Podcasts about new erotica

Brooke Preston is an Ohio-based comedy writer, satirist, teacher, and storyteller. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Cut, Real Simple, McSweeney's, Reductress, Men's Health, and other fine outlets and crumpled napkins. She is a co-founder and editor of online satire publication The Belladonna; she and her fellow editors co-wrote New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust and Equal Pay. She has taught for The Second City, Thurber House and more, and was head writer for this year's Thurber Prize ceremony.  Follow her on Twitter at @bigu. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/aprilklingmeyer/support

Now entering Greener Pastures! Greener Pastures is a comedy and satire site run by a bunch of writers obsessed with out-writing, out-joking and out-funnying each other! And because we love to writing satire, talking about it, and the people who do it, we've expanded into podcasting! Today, we interview Brooke Preston! Brooke Preston is a Midwest-based writer, satirist and storyteller. Her humor writing has been published in The New York Times, McSweeney's, Reductress, Men's Health, Romper, The Huffington Post, Electric Literature, and many other web and print outlets. She is also a founding editor of The Belladonna Comedy, a satire site by women and non-binary writers, for everyone. She and her fellow editors co-authored a satire book called "New Erotica for Feminists". She is a proud faculty member of The Second City Training Center, where she teaches the Online Satire Writing program. That's where our paths crossed. No regrets! Find Brooke online: Twitter + Website Tune in next Monday for the next episode! Follow us on Twitter at @greenerpastsat and on Medium at Greener Pastures Magazine.

Audio Erotica fans, feel free to join us on Patreon. Become a part of the Literally Lovesick family here- www.patreon.com/Literallylovesick All our Literally Lovesick books are available here.. www.amazon.co.uk/Derrick-Andre/e/B083BZ715M In this episode, not only do we have two great erotic stories but also an interview with BDSM Erotic writer Tiny Sparks. We also introduce book reviews and introduce some of the new erotic books for April 2021. First, we start off with a chapter from the Erotic Diary of Scarlett. Not quite feeling the night out; Scarlett ends up at Ryan's for a late-night drink. Was that a good idea? We Mention two Erotic blogs to look out for.. www.Thewomenofpassions.com by Natalie Hothorne & www.JuneLemmon.com by June Lemmon We Interview Erotic writer Tiny Sparks about her work and the BDSM lifestyle. You can buy her work here.. https://www.amazon.com/Tiny-Sparks/e/B08PD11XT5 We introduce the Erotic Book Review Dakota talks us through our three titles with the help of Sam and our featured guest Tiny Sparks. You can source these titles here.. Arctic Blast: A Sexy BWWM Older Man/Younger Woman Snowed-In Encounter By Joi Miché ttps://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Blast-Younger-Snowed-Encounter-ebook/dp/B08Y5T3GHQ/ Tales of Femdom From the Compound: Collection 1 By Alexis Atreides https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Femdom-Compound-Collection-1-ebook/dp/B08Y5TDG6Y/ Summoning Her Lust: The Naughty Witch By Sammy Hain https://www.amazon.com/Summoning-Her-Lust-Naughty-Witch-ebook/dp/B07W72CSB2/ We then introduce New Erotica titles for April 2021 A Decade of Desire: Erotic Tales from the Charlie Doyle Diaries https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0919Y73TB/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 Harold's Hotwife Birthday https://www.amazon.com/Harolds-Hotwife-Birthday-Lacey-Cross-ebook/dp/B091NSR16R Her Biggest Fan https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0922T4HMB Queen without Clothes and Other Steamy Stories https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B091M9V7YH Girls' Night Out: The Full Series https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091D224JW Bound by my Trainer: A Lesbian Bondage Erotica https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091MFY5KJ An Evening At Crystal Lake https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0925MZTL5 The Meerling Invasion: A Science Fiction Harem Adventure Novel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0919TZ13T Humiliation For The Cuckquean Wife: Forced to be a lesbian anal sex slave FFM https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091Q9HVG3 Get Cucked or Die Tryin': 3 Short & Nasty Hotwife Stories (Used: Trashy Tales of Erotic Humiliation) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B091FQ4WNX We close with a partial chapter from ‘The Erotic Diary Series' Liaisons. The reluctant socialite celebrity Elizabeth has donned a makeover and is now identifying as Alina. After being ditched at a club she meets a charming Frenchman by chance who is willing to push her boundaries in the sex department. Will our Anal virgin accommodate his request?

Host Luke Burbank and Elena Passarello describe their dream lives; comedian Ian Karmel (The Late Late Show with James Cordon) takes down the masculinity of men's grooming products; Al Letson, host of investigative radio show Reveal, revisits an uncomfortable encounter with a far-right protester; writer Caitlin Kunkel tells us what women really want in her book New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay; and singer-songwriter Laura Gibson performs "Tenderness" from her latest album Goners.

Dr. Timaree talks to Rachel Kramer Bussel, who has been called “arguably one of the most influential names in erotica,” and is an author, journalist, and editor of over 60 erotica anthologies. Her new book, “Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Vol. 5” is the latest of a well-loved series, and features notable contributors like … Continue reading →

Interviewed by BraveMaker correspondent IRVING RUAN (listen to his BraveMaker interview ep 20) https://twitter.com/irvingruan https://www.instagram.com/irvingruan/ Caitlin Kunkel is a writer and satirist. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, among others, and she's a co-founder of the Satire and Humor Festival as well as The Belladonna Comedy. Along with the other Belladonna editors, in 2018 she published the gift book, "New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay." She created the online satire program for The Second City and teaches and gives talks around the world. Caitlin's Website: www.caitlinkunkel.com Satire and Humor Festival: www.satireandhumor.com The Belladonna Comedy Publication: www.thebelladonnacomedy.com New Erotica for Feminists: www.neweroticaforfeminists.com The Second City - Writing Satire for the Internet: www.secondcity.com/classes/chicago/online-writing-satire-for-the-internet-2020/ Class Instructors: Riane Konc: www.rianekonc.com Brooke Preston: www.brookeprestoncomedy.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bravemaker/support

Harmony and Meryl talk to season two guest Carrie Wittmer about Hollywood Homecoming, the seventh episode of season 3 of GLOW! Carrie (@carriesnotscary) is a freelance entertainment journalist and comedy writer whose work can be found in Vulture, Harper’s Bazaar, Consequence of Sound, McSweeneys and The New Yorker. She is also a co-author of New Erotica for Feminists, available wherever books are sold!  Find Harmony at @harmonopoly and Meryl at @MerylWilliams on Twitter. #HeadOverHeelsPod Theme song: "Head Over Heels," Tears for Fears

All These Beautiful Strangers, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, The Temptation of Grace, New Erotica for Feminist, and The Silence of the Lambs but not necessarily in that order. You’ll have to listen to figure out the order. Enjoy! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/litchicks/message

Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello dispute the importance of their dream lives; satirist Caitlin Kunkel shares her favorite jokes from her new book, "New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay;" comedian Ian Karmel takes down the masculinity of men's grooming products; radio host Al Letson revisits an uncomfortable conversation with a far-right vlogger whose life he saved; and singer-songwriter Laura Gibson performs "Tenderness."

