LET IT OUT

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 on a project, and both ended up here on the west coast. We recorded this conversation in person and it covered finding what she calls “inner stability”, tolerating emotions, our relationship to nature, career pivots, creative process, naming projects, celebrating milestones, leaving New York, storytelling, unique aesthetics, connection, dating, romantic relationships, and more.

Show Notes:

- Find Alyssa on the Web | Instagram

- Listen to Alyssa's podcast, Our Nature, on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

- The Podcast Kit is 50% off through the end of July with code summer

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

Sponsor:

• I've been sleeping on an organic mattress from My Green Mattress for the past few weeks, and I love it. Check out their selection of affordable and certified organic mattresses on www.mygreenmattress.com. Use code LETITOUT in the check-out to receive $125 off a twin or larger and $20 off the Emily Organic crib!

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 the way we read, as well as what we read, is unique to each of us. 

We also cover effect theory, book culture, and literary artists we love like Eve Babitz, Adrianne Lenker, her grandma, and Nora Ephron. She talks about looking at one’s life like a project and answers a question from our mutual friend Maddie on what it means to be a narrative-led person. I loved this wide-ranging conversation and am eager to hear what you think of it and how you read.

Show Notes:

- Follow Jennie on the Web | Instagram

- Check out So Textual on the Web | Instagram

- I Love Dick by Chris Kraus

- Amy Hempel's collected stories

- Sign up for Maddie Coleman's newsletter

- The Podcast Kit is 50% off through the end of July with code summer

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

- Photo credit: Dimanche Creative

Sponsors:

• First Person cognitive supplements: get 15% percent off your first order by going to getfirstperson.com and use code letitout

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 communicating needs, how you can be addicted to a person, and much more. Jocelyn talks in depth about her background and upbringing where she felt different from those around her, recovering from an eating disorder, and feeling “too much”. 

This episode also features my lovely conversation with midwestern mattress maker and father of five Tim Masters, founder of My Green Mattress. I genuinely loved speaking with Tim as much as he loves making mattresses for people. He talks about taking over a mattress business when he was young, living in the apartment above it, and how one day a woman came into the shop who read his palm and told him he was meant to heal people. That helped him realize he does just that through his ability to find the correct-fitting, non-toxic mattress for every body that walks into his shop regardless of size or shape.

Show Notes:

- Follow Jocelyn on the Web | Instagram

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- The Podcast Kit is 50% off through the end of July with code summer

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

- Let It Out is looking for a paid editing intern! Email me at [email protected] if you're interested in applying or know anyone who might be interested!

Sponsor:

• I've been sleeping on an organic mattress from My Green Mattress for the past few weeks, and I love it. I also loved speaking with Tim, the founder, at the end of this episode. Check out their selection of affordable and certified organic mattresses on www.mygreenmattress.com. Use code LETITOUT in the check-out to receive $125 off a twin or larger and $20 off the Emily Organic crib!

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 Jazeera, NPR, and many more. 

Part 2 features the end of our over-two-hour Zoom conversation as well as clips from previous conversations and a special guest, our mutual friend Isabel Foxen Duke.

If you missed Part 1 last week, be sure to tune in: Virgie and I cover dressing rooms, letting go of a normative timeline, control, markers of success, happiness research, and more.

Show Notes:

- Follow Virgie on the Web | Instagram

- Check out Virgie's Books | Podcast: Rebel Eaters Club

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- The Let It Out Kits are 32% off with the code 32

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

- Let It Out is looking for a paid editing intern! Email me at [email protected] if you're interested in applying or know anyone who might be interested!

If you liked this episode, try out:

Episodes 367 & 368: Seasons of Overwhelm with Christy Harrison

Episode 385: In the Weeds: Herbalist Vanessa Chakour on Our Earthly Bodies

Sponsors:

• Magic Mind: I started drinking these little green productivity shots and I love them so much. For 40% off a subscription or 20% off a single purchase, go to magicmind.co/letitout and use code LETITOUT20 at checkout!

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 Jazeera, NPR, and many more. 

We met a few years ago through our mutual friend Isabel Foxen Duke and I’m lucky to call her a friend. This is her second appearance on the podcast. We recorded a conversation last summer and I’ve been eager to talk to her again ever since. We talked over Zoom for two hours and our conversation covered dressing rooms, letting go of a normative timeline, control, markers of success, happiness research, and more.

Show Notes:

- Follow Virgie on the Web | Instagram

- Check out Virgie's Books | Podcast: Rebel Eaters Club

- David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water" speech at Kenyon College

- The Vox podcast episode I mention about sea shells & mollusks

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- The Let It Out Kits are 32% off with the code 32

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

If you liked this episode, try out:

Episodes 367 & 368: Seasons of Overwhelm with Christy Harrison

Sponsors:

• Magic Mind: I started drinking these little green productivity shots and I love them so much. For 40% off a subscription or 20% off a single purchase, go to magicmind.co/letitout and use code LETITOUT20 at checkout!

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, single, and with most of his friends ensconced in relationships and parenthood or both." So he took a microphone, hit the road with friends, and his adventure became Not Lost. The premise of the show is Brendan and his friends trying to get invited to a dinner party with locals in each city they visit.

We talk about how he made the show and I picked out a few clips that particularly landed with me, including the balance between sharing vulnerably and holding back, how our trauma impacts our openness to relationships, and thoughts on loneliness, rejection, and connection. And what doing the show taught him about, intimacy, friendship, choosing a city to live in, nature and more. We also talked about interviewing and podcasting at the end, which raised some interesting questions for me.

