Janelle Kandziora of Janelle's Interiors is featured on the cover of this Winter issue of Ojai Quarterly with her lead designer Erin Bernthal. She talks about how she brought her varied experiences to the range of residential and commercial properties on which they ply their trade.

As Ojai has long been a laboratory in the art of living, this timely and relevant conversation hits home. She shares insights in what brings happiness to your environment, the mix of materials, textures, surfaces and colors that form the palette of design. Kandziora talks about her journey from an art student, dreaming of a career in teaching, to a chance encounter with her husband's hotel designer that led the flourishing career in, first Minnesota, then Palm Springs, then Ojai.

We also talked about feng shui, Marie Kondo's Magic Art of Tidying, architectural styles, being "house therapists" and raising kids in Ojai. We did not talk about candlemaking, the Balfour Declaration or the Holodomor.

Check out Janelle's and Erin's work at ...

https://www.janelleinteriors.com/

A well-known artist and illustrator, Darren brings his distinctive pen to many recognizable places around Ojai for his hundreds of thousands of followers. Darren talks about growing up on the frozen tundra of Buffalo, New York and how he lucked into a graphic design course in high school that gave him the idea he could create a career for himself doing what he'd be doing anyway — drawing.

We re-release this wide-ranging and fascinating talk with this enigmatic artist who has left his Ojai-inflected distinctive stamp all around the world. We talk about plant medicine, public schools, Buffalo's surprisingly vibrant arts scene and much, much more. We did not talk about Plains Indians and their kinship with the millions of bison that once roamed through our country, flint-knapping or counting coup.

This is a re-release of an episode from 2021. Check out Darren's prolific and talented art on IG @RealFunWow or the cover of the OQ he drew in Spring 2021 on Issuu.com.

T.C. Boyle has written 19 novels and hundreds of short stories, and is a winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. In the Fall issue of Ojai Quarterly, Kit Stolz reviewed his latest, "Blue Skies," the comically dystopian misadventures of a family on the brink of catastrophes, both environmental and personal.

Boyle covers a wide range of topics on the podcast, including growing up in impoverished circumstances, his musical career, the way his characters live on and off the page, doing the deep research that goes into his work, especially "Blue Skies," and how he came to the Ojai-Santa Barbara area. He also talked about living in Frank Lloyd Wright's final "Prairie Style" house, insect cuisine, and a Filipino billionaire's (fictional) scheme to cool down the planet with sulphur dioxide. And a ghost.

We did not talk about Mars travel, tire tread wear or the Battle of Marathon.

Check out more on T.C. Boyle on his website at tcboyle.com or his comically inspired twitter (X?) account at @tcboyle.

Author and screenwriter Mark Frost grew up in a show business family, worked at famous Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, before heading to Hollywood to work for Steven Bochco, who revolutionized television with "Hill Street Blues," where Mark as on the writing crew with David Milch and also worked with another Ojai resident, Mimi Leder.

Not long after he joined David Lynch to co-create "Twin Peaks," the show that attained cult status as soon it was aired. Frost has also written and/or directed "Storyville," "The Fantastic Four," and "Greatest Game Every Played." Among his popular books on golf and baseball are "Game 6," about the Reds-Red Sox World Series that captivated the world and marked a moment when baseball became a big business. He also wrote the golf classic, "The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever."

We talk about the WGA strike, since settled, and Mark's history with previous strikes, as well as Ojai environmental issues (Mark is a key leader with the Ojai Defense Fund, founded by our mutual friend John Broesamle, who just passed," and his new projects, including a book on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from whom an uncle worked as his press agent.

We did not talk about "Seven Samurai," Harvard admission policies or the James Webb Space Telescope.

The Ojai Storytellers Festival takes place October 26-29 with a full lineup of events from the nation's top practitioners of this ancient art form. We are joined by Kara, the festival's executive director and Antonio, one of the key storytellers.

Kara gives us the rundown on how the festival works, its place in our community and how it is integrated with local schools, and also, new this year, a Story Slam in which six local spoken word poets will compete.