That’s it: it’s our season finale—and our last episode of No You Go, ever. Really. But don’t worry, we’re not quitting the podcast game. We’re coming back January 10—with a new name that, well, we’re really feelin’. In this episode: we ask each other tough questions about our first year as podcasters—like what was great (spending time together! Learning new skills!), what was hard (uhhhhh long answer), and what we’d suggest to anyone looking to start a new jam. The highlights: How to celebrate a milestone while in the middle of some major burnout What to do when you end an interview and realize there’s no audio Why we wish we’d made friends with other podcasters a lot sooner (and what you can learn from our mistakes) Plus, we reveal our brand-new name: Strong Feelings—and talk about why we decided to rebrand the show. There’s so much great stuff we want to dig into next season on Strong Feelings, like unfucking your work life, trading #selfcare for true self love, facing our own bullshit so that we can be better feminists and activists, and what the power of female friendship can really do. OH! And we want to hear from you, too! If you have strong feelings about something, we set up a hotline for you to share them. Leave us a voicemail at (267) 225–5923. > Strength and emotions are often seen as being at odds with each other, and something that I really think we do on the show—and that I want to do on the show—is demonstrate that having feelings and talking about those feelings is strong. That’s a strong thing to do. > —Sara Thanks for listening to NYG this year, and we hope you’ll join us next year for Strong Feelings. New episodes start January 10! If you’re already subscribed to the show, no sweat—NYG will simply become Strong Feelings in your podcast app in a few days. We’ll also be moving our site over to strongfeelings.co later this week, and updating all our social, too. And while you wait for new episodes, definitely sign up for I Love That, our biweekly newsletter—next edition comes this Friday! Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Harvest, makers of awesome software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. Try it free, then  use code NOYOUGO to get 50% off  your first paid month. Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers for more. Transcript Sara Wachter-Boettcher Shout out to Harvest, our awesome sponsor once again. Harvest makes time tracking and project planning software for freelancers, tiny teams, huge corporations, and everyone in between—even me! Check them out at getharvest.com, and when you upgrade to a paid account, use code “noyougo” to get 50 percent off your first month. That’s getharvest.com, code “no you go.” [intro music plays for 12 seconds] Katel LeDû Hey everyone. I’m Katel. SWB And I’m Sara! KL And you’re listening to the season finale of No, You Go— SWB —the show about building satisfying careers and businesses, KL —getting free of toxic bullshit, SWB —and living your best feminist life at work! And speaking of best lives, Katel, welcome to our last 2018 show! How are you feeling? KL So, I seriously cannot believe that it’s been a year and I’m really excited about next season and next year…but…I have not been doing super great—just in the last week or so—and I’m feeling a lot of feelings about that. SWB Okay, so before we celebrate, [laughs] I think we have to talk about that. [KL laughs] KL Yeah, so I was really kind of struggling last week and trying to keep on top of everything and just feeling like I wasn’t doing a great job at anything. I wasn’t doing anything well or right and I was also beating myself up over it, which felt even worse. And over the weekend, I pretty much spent all day Sunday crying. SWB Oh, no! [KL laughs] I’m so sorry, Katel! [KL sighs] KL So, I mean it felt good because I’m a person who likes to cry and that actually feels good because it’s a big release for me. SWB Ughh same. I totally love to cry. [KL laughs] I do cry a lot. I definitely cry a few times a week. KL Yeah, totally. But it also felt terrible because I kept thinking about how excited I should be and how ready I should feel about wrapping up this season and heading into everything we’re doing next and next year. And honestly, I sat down to write some notes for today’s show and all I wrote was that I feel burned out and I don’t know what to do about it. And then I just was like, “okay, what is my plan here?” I do know what to do next in these moments, but I have to take those steps. So, I’ve gotta talk to my people. I got to talk to my partner and my therapist and you. And I knew I just needed to say some of those words out loud. SWB And I’m so glad that you did because I really want to know how you are and it’s A) because I care about you and I care about how you feel—I want you to feel good. And B) if things aren’t working for the show, then we have to pause and talk about it, even when that’s weird or hard. If we don’t talk about it, how are we going to have the show be meaningful and relatable and real? It’s going to start feeling fake— [2:46] KL Yeah. SWB —and obviously we don’t want that. KL No. SWB And also, something I think about a lot is that it takes a lot to put together this show—we spent a lot of time on it. And so, it’s way too much time, [KL laughs] if it’s not going to be real, right? KL Right. SWB It feels like we need to get through that kind of stuff honestly, otherwise it’s not worth it to invest this time—and obviously, I want it to be worth it. So, I’m really glad you told me. KL Yeah, and I think that is part of my plan is just connecting with people—letting people know that I’m struggling. I know that if I tell Jon, my partner, he will block for me. And I know that if I tell you, you’re going to block for me too in whatever way that is most helpful. And I know that if I go and talk to my therapist, she’s going to be there for me. She’s going to say, “that sucks” and she’s also going to give me some tools to help me get through whatever I’m dealing with. And she knows pretty much everything that’s happening with me, so she asks me to think about my optimal self. When I think about who that person is, what does she need? And to think about what that person needs and what am I missing right now? So, that really helped me just kind of think about what I’m missing and what I need to prioritize and one of those things is space and downtime. SWB Yes, I think that we all need down time, obviously, but it’s always hard to actually consistently do for yourself. And then the other thing that I was thinking about as you were talking about feeling burned out and you weren’t doing great at everything…I think something that’s been extra stressful for me the last few weeks at least—and I suspect maybe for you too—is that we have been working on all of this kind of side planning for what we want to do next year. We’re going to have a big reveal later in the show. And so I feel like I’ve been kind of carrying around a lot of that with me, both the extra work of planning for it, as well as just kind of not talking about it. And so I’m hoping that when we talk about on this show, that means we won’t have to hold on to it anymore. KL Yeah, I feel exactly the same way. It’s been very exciting [KL laughs] and very stressful. So, I can’t wait to just talk about it. SWB Before we get to that though, first we want to talk a little bit more about the year that is about to end, so things we learned—which was a lot of things personally that I learned—and also what that means for what we want to do next and where we want to grow. So, is there something that you just can’t stop thinking about that you heard a guest say this year? [5:06] KL Yeah. When I sort of started to think about this, I thought back to one of our very early episodes with Eileen Webb when she said why should only work get my best brain? And that has been stuck in my brain ever since that episode. And I think we talked about it a little bit on the show—we kind of recapped it—and I think it’s something that has come up a lot and we’ve sort of come back to a bunch of times. So, I love that something so early on has kind of carried its way through. SWB Yeah, I don’t think we’ve explicitly brought it back up, but I feel like it’s been lurking there in the back of my head. And you’re totally right, and it’s such a good concept, so thank you, Eileen. [KL laughs] KL Yeah. Alright so, Sara, what was harder than you thought it would be? SWB Oh my gosh. [KL laughs] You know what was really hard for me? Feeling like an amateur. [KL sighs] KL Yeah, I get that. SWB I don’t think I had done something that made me feel so out of my depth for a while. And that’s probably good for me! Like when I took that pottery class a couple of years ago, [KL laughs] and I was really bad at it. I think that was good for me to be bad at it and to just enjoy doing it anyway—enjoy doing it without feeling successful at it. I think that was good. But the difference is that like in this particular circumstance, I am doing something that I came in with no experience in and I’m doing it really publicly. And so it’s not like my pottery class where I’m like, “okay, I made some shitty pottery [KL laughs] and I can keep that to myself.” [SWB laughs] KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB It’s like I made some shitty pottery and now I’m going to, what? Sell it to the world at this art fair? KL Yeah. I’m going to publish it. SWB Right? And so I don’t think our podcast is shitty, don’t get me wrong. But