and her husband left Los Angeles and moved back to her home country of Spain.  Clara was born in Barcelona, but grew up in Miami. Her dad is from Spain and her mom is French, and she grew up speaking Spanish, Catala...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Celeste Lopreiato. Celeste, and her partner Simone Weinstein, operate Conscious Kitchen and Slow Growing Business Coaching. Conscious Kitchen is a vegan, zero-waste food delivery service based in Ontario, Canada.  After completing an environmental studies degree at university, Celeste applied for over 100 jobs in the environmental non-profit sector...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Natalie McGill. Natalie is a farmer and farm educator living on the Eastern shore of Virginia. Natalie grew up in the East Coast suburbs, but decided she wanted to farm at a young age. She met her partner Stewart in college and they connected through their shared passion for agriculture, ecology and animals. They both decided to avoid chasing the c...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Molly Leary. Molly is a single mother, a musician, and a small business owner. She runs Squash Blossom Vintage, offering one-of-a-kind pieces that reflect her love of late sixties and seventies fashion. She has pivoted throughout the years - going from consignment to pop-up to brick and mortar and now she sells exclusively through her weekly Instag...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Margo Candelario. Margo is an author, a visual artist, and the owner and operator of a female run multi-generational family farm in Oconee County, Georgia. Margo runs Young Female Farmers with her mother, and her three daughters. They offer fresh produce, baked goods, and wildcrafted tinctures.  Margo started her career on Wall Street but after the...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Bo Dennis of Dandy Ram Farms. Bo is a flower farmer, a new farmer advocate and rural queer activist.  This is an insightful and honest interview, and I’m very grateful for Bo’s trust in sharing his story on the podcast. As a queer and trans person who has lived in rural spaces his entire adult life, Bo’s lived experiences offer a glimpse into the h...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Alicia Malone. Alicia is a recent Maine transplant, who relocated from Los Angeles during Covid. Alicia was born and raised in Australia. She is a published author, film expert, and most well known for her role as a host on Turner Classic Movies. Her two books -- Backwards and in Heels  and The Female Gaze - focus on the role of women in cinema his...

I’m excited for you to hear my conversation with Daniel White - homesteader, explorer, and all-around trailblazer. Originally from Ashville, NC, Daniel grew up a city boy. Yet, deep down, he always had a desire to live closer to the natural world. Daniel dropped out of high school at 16 and in his mid 20s took a job as an electrician. He spent over half a decade working 60 plus hour work weeks. At...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with artist, embroiderer and DIY designer Sarah Benning. At first glance, Sarah's life seems like a vision from the past. She lives in a historic Victorian home in New Hampshire, and spends most of her days embroidering.  Although, in actuality Sarah is a successful contemporary artist, creating one of a kind hand stitched artworks, DIY kits and di...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with David Barron. David is a true renaissance man, juggling a busy and fulfilling life as a firefighter, farmer, parent, and community leader in Western Oregon. David grew up in Arkansas, and moved to Oregon as a teenager. He and his family grow vegetables, raise animals, keep bees, and make and sell bath and body products on their farmstead. He practi...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with V Smiley, a former chef and the passionate driving force behind V Smiley Preserves - a honey-based jams, savory preserves and marmalades business based in New Haven, Vermont.  V was born on a farm in rural Vermont, a child of Back-to-the-Landers. Some of V’s fondest childhood memories are sitting around the table enjoying delicious meals grown on t...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Hana Oh, a recent rural transplant, mother, goat, sheep, cow and chicken keeper, and newly Licensed Master of Social of Work who lives with her young daughter about an hour outside of Waco, Texas.  Hana's parents immigrated to the United States from Korea in the 1980s. She was raised in the evangelical faith in the culturally diverse city of H...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Melissa Rebholz, a chef, farmer and the passionate driving force behind Midge’s Kitchen in Wheeling, West Virginia. I initially connected with Melissa back in 2015 when she was farming solo in the rural Appalachian town of Greenville, Tennessee. Several years before I visited, Melissa had left NYC to learn to farm. She moved around to different far...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Christopher Joe, a 3rd generation Black Angus cattle farmer, a District Conservationist for the National Resources Conversation Service, and the founder of Connecting with Birds and Nature Tours . Christopher's family has owned 200 acres forests and fields in Alabama’s Black Belt since the early 1900s.  Christopher was raised with a deep respe...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Simone Leon, a writer, and film festival program producer living in Camden, Maine.  After attending film school, Simone was thrilled to land a job working for a major talent agency in Los Angeles. While she loved the people she worked with and the projects she got to assist on, the traffic, long hours, stress and pollution began to overwhelm her. S...

I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Safiya Khalid, a fearless young politician who is inspiring her community and the next generation of civic leaders. Safiya was born in Somalia and fled the country with her mother and siblings. They were initially placed in New Jersey but found their way to Lewiston, Maine for the community. Lewiston has a large population of African immigrants, wi...