Show Notes:

- Listen to Not Lost on Pushkin | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Youtube

- My favorite episodes: Montreal | Portland

- Follow Brendan on Instagram

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- The Let It Out Kits are 32% off with the code 32

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

Sponsors:

• I started drinking these little green productivity shots and I love them so much. For 40% off a subscription or 20% off a single purchase, go to magicmind.co/letitout and use code LETITOUT20 at checkout!

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, Jules, has been on the podcast twice) as well as in Elle, Domino Magazine, and at Uprise Art. She presented her solo show Many Moons at Chinatown Soup in November 2019 (I was there) and at Spite Haus in January 2020. I was excited to talk to her and this conversation exceeded my expectations.

In Part 1, we talked about coffee routines and being heliotropic, her influences from her Wisconsin roots and New York City, the realities of living as an artist, and how she takes care of herself through it all. If you haven't listened, be sure to check it out!

Show notes:

- Find Kimmy on the Web | Instagram

- If you haven't listened to the episode with Sam Salad a few weeks ago--one of my favorite episodes of the year--listen here

- Check out the book Color Scheme by Edith Young

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- The Let It Out Kits are 32% off with the code 32

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

Sponsors:

• Credit Karma helps you find low-interest personal loans to bring down credit card debt and save you money. Ready to apply? Head to creditkarma.com/loanoffers to see personalized offers!
• First Person cognitive supplements: get 15% percent off your first order by going to getfirstperson.com and use code letitout

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 realties of living as an artist, our mutual love of Craigslist, highs and lows of releasing art and how she takes care of herself throughout it all. 

She’s one of my favorite painters whose work can be seen on the walls of Good Move in Brooklyn (whose founder, Jules, has been on the podcast twice) as well as in Elle, Domino Magazine, and at Uprise Art. She presented her solo show Many Moons at Chinatown Soup in November 2019 (I was there) and at Spite Haus in January 2020. We met before I left NYC and share a bunch of mutual friends whom I polled for questions to ask her at the end of part two. In part two we talk more about her process—how she creates conditions for creativity, incorporating chance in her work, what she calls intentional chaos—and much more. I was excited to talk to her and this conversation exceeded my expectations.

Show notes:

- Find Kimmy on the Web | Instagram

- If you haven't listened to the episode with Sam Salad a couple weeks ago--one of my favorite episodes of the year--listen here

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- Check out the book Color Scheme by Edith Young

- The Let It Out Kits are 32% off with the code 32

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

Sponsors:

• Credit Karma helps you find low-interest personal loans to bring down credit card debt and save you money. Ready to apply? Head to creditkarma.com/loanoffers to see personalized offers
• AthleticGreens: complete daily nutrition in one tasty scoop! Get a year's supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D and five free travel pouches with your first order of AthleticGreens when you visit athleticgreens.com/letitout!

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 always evident throughout and especially in a section towards the beginning where she gives me a real creative advising session after I share about needing a career pivot myself. She gives me gentle and wise advice, which I’ve since been working on. 

We recorded this a couple of months ago over Zoom and since then, her new book called: How Creativity Rules The World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold is now available everywhere.

Show Notes:

- Find Maria on the Web | Instagram

- Order Maria's book

- The Let It Out Kits are 32% off with the code 32

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

Sponsors:

• Credit Karma helps you find low-interest personal loans to bring down credit card debt and save you money. Ready to apply? Head to creditkarma.com/loanoffers to see personalized offers
• AthleticGreens: complete daily nutrition in one tasty scoop! Get a year's supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D and five free travel pouches with your first order of AthleticGreens when you visit athleticgreens.com/letitout!

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 clothes we eat and the food we wear.” We talk about that blur between food, bodies, eating, and clothing, and the juxtaposition of these topics led the conversation into interesting and unexpected directions. 

We also speak about how the timing of their young brand was impacted by the pandemic, collaborating in business with your romantic partner, prizing experiences over objects, body image and food culture much more. We recorded the episode about a month ago from my kitchen table; Sam came over with a bottle of rum and we talked for hours and honestly could’ve kept going. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Show notes:

- Find Meals clothing on the Web | Instagram

- Vogue article on Meals

- Check out 69 clothing

- The Let It Out Kits are 32% off with the code 32

- Take the friendship breakup survey from me and Kayleen Schaefer here

- Sign up for the waitlist for the re-imagined Creative Underdogs/In Process (coming soon)!

- Subscribe to our newsletter to get show notes + essays, etc. sent to your inbox

- Follow @letitouttt on Instagram. I'm @katiedalebout

If you liked this episode, try out:

Episode 386: Norma Kamali on Dating, Aging, London in the 60s, Her Iconic Fashion Career, and "The More You Do, the More You Can Do"

Episode 351: Riding Waves: Surfing, Design, and Change with Heidi Baker, Founder of Ozma of California

Episode 318: ((happy thank you more please )) Relationships, Jobs, and New Skills with Christine Nguyen

Episode 323: Intentionality, Beauty, Film, and Change with Madelynn De La Rosa

Sponsors:

• Credit Karma helps you find low-interest personal loans to bring down credit card debt and save you money. Ready to apply? Head to creditkarma.com/loanoffers to see personalized offers
• First Person cognitive supplements: get 15% percent off your first order by going to getfirstperson.com and use code letitout
• Listen to Not Lost with Brendan Newnam on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!