I do think that we’re doing something that we hadn’t done before and that was tough. And I feel like over and over again, I was reminded of how I was an amateur. If you remember very early on we were interviewing Alisha Ramos, the founder of Girls Night In? KL Mhm. SWB Okay, so we hadn’t quite figured out at that time that in order to do that interview, we had multiple people signed into our recording service Zencastr that does separate tracks for each party. And that if you do that, you can’t all be in the same room because you will get your voice coming in over the airwaves, as well as the voice in the room, and it’s so disorienting. KL Yeah. SWB So, remember that Jenn was leading the interview, so we left her [KL laughs] in the office space [KL laughs] where she was recording and we moved to a couch on a different floor and huddled over a laptop— [7:38] KL Yeah. SWB —and I remember just feeling so out of it. KL Yeah, and then even you and I on that couch were sharing headphones. [laughs] So, it was just super awkward and we were like “is this right?” [laughs] SWB And so, okay, that was when we weren’t consistently figuring out where we were going to record and how we are going to record. And I remember thinking, “well, I won’t make that mistake again,” [KL laughs] which is great—okay, fine, we learned something. KL Yeah. SWB However, I felt like very week we were making new mistakes. [laughs] KL [laughing] Yes. SWB Every week we’d stumbled upon something we hadn’t done before and that was hard. And I had a hard time balancing the idea that on the one hand, you got to learn somehow and you can’t learn unless you do it, with the idea that we wanted to make something that was good enough that people would want to subscribe to it and that it would be important to people and valuable to people. KL Mhm. SWB And so how do we make something that’s as good as a podcast we love without the experience [laughing] of the podcasters we love? KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB I feel like finding that balance and finding a place where I was both putting in enough time and energy to get better at it and try to make sure that the product was good, but without beating myself up that it was not perfect—which it wasn’t, sorry everyone. KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB Okay, Katel, I have one for you. KL Okay. SWB Is there anything that you learned from a guest this year that you feel like changed the way you look at your work or the way you look at running the show? KL You know, when we talked to—just recently—the authors of New Erotica for Feminists, I really loved hearing how they collaborate and how they support each other and have each other’s backs. And we heard that they can legit break down in front of each other and they know that that’s not going to change anything. If anything, they’re going to just rally around each other and figure out how to make it work. I think when we asked them about how they work together—when you asked that question, you kind of expect them to be like, “oh, we have these stumbling blocks, we have these challenges”—and I’m sure that they did—but they were like, no, we work really well together and that’s why this is fun. And that’s why we made something we really love and we’re really proud of. So, I loved hearing such a positive story about that and I think it just made me think about and reflect on our relationship and how well we work together. And that’s made things feel good and easy, even in the face of [laughs] some of the things we didn’t feel like we were so good at. [10:01] SWB Yeah, and I think hearing from them, I really heard the trust that they had for each other. And I think that that’s valued in comedy writing that if you’re going to work with comedy writing partners, you have to be able to give each other hard feedback if the comedy is not working. And that if you’re going to collaborate on jokes, then there’s a lot of riffing off each others ideas until you figure out something good. And that bringing that spirit into their work meant that they had that collaboration because they trusted that if somebody was like, “hey, I wasn’t really meaning to go there“— like, ”eeegh, I don’t think this is working”—that that’s okay and right to say and that’s not mean or tearing other people down. It is all in the spirit of making it better. And so I like to think about that trust that they had for each other and think about, you know, the kind of trust that we need to bring to our relationship and the kind of trust that I’ve had in the best working relationships I’ve ever had. KL Okay, so I’ve got a question for you. What’s something that you think went horribly wrong? SWB Uhhh! [KL laughs] I don’t think talk about all the negative stuff, but I will. [KL laughs] Okay, so related actually to feeling amateurish—when we had recording issues, that was really tough for me. KL Yeah. SWB And we had a little bit of a spate of them this summer and fall. And what was especially tough about that is that I felt like we had hit our stride and I was like, “I thought we were past this!” [KL laughs] And then a few things happened where I was just like, “oh, no.” One of them was the time we were trying to record with Cindy Gallop. So, Cindy is a pro. She has done a lot of interviews and she’s so sure of her messages, right? And when we got her on the line to record, we were having some trouble with Zencastr. And it’s a little bit like a Google Hangout—everybody gets onto this line, but everybody is also on their own separate line for the recording. It’s pretty cool. Except that the VoIP—so like the internet connection—screwed up like three different times and we had to stop the recording and restart it, which I felt so silly about, and then eventually we actually switched to using my conference line to record, [KL laughs] which was like a whole, “okay, now we’re going to need you to do this instead.” And, of course, that has some other issues with it like you can’t record on separate tracks, so voices get on top of each other. Anyway, through all of this, Cindy was a pro, but I remember just feeling like, “she must think we are a mess.” [KL laughs] It was kind of traumatic! [12:17] KL I know. It felt very dire in the moment [laughs] because we were just like, “oh my gosh, are we gonna get through this?” [laughs] SWB I know. And I felt so out of control— KL Yeah. SWB And that’s one of the the things that’s hard about when you have a technical issue is that it makes you feel out of control and I of course hate that. KL And it eats up time, which just feels like it adds to that pressure. SWB Yeah! And especially because I really value the time that our guests give us— KL Yeah. SWB —and I don’t want to go over the amount of time we’ve blocked. We try to be careful about blocking enough time. I think we learned a little bit about that early on. But I feel nervous as soon as we start having problems that are making us eat into that hour that they’ve given to spend with us. KL Yeah. SWB And then remember after? Okay after Cindy— KL Ughh. Yeah. SWB —then, if you remember, we had Keah Brown on the show, who was completely wonderful— KL Amazing. SWB —but what you don’t know if you weren’t here for the recording, [both laughs] is that when we first tried to record with her, she was having all of these mic connection issues or Zencastr wasn’t identifying her mic or whatever. It went round and round, we spent a long time on it, and she was so great through all of it. But finally it seemed like we got it worked out, Zencastr was like, “yep, we hear the mic.” When we started recording, it was showing little sound waves for her voice. And then we listen to the recording later… KL Ughhhh SWB It was nothing but static! [KL makes a horrified noise] 45 minutes of static. KL That is—that still makes me cringe. [laughs] SWB Thankfully, Keah is amazing and she was like, “let’s redo the interview.” KL Yeah… SWB And so we just redid it and, of course, she was awesome again. She might have been even better the second time. KL I know. SWB So I try not to think about what little gems she happened to say the first time that we are missing now because the interview is great and she’s great. But those things are a really good way to erode your confidence. And I started looking into more of this, the deeper we got in. The only real way to a 100 percent prevent this stuff it seems is if you’re booking studio space and everybody’s going into a studio. And sadly we’re not quite there yet. And also you need to have guests who are willing to take that extra time to go into a studio— KL Yeah. [14:18] SWB —which is also, you know, kind of a lot of burden for them. And so we’ve talked to a few people about what they do and there’s lots of different things that people have suggested. We’ve heard from people who actually mail their guests high-quality mics and then expect them to mail them back and hopefully they usually do. We’ve talked people who use other kinds of services. But the biggest thing we heard was that we’re not alone in having these kinds of issues and that sometimes sound quality sucks. And sometimes you have flubs and it’s hard to get rid of and, you know, we’re not on a mega budget—we’re not Serial—[KL laughs] we’re doing what we can here I think something that I’ve realized is that when you have a tech issue with a guest, it can kind of go one of two ways. Either it can be really alienating for the guest where they’re like, “what’s going on” or it feels like they’re having