A family secret. A fork in the road. A choice that reshaped Utah’s creative landscape. Angela Brown joins us to share how a canyon kid with a camera became the force behind SLUG Magazine and the founder of Craft Lake City, turning a tiny zine and a DIY idea into two of the region’s most influential cultural platforms.

We trace Angela’s path from Emigration Canyon to darkrooms and record stores, where photography and music collided into a calling. When a San Francisco promotion beckoned, a life-changing conversation with her father redirected everything. She stayed, bought SLUG, and spent years delivering stacks, selling ads, shooting shows, and editing late into the night—while caregiving at home. Along the way, we dig into the post–9/11 Olympics, how Salt Lake’s “underground” expanded, and what it takes to build a publication that still champions outsiders without gatekeeping genre or taste.

Then we pivot to Craft Lake City: why Angela launched it, how it blurs the line between artisan and artist, and the systems that make creativity accessible—affordable markets, hands-on workshops, STEM spaces, and even a fully virtual festival world when the city needed it most. We talk sponsors who believed early, volunteers who became pros, and the small army now powering a statewide ecosystem. Expect candid insights on scaling teams, nurturing writers and photographers, and keeping art in reach for regular people.

If you care about local music, independent media, maker culture, or the future of Salt Lake City, this conversation is a blueprint. Tap play, share with a friend who loves DIY, and tell us the one risk that changed your path. And if you enjoyed the episode, subscribe, rate, and leave a review so more creators can find the show.

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