Antonio talks about his upbringing in Miami and Boston as the son of a Cuban father and an Irish mother, and how those cultures, both renowned for their storytelling prowess, influences his own career. He talks about starting in public schools as an unpaid full-time puppeteer and theater director, then gradually building up his repertoire of fascinating stories from his colorful childhood, and becoming an actor, writer, and working the storytelling festival with the legends of the form. Among the stories he shared are how his dad considered him the "9th best storyteller in the family."

We did not talk about trout fishing with tenkara rods, heli-skiing or the textile industry in Nímes, France.

For more about the Storytelling Festival, and this year's schedule, check out OjaiStoryFest.org

Rick Ridgeway is a well-known adventurer, explorer, climber, naturalist, one of the original "Do Boys" with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and North Face founder Doug Tompkins.

In this reprise from several years ago, he joins the podcast to talk about his latest book of 25 adventure, "Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map" as well as the climate crisis, extinction events and the many issues facing Ojai.

We did not talk about Papua New Guinea, deep-sea creatures from the Barents Sea or millennial uptalk and vocal fry.

Ojai's foremost serial entrepreneur and angel investor Bill Moses drops in for a spirited discussion about a range of issues facing Ojai, including the local economy, dealing with national companies when you own a local company, the Thomas Fire, his background growing up in rural Pennsylvania, moving and shaking on Wall Street, making the move to Ojai and the future of the world.

Bill is the co-founder, chairman/CEO for KeVita Probiotic Drinks, which was acquired by PepsiCo. He is also a leading strategist and innovator for companies in the food and beverage and skin-care industries.

We talked about his harrowing experience with Covid-19, founding Casa Barranca winery, the first certified organic vineyard in California, building an entrepreneurs' incubator in Ojai and much, much more. We did not talk about Emiliano Zapata, salmon farming or the value of Siberian sable pelts.

Check out more about Bill at FlyingEmbers.com.

Rebecca Simon, PhD, teaches at Oak Grove School and is the author of two popular books on the public's fascination with pirates. The first is "Why We Love Pirates: The Hunt for Captain Kidd and How it Changed Piracy Forever," and the second, just released this summer, is "The Pirate's Code: Life and Laws Aboard Ship."

She writes both for general audiences and as an academic, specializing in maritime law and how it has evolved and adapted, especially through the tumultuous period in the late 1600s and early 1700s, when popular conceptions of pirates, as seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean" were created.

We talk about the often-surprisingly egalitarian codes and laws under which pirates governed themselves, the differences between the reality and fantasy, the spark that pirates provided to oppressed people everywhere, including the American colonies, and much more. So strap on your flintlock pistol and cutlass and come onboard.

We did not talk about Shohei Ohtani's dream team, crayon color schemes, or competitive chess.

You can learn more about Dr. Simon on her website, rebecca-simon.com.

Welcome to another exciting episode of Ojai's podcast. Just in time for October's Adopt-A-Dog Month, we have a very special guest with us, Eric Knight, the executive director of the Humane Society of Ventura County. Eric is a passionate advocate for animal welfare, and he joins us to shed light on the incredible work being done at the shelter in Ojai.

Eric takes us on a journey through the Humane Society of Ventura County, sharing heartwarming stories of rescue, rehabilitation, and the commitment of his dedicated team. We explore the challenges and triumphs of running a shelter, discuss the importance of adoption, and discover the many ways in which this organization has made a profound impact on the lives of animals and the community it serves.

We also talk about the serendipitous twists and turns of his varied career, including his many years in the entertainment industry, and what brought him to Ojai. We did not talk about Arctic Tern migrations, the German concept of Fingerspitzengefühl, or the pigments of Renaissance-era paints.

Scott Johnson is one of California's leading architects and designers. He joins the podcast to talk about his first commission in California, the Fox Plaza in Los Angeles, which, before it opened, served as a major character itself in "Die Hard," one of the most successful action films of all time.

We also talk about his background, getting his undergraduate degree from Stanford and his Master's from Harvard, the place of architecture and design in defining our world, the Ojai Music Festival and his work as an abstract painter, and his recent publication of the book, "Uncommon Ground," about the conjunction of visual arts and architecture.

We did not talk about the explosion of Krakatoa, Thom Browne's latest collection or New York vs. Los Angeles as the food capital of the world. The episode is a re-release from 2021.