their time wasted, or it can be a way to kind of take the wall down and be like, “oh, we’re all in this together,” you know? KL Yeah, exactly. You can kind of build up a little bit of a rapport because you’re like “uhhh this is terrible but we’re gonna we’re gonna figure it out.” SWB Yeah. And so, you know, some of that depends on the guest, but I’m thinking about what can I do when there is a tech issue to create more of that space for it to be something that we get through together and not something that makes them feel alienated. So, I’m hopefully going to get better at that and not feel so fucking awkward [both laughs] whenever there’s a tech issue. KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB So, Katel, I do have another question for you. KL All right, hit me. SWB What’s something that was really surprising to you about doing the show? KL Well, I think back to the very first few episodes that we did when we were still figuring out how we were going to have the show produced. And we decided okay, we’re going to we’re going to work with someone to do that and also get transcriptions done. But you and I spent some time doing the transcriptions at first. SWB Super fun. [KL laughs] KL Super, super fun! SWB Much love to people who do transcription regularly. KL Absolutely. And I just remember thinking this is really uncomfortable for me to listen to my own voice this much and I thought like, “this is either going to make me feel really anxious about moving forward and kind of getting over some of my own hang ups I have about listening to my own voice or it’s going to be really good.” And what I found is that it didn’t take me very long to get used to hearing my own voice and I feel really good about that. Now I think just something about knowing that I was going to have to listen to my voice made me think, “this is my voice and that’s what it sounds like and all I can do—and all I want to do—is get better at telling stories and articulating the things I want to say.” And, I mean, the other hard part of that was how hard it is to articulate some of the things that I want to say and some of the stories that I want to tell. So, I think just having it recorded added a little bit of pressure there. So, it was surprising. [17:14] SWB Listening to your own voice is tough— KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB —but I like your voice. KL Well, I like yours. [laughs] SWB Thank you. I feel totally numb to it now because I’ve listened to it so much. KL Yeah. SWB So I’m just like, “literally whatever.” KL Yeah. SWB Watching myself on video, I still find more challenging. KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB I’ve done it. I recommend it for anybody who wants to get over some of their self shame issues. Once you can make yourself numb-er to that [KL laughs] I feel like a lot of stuff gets better, but it’s not easy. KL Yeah. Alright. So, even though we didn’t always feel like pros along the way, we did learn a lot of stuff. What advice would you give to someone trying to start a podcast? SWB Find a community. KL Mhmm. SWB That is something that I don’t think we thought enough about or did enough for until later in the game than I want to admit. I think we got pretty heads down working on the show. And also, you know, I definitely felt like I had a strong community in some of the other parts of my professional life. I had all these women that I would turn to who worked in my field, but it didn’t occur to me that I didn’t really have other people to turn to who did podcasting and who wanted to talk about that. It wasn’t until we went to Werk It that I felt like I sort of saw what I was missing, [laughs] which was this community of women podcasters who were sharing ideas and sharing stories and experiences and were really generous with each other. And [laughing] that was 11 months in. KL [laughing] Yeah. Well. [SWB laughs] SWB So, we’re still building on that whole community thing. So, if you are starting to think about doing something—a podcast or any kind of side thing—I would say definitely find some of that community earlier than we did because I really think that that kind of support would have been really valuable to us. And it’s going to be valuable now. I know that we are following up on so many conversations from people we met there and already it feels really different. KL Mhm. SWB And I think particularly because podcasting is pretty male-dominated still. KL Yeah. SWB And so, I mean I listen to podcasts I have men on them. [laughs] I enjoy certain men in my life, but I feel like being a woman in podcasting, some of the stakes are different, some of my interests are different, and there’s also just not enough of us, and so finding that community I think has been hugely valuable. So, whatever it is that you want to do—it doesn’t matter if it’s podcasting or not—I think don’t skimp on finding community is definitely advice that I will be taking in the future and you may like to. [19:34] KL Yeah. I think that’s great advice. SWB What about you? Do you have any advice? KL I think give yourself a little room to stumble and know that that happens and it’s okay and you might have to [laughs] redo something here and there. Also just tapping into your networks and not forgetting that those folks are there and that the people who support you are going to support you in this new thing. You don’t get support unless you ask for it and tell people what you’re doing. SWB Yes, definitely. I think talking more with people about what we’re doing is so important and it’s definitely what I was really getting out of that whole community thing too. KL Yeah. SWB Okay, so last question. What do you most want to improve next year? KL So, I definitely want to develop the way that I tell stories and just how I share the things that I want to share. And I want to chip away at my fear of public speaking and this has been like such a huge step in that direction. And I know that I’m not in front of a crowd, but you know what I’m saying. And you have certainly helped me to do that. I think I loved doing our live event, so I would love to do more of that, and just do this a little bit more in front of people and just develop—develop the show a little bit more. SWB So, I think that really dovetails with what I want to improve next year— KL Yeah? SWB —because I also want to do more joining of groups and attending events and doing live shows. And I think part of it for me is even evolving how I think about the show and sort of where it sits in my life. So, when we started this I kind of thought it would be like, “oh it’s a side thing, it’s going to take me a few hours a week.” And I mean, maybe I thought it was going to be more than a few hours a week, but I very much thought of it as something that was kind of a smaller thing over here. What I’ve realized over the course of this year is a couple things. One is that it takes a lot of time to do a good job. It takes a lot of time to grow and evolve. It takes a lot of time to work on the stuff that’s hard like marketing and promoting it or finding sponsors. All of that stuff is time consuming. And I’ve also really love doing the show. KL Yeah. SWB And so I think I need to be honest about like, “okay, this is going to be a substantial part of my life and this is not some little side gig, but it is actually a meaningful place in my professional world and it deserves care and feeding and nurturing.” Also though, it maybe needs to make more money, so I can get more time. [both laugh] [21:52] KL I was gonna say, “aww, I love that, that’s so…thats so beautiful”— [laughs] SWB [laughing] It was so beautiful until I said it needs to make more money? [laughs] KL No, no. That is also beautiful, I agree! [laughs] SWB Well, I am so hyped to be getting into next year and I cannot wait to tell everybody what next year is going to look like! [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] Career Talk with Shopify SWB Hey, it’s Sara ducking in for a quick break to talk about careers with our friends at Shopify. This week, they want us to tell you all about a couple job they’re super excited about. So, the first one is being the UX Lead for their payments and balanced team. Okay, so what that means is that you would be leading a team of researchers, designers, front-end developers, and content strategists. And what you would be doing is trying to help make financial information simpler and more understandable for Shopify’s customers, so that entrepreneurs around the world aren’t bowled over by confusing jargon and they can actually, you know, understand how their money looks. Oh, and it’s based in Montreal, which is just lovely. And then the other job Shopify is really, really hoping to find some amazing candidates for is based in Ottawa, which I actually got to visit a year or two ago for the first time and it’s so pretty there. I even took a run around some river paths and ended up crossing from Ontario into Quebec on my jog, which is something you could do everyday if you live there. But about the job, okay. So, this is another UX Lead position and this time it’s for Shopify Home, which is the most prominent artificial intelligence product at Shopify. And so in this role, you’d be responsible for actually redesigning that, which seems like a pretty big deal. But you wouldn’t be doing it alone. You’d be working with peers in product management, engineering, and data science and you’d be working together to figure out strategy. And then you’d be leading