Instead of an interview today is a mashup of two episodes of Spiraling, the podcast I co-host with Serena Wolf about mental health. We started in 2019 where I’d walk to her apartment once a week and we’d talk and eventually started recording our conversations around anxiety. It’s been 4 years and now we live on opposite coasts, but we still record our conversations. The first half is from the middle of the current season, where we discuss navigating different timelines and expectations both from...
Dec 09, 2022•2 hr 18 min•Ep. 411
This week on the program is artist Anna Fusco, who you might know as Lord Cowboy. Anna works across drawing , writing, and digital illustration. She’s done some big drawings, has a really cool poster and print shop, and writes a reader-supported newsletter called "Unsupervised" that is read by thousands of people each month, including me. She currently lives on the central coast of California and we caught up over zoom a few weeks ago. We discussed everything from over-processing experiences, ca...
Nov 25, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 410
Keke Palmer has questions for days, about everything under the sun. From the existential to the inconsequential. From pop culture to pop science. From the meaning of life to the meaning of W.A.P. From life in outer space to “Where the eff is Tom from MySpace?" And everything in between. Because Baby, this is Keke Palmer, and she is here for All. Of. It. Each week, the multi-talented Keke is taking you on a journey down the rabbit hole on a topic that she cannot stop obsessing over. She’ll also g...
Nov 19, 2022•5 min
This week I spoke with singer-songwriter Leona Naess who recently released an album titled Brood X after a family of periodic cicadas that, like her, reemerged in 2022 after 17 years underground. In the years since she released her last album in 2004, Naess had lived her own life “underground”— nesting, becoming a mom, and moving through the grief of losing both parents. Released in 2021, Brood X has themes of reemergence and rediscovery. In this conversation we talk about how she got into the m...
Nov 05, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 409
This week, I have a conversation with actress, director, and filmmaker Lynn Chen. You may know her from Grey's Anatomy or her breakout role in Saving Face. We talk about everything from rejection to eating disorder recovery to Felicity. Let me know if you listen. Show Notes : -It's not to late to join IN PROCESS -- find out more and sign up here ! -Find Lynn on the Web | Instagram - Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter -Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. ...
Oct 29, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 408
This week I spoke to writer Nada Alic. She’s the author of Bad Thoughts and working on a forthcoming novel. We recorded in the height of a heatwave here in LA. I came over in the morning, left in the late afternoon. We hung out for an hour or two then recorded for nearly three more. I found listening to her comforting, so I’m breaking it into two parts. As you'll hear, she's incredibly intelligent and clearly creative, yet humble and so funny. She's one of those rare people who are as cool as th...
Oct 21, 2022•51 min•Ep. 407
This week I spoke to writer Nada Alic. She’s the author of Bad Thoughts and working on a forthcoming novel. We recorded in the height of a heatwave here in LA and it all felt like a fever dream. I came over in the morning, left in the late afternoon. We hung out for an hour or two then recorded for nearly three more. I found listening to her comforting, so I’m breaking it into two parts. As you'll hear, she's incredibly intelligent and clearly creative, yet so humble and funny. She's one of thos...
Oct 15, 2022•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 406
This week is a conversation with style expert Stacy London. You might know her as the co-host of TLC’s iconic show, “What Not to Wear." Following that success, she’s gone on to host and executive produce, write books, and create a podcast. Last year, Stacy founded State of Menopause, a holistic line addressing the symptoms associated with menopause. And while it might seem like a twist, she’s doing what she has done her entire career as a stylist: helping people who are struggling feel better. S...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 48 min•Ep. 405
This week: musician Courtney Marie Andrews on songwriting, relationships, vulnerability, touring, making music videos, collaboration, and more. She started her career performing and busking up and down the West Coast; now, she’s toured all over and released several records, including 2020's GRAMMY-nominated Old Flowers . Her newest record, Loose Future , comes out in October. She also wrote a book of poems called Old Monarch . We talk about her writing process and the method she calls “chunk wri...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 404
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 members of the workshop I started in the fall of 2020--then called Creative Underdogs. It’s a place ...
Aug 20, 2022•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 403
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 , TED, WNYC’s Radiolab,All Things Considered , Pineapple Street Media, and more. In 2020, Megan was named ...
Aug 06, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 402
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 Cameron's term (from The Artist's Way ): “Shadow Artist”. As a Creative Producer, Carolina now makes v...
Jul 29, 2022•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 401
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 a story about wealth, wellness, and influence hosted by Casey Wilson. Listen to Fed Up: http://wond...
Jul 25, 2022•5 min
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 alignment with the natural world. Alyssa and I tell the story of how we met in New York, collaborated...
Jul 15, 2022•1 hr 50 min•Ep. 400
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 reading, so we talk about her style of reading and how that varies from her husband’s and mine, and how...
Jul 09, 2022•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 399
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 space, working through financial blocks, her embodiment practice, the importance of directly communicat...
Jul 01, 2022•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 398
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 Media's first original production. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times , BBC, MTV, Al Ja...
Jun 24, 2022•51 min•Ep. 397
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 Media's first original production. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times , BBC, MTV, Al Ja...
Jun 18, 2022•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 396
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-long radio show, The Dinner Party Download. Brendan "found himself on the wrong side of 35, unemployed, s...
Jun 10, 2022•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 395
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 of my favorite painters whose work can be seen on the walls of Good Move in Brooklyn (whose founder,...
Jun 03, 2022•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 394
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 over a decade inform her work and personality. She talks about working in different mediums, the realt...
May 27, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 393
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 career pivot into the art world, where she eventually became a top art advisor. Maria's kindness is al...
May 20, 2022•1 hr 51 min•Ep. 392
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 clothing inspired by food. MEALS bakes ‘food culture’ into apparel, blurring the lines between the clothe...
May 06, 2022•1 hr 55 min•Ep. 391
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 happening beforehand and it felt like the surprise party I’ve always dreamed of. Sacha is one of the mo...
Apr 29, 2022•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 390
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 she would bring back pieces for friends, which led her to start a store, and eventually design her ow...
Apr 22, 2022•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 389
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 everyday inspirations, like journalist Euna Lee, who was held captive in North Korea for 140 days, and ...
Apr 18, 2022•14 min
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 connect to their environments. Her work is rooted in the natural world and what she calls our own inner-w...
Apr 15, 2022•1 hr 54 min•Ep. 387
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 trained with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, who both have informed her work within healing trauma, mi...
Apr 07, 2022•59 min•Ep. 386
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 trained with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, who both have informed her work within healing trauma, mi...
Apr 05, 2022•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 385
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 her career as a yoga and meditation teacher. Since then, she’s been featured in Yoga Journal, Forbes, ...
Mar 25, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 384