a team. That team would have product designers, content strategists, and researchers on it to help bring that all to life. So, that’s it! Two amazing new roles open right now at Shopify. Get all the details on these and over a hundred other open positions at shopify.com/careers. That’s shopify.com/careers. [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] [23:49] Welcome to… Strong Feelings! SWB So, it is time! It’s time for the big news part of the show. This is not just the season finale of No, You Go. This is the last No, You Go show ever. KL Nooo! SWB Okay, don’t freak out because you actually know what’s happening. [both laugh] Okay, we are coming back in January, we are just switching things up a little bit when we do. So, as we talked about last week in our episode, our third co-host, Jenn, decided to leave the show. And after that happened, me and Katel were really unsure what we were going to do. And then we happened to be on this long weird car trip one day—if you read the newsletter, you may remember this. Katel had to be in court to support someone who was filing a protective order. And so the court date was 9am, two states away and I’d literally had knee surgery [KL laughs] four days before…this is a terrible math problem! KL [laughing] Yeah. SWB 9am, two states away, four days of knee surgery. [both laugh] So, I was like, Katel, you cannot drive this five hour round trip drive to go do this horrible task alone. [KL laughs] You just cannot do that. KL Yeah. Oh my gosh, we had to leave so early, I couldn’t even pick us up fancy coffee—I had to make it and bring it. But you were such a goddamn trooper and you coming with me made that really long day just so much more bearable. And something I think a lot about is that you are someone in my life who shows up. SWB I do try to be somebody who shows up. [KL laughs] That’s definitely something that’s important to me and I think a lot about how powerful it is to show up for someone else when they really need it. And sometimes when they’re not even asking for it and then they realize later that it really helped them. And so I’m really glad that I did because I will say that on the way back from that trip—we’d gone to court and this whole thing and there was just so much emotional exhaustion in the car on the way back. KL Yeah. SWB And there was just so much going on. And I was really glad I was there because we could kind of decompress and you could process stuff out loud. We could talk about it. But also it was like the eighth hour [KL laughs] of the stressful fucking day that started at 5:30 in the morning. And so one of the things that came out of that totally exhausted state was, maybe we should change the name of the show and let No, You Go be something we did with Jenn and sort of have a fresh start with just us. KL Yeah, totally. I remember sort of starting that conversation by asking, “okay, what if we change the name? What what could it be? What direction would we even go in?” SWB Yeah, that was really helpful for me because at first I was actually a little nervous about changing the name because it felt like, “oh my god, that’s so much work,” or are we just creating more problems for ourselves? KL [laughing] Right. SWB But when you were like, “well, what if?” it allowed me to think about ideas without feeling like this was something we had to do or feeling like there was pressure. KL Right, exactly. And I definitely hadn’t considered it that much until then and then when we were in the car together, we thought, okay, let’s spend some some of this ride home brainstorming and if we come up with something that we love, we’ll figure out what to do next with it. SWB So, we did come up with something that we love, but before we tell you what that is, Katel, do you remember any of the names that we came up with that we did not go with? [26:54] KL Oh my gosh, I don’t! SWB Well, you were driving. KL [laughing] Yeah exactly! SWB Its okay, I have some notes. Let me let me share some notes with you. KL [laughing] Oh gosh, oh gosh. SWB So, the first one. Definitely a pass…which was, “In It Together.” [KL laughs] I mean…yeah! KL I mean yes, accurate! SWB But it’s a little too on the nose. KL [laughing] Yes. SWB I have no actual recollection of talking about this, [KL laughs] I was a little surprised to see this in my notes. KL [laughing] Oh gosh. SWB It must have been one of those things we wrote down going like, “this is bad.” KL Yeah. SWB “Talk It Out.” KL Oh hmm. Yeah, that’s like, you know, Saved by the Bell era. [laughs] SWB It’s a Saved by the Bell era local daytime TV show— KL [laughing] Yes. SWB —where your local celebrities get on to “Talk It Out” about the issues of the day. KL Or it’s like the Saved by the Bell school radio show. [both laugh] SWB Okay, pass! [both laugh] Okay, another one I don’t remember at all…“Sure Thing.” [KL laughs] KL Oh my god. SWB I don’t know! KL That sounds…problematic, I think. [both laugh] SWB Okay, there was some better stuff too. Okay, so here’s one. It wasn’t quite right, but I really loved the idea and I still love the idea because I think it’s definitely us: “Make Trouble.” KL Mmm! Yeah, I do remember that now that you say it and I liked it too. SWB Okay, and that one led to one that I actually still do kind of love. I would listen to a podcast that was named this—“Big Trouble.” KL Ooh, yeah. I like that too. SWB I mean, “Big Trouble”! I’d listen to a show called “Big Trouble.” KL Yeah, absolutely. SWB But that’s not what we’re calling the show because at some point we were in the car, we were kind of bouncing things back and forth and I said something like, “I have strong feelings about this.” And I remember just sort of pausing and being like, “wait… ‘Strong Feelings?’ [KL laughs]—is that…is that a name?” [KL laughs] KL Yes, and I think we even said it out loud over and over like a dozen times just to kind of, you know, get a feel for it. And then I feel like it clicked and I love that there was this very literal duality in the words. Like, “strong” and “feelings,” but also we have strong feelings about a lot of things. [29:02] SWB Yeah, I do. [KL laughs] I think that strength and emotions are often seen as being at odds with each other and something that I really think we do on the show—and that I want to do on the show, is demonstrate that having feelings and talking about those feelings is strong. That’s a strong thing to do. And so I feel like it was a big moment to have that click into place. And if you remember, we were still in the car and I actually pulled out my laptop—again, Katel was driving—I pulled out my laptop and I started making the shittiest little mockup of a show tile that had our faces on it and “Strong Feelings” in big, bold type and it was not at all right. It was not at all the cover art that we are going to release later this week. KL No. SWB But I remember looking at it and being like, “oh my God.” And you were like, “yes!” And so we sat on this name for a few days and we ran it by some friends and people that we trusted and we just sort of thought through how much work is it really going to be to change things. Spoiler: kind of a lot. [KL laughs] But we were so hyped about it still that here we are! Katel, we are “Strong Feelings”! KL Ahh I’m so excited. It’s so exciting to just share this with all of you. And yeah, this is awesome. And it feels like a lot is changing—or maybe that’s just us—but I’m really excited that even though we have a new name and a new look, were not changing too much about the show, it’s just evolving, like we are! And we’re still going to interview an amazing guest on each episode, we’re still fired up by our Fuck Yeahs—and mostly we’re going to be just digging in deeper on things like unfucking our work lives. And we get a lot of mail about this—even just in our listener survey we launched last week—we’ve had people ask us about how to be ambitious without beating yourself up all the time. And that is definitely part of unfucking your work life and your career, for sure. And just finding the stuff that you want, and finding joy in pursuing it, and not buying into all the really toxic bullshit out there that just gets in our way. And I think actually our January season premiere guest will get into some of that. SWB Yes! And then I also want to talk about some work stuff that’s often not in conversations for quote unquote professional women. Like, for example, sex work. You know, we had Cindy Gallop on talking about sex tech and that was great. But specifically here what I mean is talking about sex work itself, like as a job people do to earn money. I think a lot about how activists in that space are always reiterating that sex work is work, which is very simple and it’s like, “sure it’s right there in the name.” But what that means, which is: sex work is labor. People deserve to be paid for their labor. They deserve to have a safe space. They deserve not to be exploited. And that we have so much in our culture that marginalizes sex workers and that is all about sort of indicting them on a personal level, as opposed to changing the systems that make so much of that work exploitive. And so if we’re going to have a conversation about work, and we’re going to try to have a feminist conversation about work, that we definitely need to make sure that our topics include sex work. So, I want to dig into some touchy subjects like that, some things that people maybe haven’t thought enough about, and that I hope that I can learn more about. [32:10] KL Yeah, absolutely, that we haven’t thought about. Another thing that I’m really excited to dig into more, are issues for parents and families. We have someone coming up to talk about family leave policy and we definitely want to hear more from moms and parents in general about what it’s like for them since we are not…parents or families. SWB Yes. Oh, and another thing I definitely want to do—I really want to keep talking about what it means to take care of ourselves, like take care of our fragile little brains and bodies. You know, what do we do when we’re burned out? What do we do when we cry all day on Sunday? KL [laughing Yeah. SWB I feel like 2018 was a year where the kind of hashtag self-care reached a fever pitch. Self-care was getting sold to me in almost every single place I turned. KL Ughh, yeah. SWB And it was like a zillion bath bombs and face masks. And don’t get me wrong, bath bombs and face masks are fine. KL Yes. SWB They’re pleasant. Look, I’m not shaming you for enjoying a bath. Take all the baths you want. But I do think that there’s been so much emphasis on sort of productizing self-care instead of talking about, how do you actually nurture and protect and nourish yourself in a world that is constantly trying to drag you down, or tell you that you’re not enough, or that your face or your body are bad and shameful in all of the different ways? And that’s also trying to tell you that you don’t deserve safety, or you don’t deserve rights, that we’re going to put a fucking sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court? KL [sighs] Yeah. SWB You know, how do we actually take care of ourselves in the face of that? And so I want to keep talking about, what do you do to find joy and to believe that you deserve to have that joy, in this world that is so often so fucked up? That’s what I want to talk about. KL Yeah. I think that’s so important because self care should be whatever you need it to be and it shouldn’t be like, “now you’re fucking up self-care” [both laugh] because it’s being sold to you. So, okay, we have a lot we’re thinking about, but we want to hear more. So, if you have strong feelings about something we actually set up a hotline for you to share them. Leave us a voicemail at (267) 225–5923. SWB Yes, please leave us voicemails—and we’ll put it in the recording too, but if you want to have your voicemail potentially shared on the show, you can let us know. If you want it to be anonymous and never shared, that’s totally fine. But we really want to hear from you, so we hope that that will be one other avenue that you can do that. And also look for our new look out later this week. So, we’ll have a new URL—that’s strongfeelings.co. We will try to make sure all of our redirects work correctly though, so if you forget, no worries. And if you’re already subscribed to No, You Go, don’t worry about that either because the name of the show is just going to update in your listening app. So, it’ll go to “Strong Feelings” and you don’t have to do anything to make sure you keep on getting the show. But it’s going to move to “Strong Feelings,” we’re going to change everything over. And it’s pretty exciting because me and Katel did a photoshoot [KL laughs] we got a new logo and maybe that’s only exciting to us, but I think we look pretty cute. [35:10] KL Yeah, we do. SWB So, welcome to “Strong Feelings,” and thank you so much for listening this year! [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] Fuck Yeah of the Week KL All right, so something that is absolutely still sticking around is our Fuck Yeah of the Week. And I think this time we’re going to talk about what are we most proud of from this year? SWB Oh, fuck yeah. [KL laughs] All right. I want to give a fuck yeah to something that might sound a little bit mundane at first. I want to give a fuck yeah to consistency. [KL laughs] KL I love it, tell me more. SWB Okay, it sounds boring. But given that we’ve never done anything like this before, given that it’s a lot of work, given that there was a lot of churn with what’s happening in our professional lives like travel and like I had this knee surgery, given that Jenn decided to leave the show during the year—there was just a lot going on. Given all of that, we got this show out weekly, pretty consistently on the schedule we had planned to from the beginning. We are going to end the year with 38 episodes of the show. KL Wow. SWB Yeah, and that’s pretty good. We started kind of late in January and we’re only going to mid-December. So, it’s like 11 months—38 episodes. That’s— KL That’s a lot. SWB Yeah, and I’m so proud of that. I’m super proud of that. And I’m also proud of just sort of feeling like we’re starting to hit a groove. We felt that at different points and then— KL Sure. SWB —got a little destabilized here and there. But nevertheless, I feel really proud of that work, I feel really proud of the consistency, and I feel like it’s really easy to start something with a lot of enthusiasm and then to sort of peter out as you go. But I keep finding new reasons to love what we’re doing and to get excited about what we’re doing and consistently finding new ways to improve and learn and grow. [KL laughs] There’s a lot of stuff I want to keep getting better at. So, I am so proud of that! I’m proud of sticking with it and I am proud that I feel like we have lined up a 2019 that’s going to be fucking great. KL Yeah, me too. I’m very excited about sharing all of that. That makes me think of what I’m proud of, and that is how well we work together. And I know we talked about that a lot, but it’s such a huge part of why we love doing the show and why we want to make it as good as we can. And I think just like finding an even deeper friendship through this other thing that we do together has been so cool because I think there is just always a lot of opportunities to get tripped up on little things in something like this and just lose sight of what’s important. And I’m just proud of how much I’ve grown through this, and how much I’ve learned, and how much our friendship has grown. [37:48] SWB I can’t lose sight of what’s important because I can literally see from here. [KL laughs] KL I mean, we can see each other’s eyeballs, that’s pretty much it. SWB Well, fuck yeah! What a year! What an accomplishment. And fuck yeah to everybody who’s been listening— KL Yeah. SWB —honestly, you all are so rad. We sent out a listener survey last week like we talked about earlier and we’ve been getting such amazing feedback. There are definitely some places we want to improve— KL Yeah. SWB —but we’ve also been hearing so many stories of people who have found what we’ve been doing helpful and valuable to them. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for listening. KL Thank you so much. SWB Thank you for letting us know. Thank you for sharing with your friends and hopefully thank you for sticking around for Strong Feelings! KL Yeah, definitely. Well, that’s it for this very last episode of No, You Go. NYG is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia and produced by Steph from EDITAUDIO. Our theme music is by The Diaphone. We’re taking a little holiday break, but we’ll be back as Strong Feelings starting January 10th. So, definitely keep listening and you will love what we have in store. In the meantime, make sure to sign up for our newsletter, I love that. It’s an every-other-Friday treat! See you again next year! [laughs] SWB Bye! KL [laughing] Bye! [music fades in, plays alone for 32 seconds, and fades out]

What if Tom Hardy drove up to your house to deliver loads of LaCroix and cash? That’s the premise of just one of the stories in New Erotica for Feminists, a book of “satirical fantasies of love, lust, and equal pay.” And we were lucky enough to talk to its authors! We got three out of the four—yes, four—authors on the line to talk about writing the book, how they collaborate with so many different schedules and voices in the mix, what it’s like to build a women-run comedy site on a shoestring, and why all of us could use a group of badass creative partners in our lives. > We all have a lot of rage at society…and this partnership helps us sort of channel it into a constructive way where it’s at least cathartic and we can feel like we’re helping other people laugh. I mean, that’s one of the things that came out of this book—we would love for it to change the world. It’s probably not going to do that, but at least it entertains people and makes them feel like they are not so alone. > —Fiona Taylor , co-author, New Erotica for Feminists Links on links on links Pick up New Erotica for Feminists pretty much everywhere Bookmark The Belladonna, our guests’ hilarious comedy site Follow the authors: Caitlin Kunkel, Brooke Preston, Carrie Wittmer, and Fiona Taylor Read the McSweeney’s piece that started it all Also on the agenda We talk about writing with coauthors: what works, what doesn’t, and how to make sure no one loses their shit in the process Katel talks about finding her own voice, distinct from her company’s Sara wonders if her freewheelin’ podcastin’ lifestyle is bad for business (and whether she cares) (Spoiler: her bank account cares) We say farewell to our co-host Jenn, who’s sadly not coming back to the show next season (but whose hilarious takes on balancing parenting and professional badassery we miss every day) Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers for more. Harvest, makers of awesome software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. Try it free, then use code NOYOUGO to get 50% off your first paid month. Transcript Sara Wachter-Boettcher Thanks to Harvest for supporting today’s show. Harvest makes project planning software that you can use for all kinds of crucial stuff like tracking time, managing deadlines, and my personal favorite—getting paid. They’ve even got all kinds of reports you can run to gain insight and shine a light on the health of your projects. Try it free at getharvest.com and when you upgrade to a paid account, make sure you use the code “noyougo” for fifty percent off your first paid month. That’s getharvest.com, offer code “noyougo.” [intro music plays for 12 seconds] SWB Hey everyone, I’m Sara! Katel LeDû And I’m Katel. SWB And you’re listening to No, You Go, the show about building satisfying careers and businesses KL getting free of toxic bullshit SWB and living your best, feminist life at work. KL Today we are talking to Brooke Preston, Carrie Wittmer, and Fiona Taylor, three of the four—yes, four—authors of New Erotica for Feminists, a collection of “Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay.” It came out last month, after the authors wrote a post of the same name on McSweeney’s earlier this year. We talk with them about the book, why they wrote it, and what it was like to collaborate with four co-authors, as well as how they all came to be writing partners, and what it’s like to write satirical erotica—or erotic satire??—about women getting promotions and men doing housework. It was awesome. SWB Yes, it was a super fun interview to do, but I actually want to start with something a little bit serious—creative collaboration! It’s such a big theme for us, I feel like it comes back around to that over and over again. And obviously, that’s important for me and you, but also it got me thinking about cowriting. I also co-authored a book with Eric Meyer, it’s called Design for Real Life, you may have heard of it. KL Uh, yeah I have. And I remember when you came to us, that’s actually the first and only book so far that we’ve published by two authors at A Book Apart. And when you pitched it, I was kind of not worried, but—and less worried that it would be hard for us to publish, but more about what the process was going to be like because I’d never done that with two authors and I wasn’t sure if you all had an approach or how you would do it. And I don’t think I ever really asked you about how that went. What was it like? SWB You know, you’re asking a little late. The book’s already been out for like [KL laughs] two years! [laughs] KL I know! [laughing] I’m like, “by the way…” SWB Okay! So, at first, I had this moment where I thought that maybe it would be easier than writing a book by myself because I’d actually just written my first book alone before that. And, you know, I thought it’s fewer words per person, right? KL [laughing] Yeah. That totally sounds like good math. SWB Yeah. [laughs] It wasn’t really easier. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. This is not negative in any way, it just wasn’t for me. And I think Eric would probably agree, it wasn’t necessarily an easier process than writing alone because me and Eric, we had never worked together before. So, we didn’t really have a shared history or a shared voice. It wasn’t like this came out of all these other projects, it came out of just sort of—we had some overlapping interests and we had recently become very driven to help designers sort of understand how their work could impact people or hurt people. And so we came at it with a lot of shared passion and sort of some shared values, but we just—we didn’t have a body of work or a history together to build on. So, it was like starting from scratch in a lot of ways. And I think one of the things that we tried to do was just communicate really clearly and really kind of concretely about who was doing what and how we wanted to do things. And it’s not like every decision we made at the beginning about how to break up the work stuck, things morphed over time. But I think it sort of set us up to talk to each other about it and not make assumptions about it, which was good. KL Yeah. And I can imagine. I mean, you’re two different people and it’s two different perspectives, and even though you’re both really great writers, I just want to say that at least from my perspective, it felt very smooth. And I think you’re a natural lead taker on projects, so I’m sure it helped having someone sort of steering the ship. Were your conversations with Eric productive? SWB Yeah, I think that one of the things you mentioned that it felt very smooth, I think one of the reasons it felt very smooth was that we talked a lot about how to fit things together. And, like you said, we’re both strong writers, but I think my experience is a little bit more editorial, meaning I have a lot more experience editing other people’s work. And so, for me, it would be painfully obvious where he had written something and where I had written something. And so for me— KL [laughing] Right. SWB —I spent more of that time smoothing things out before you ever saw it. KL Right. SWB And I worried a little bit—I was nervous about doing too much of it because I didn’t want to make him feel like I was changing all of his stuff or his voice, but I think that we had a good conversation about that. And fundamentally, he trusted me from that perspective and also wasn’t precious about it. And I’m glad that we had that because it did allow me to take something I was already strong at—I’m quick at doing that kind of smoothing editorial from editing other people’s work for years, that it ended up feeling pretty good. I think it made me—I think, I hope—a better writer or a better partner in projects and it also I think just made me better or more confident in collaborating with people, which is good because now I collaborate with you all the time and I don’t know, I feel like it’s going okay. [laughs] [5:35] KL Uh, definitely. I think about this a lot over the years of running A Book Apart because everyone I work with is freelance. So, there’s a lot of collaboration that has to happen in all sorts of different degrees of intensity. Even though we’ve developed a network of editors, for example, I work mainly with Lisa Maria Martin, who is our managing editor. SWB I love Lisa Maria! You know, I have gotten to collaborate with her too. I think the first time was actually way back in 2012. KL Wow! SWB I knew she wanted to quit her job, and a project came up where I was putting together a team for it—it was a really big project—and I was like, “hey, if you are ready to get out of there, I can get you on to this project with me. It’ll go for three months.” She wanted to move and so the timing was perfect. The project was not perfect, [both laugh] but the timing was good and it was the right moment for me to be able to be like, “hey, I think you’d be a really great fit for this.” And from there we’ve gotten to be able to work together a bunch of different times. And it’s just awesome when you have somebody that you can kind of sync with and that you can really trust. And so I’m really glad that you get to work with her! KL I know, me too. And I love working with her. It’s funny because I think about sort of the trajectory of how we’ve built out processes and stuff. And for a long time, I thought having several editors working across projects was the best approach, but then working more and more closely with Lisa Maria, I realized that it was more effective to have a lead on everything and then bring others in as needed. And I think we both actually realized that. Plus I think we both really love having what we consider a quote on quote “real colleague” in our day to day ABA work. I mean, I know I do and I think it’s just been really important to both of us. But I don’t think I’ve collaborated with someone on a really big project in a long time. The podcast and the other work you and I are doing are definitely the biggest outside of my daily gig. And I’m going to say it, it’s been an incredible journey. You know how I like to talk about journeys. [laughing] I have learned so— SWB [laughing] I do, I do know this about you. [both laugh] KL [laughing] I am looking at my crystals on my windowsill. I have learned so much about myself. One thing I did not realize until we started doing more together was that I was really hungry for new challenges. And then we started the podcast and I was like, “wow, here are all these things I do not know how to do.” Like developing a good interview, or crafting articulate ways to tell the stories I want to tell. And I learned so much from you, you’ve helped me get a lot more comfortable with that articulation and you just really make me feel like I am capable of anything. SWB That’s so great to hear because I also—I feel like it’s been really exciting for me over the course of the past year to hear you sort of get more comfortable in interviews, get more comfortable in our conversations and open up more. We’ve talked about this. KL Yeah. SWB I came into this doing a lot of public speaking and it doesn’t mean I knew shit about podcasting [KL laughs] because I did not. I did not. But it did mean that I was a little bit more confident putting sentences together on the fly. KL Totally. SWB And that’s just something you have to get used to. And so, I don’t know, I feel like over the course of us working on this, I’ve been like, “oh my gosh, it’s so great to hear more of your voice shining through on things.” KL I love it. SWB Okay, so something else I’ve been thinking about after we did this interview was what do you do when you have a creative project or a side project or whatever it is, and it doesn’t necessarily align with the rest of your professional identity? So, I asked our interviewees about how this fits in with the jobs that they have because they have jobs in journalism or digital strategy. And I wondered, “are you ever worried about not being taken seriously in those spheres because you’re writing feminist erotica in this other sphere?” And I asked that question for me because [laughs] I’ve wondered about that for this show. We are really open here, I talk about a lot of personal stuff, we interview people who talk about periods and sex tech or just subjects that I think a lot of corporate culture is really uncomfortable with, right? Like talking about race and racism directly. And so I’ve worried and wondered and worried and wondered over and over again—what does that do to my consulting business? And, you know, it actually hasn’t [laughs] necessarily been great for it! KL [laughs] Yeah, I mean, it’s so interesting to hear you talk about that because I think my work is associated with A Book Apart as a company, it’s so different for me. I’m not selling myself directly in the way that you are. And I feel like I do have a certain amount of flexibility and sort of safety to branch out and expand my professional persona. And obviously, I also want to stay mindful of how I present myself on behalf of A Book Apart, but it’s so interesting to kind of look at those two things side by side. [10:15] SWB Yeah and I guess as I think about it and as I talk through it out loud, I think in my head I think, “oh, maybe this podcast is at odds with my consulting.” But I actually am not sure that’s what it is. It’s more maybe, I don’t know, I guess over the past year, I feel like I’ve invested a ton of time in getting this off the ground and really wanting to make it good. And that isn’t tied directly to my consulting and as a result of that, I haven’t done a lot of work to publicly talk about practical issues within design, content strategy, user experience. And I do still have opinions on that stuff, it’s not like I don’t. But I feel like I’ve been less interested in writing and speaking about it, except for talking about sort of bias and harm in tech culture, which isn’t really the kind of thing you get hired for as a consultant. KL Yeah. SWB So, I guess maybe it’s more that. It’s like, where am I spending my time and my focus and my energy? And then thinking, “well what is the right balance?” I might give a talk about something like bias and inclusion in tech products and that might be great for a conference, but do I need that to be able to turn into a longer-term project? Do I need to build clients out of that? Do I need to focus specifically on building that side of things? Or am I okay if people don’t call me as much? [KL laughs] Am I going to be okay with that? KL Yeah. SWB And what does that look like? And so I don’t know that I have the exact answer to that yet, but it’s something I’m really thinking about. And it’s funny, it’s been seven years that I’ve worked for myself and I think this is the very first time that I’ve felt a little bit like, not just that I’m making evolutionary change or iterative change, but more like, “oh, you might be reaching a crossroads.” KL [laughing] Oh my gosh, yes! I was just realizing that. I have been with A Book Apart for—it will be six years in March, which just—I can’t believe it. And it’s amazing and it really feels like a big accomplishment, but I also think about how that’s a long time and only in the last year have I really branched out and developed a bit more of myself that isn’t strictly associated with A Book Apart. SWB I think that’s awesome. I think six years is a long time and I think it is something to celebrate, but I think it’s also a huge thing to celebrate that in the past year, you have been like, “oh wait, I’m not just this business, I am also a person with an individual identity” and wanting to kind of tease that out a bit. And, I don’t know, maybe we’re at the crossroads together. Maybe we can do a remake of that Britney Spears movie. KL Uhh, you know I’m down for that. [both laugh] SWB So, okay. So as much as I want to resolve all of our career questions in the next ten minutes, I don’t think it’s going to happen. KL I mean, that would be great. [laughs] SWB But I will say this. I felt really inspired when I heard the New Erotica authors talk about how they worked together and how they think of their collaboration and how they trust each other because it’s—I don’t know, I feel like that’s more how we work together. KL Yeah, it totally is. SWB They’re funnier, but that’s okay [KL laughs] because it made me really confident that however things shake out and whatever it is that I decide to do with my life and however we decide to work together in the future, I guess I feel like you’re going to be at the center of all of it, which is great. [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] [13:21] Interview: the authors of New Erotica for Feminists KL Today’s show is real special because we’ve got multiple guests joining us. They are three of the four authors who wrote one of our new favorite books—I’m going to give it to all the feminists in my life for the holidays. It’s called New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust and Equal Pay and we are so very here for it. Brooke, Fiona, and Carrie, welcome to No, You Go. Carrie Wittmer Thank you for having us. KL So, your fourth co-author, Caitlin, couldn’t make it today, but we are really excited to talk with the four of you. How did you all start working together? CW So, we all met on the internet on Facebook about two—almost exactly two years ago. I was a member along with Caitlin, Brooke and Fiona of a private Facebook group for female comedy writers. And I was feeling very frustrated because I couldn’t get any of my work published. I didn’t feel like any of the sites that existed, while great, didn’t really fit my voice. And so one day I just posted, “hey, does anyone want to start a female satire site with me?” and Caitlin and Fiona responded, we started emailing. And Brooke and Caitlin knew each other because they did comedy together in Portland, Oregon. And so Caitlin added Brooke and for a couple of months, we just started planning a website that became The Belladonna Comedy. And so we literally met on Facebook. KL That’s so cool. And we definitely want to ask about The Belladonna a little later on, but since we are talking about the book, let’s dive into that. Tell us what it’s all about and how it came to be. Fiona Taylor So, one day we were on GChat and we were talking about our dream of having The Belladonna get a sponsorship from LaCroix sparkling water. And Brooke said, “I’m not really sure how sponsorships work, but I think Tom Hardy drives up to your house in a box truck full of LaCroix and cash and just [KL laughs] backs up to your garage and unloads it and plays with your rescue dog.” And we were like, “yeah, that sounds scientific.” [SWB & KL laugh] So, then I said, “well, actually, that sounds like porn for Brooklyn women.” And I think Caitlyn may have said, “oh, that’s a premise. Let’s throw that into a Google Doc and start going with it.” And of course, we all had ideas from there and it morphed into the McSweeney’s piece—“New Erotica for Feminists”—that quickly went viral once it was published. And about a week later, we got an email from a book editor in the UK saying, “do you want to write a book?” And we ended up writing the book in three months and then editing it in two, so it was on a really accelerated schedule. KL That’s incredible. So, you mentioned the McSweeney’s piece went viral. Was it weird to have an article become something much larger? [16:11] CW I think it was—I’m speaking for myself—for a comedy article to get that wild, for lack of a better word, was really new and shocking to me. For my full time job I’m a reporter at Business Insider, so I’m quite used to some pieces taking off and having a huge audience. But for my comedy, which is what I’m truly passionate about, I was like, “wait, people actually want to read this.” KL [laughing] Yeah. So, there are lots of things we love about the book and in the beginning, you note that you “intentionally removed many identifiers to allow a diverse array of readers to superimpose themselves onto the page.” I personally think this makes the book very sexy. Why was that so important to do that? Brooke Preston I think these were conversations we were having throughout the process. We wanted to be very aware of the fact that we happened to be four, white, straight, cis women and making sure that were were understanding our privilege there, but also that were were writing in a way that made every reader truly feel welcome. At first, we tried to write a lot of diverse vignettes and reps that were maybe about a woman in a headscarf or about not touching someone’s hair, but it didn’t feel right to speak as someone else’s experience that we didn’t live. And so we decided to kind of go the opposite direction with it and remove a lot of the identifiers unless we were talking about a specific famous person because then everyone can sort of superimpose themselves, as they do in real erotica, and become the sexy star and feel included. CW Yeah, I think another thing we wanted to do with the book was we were trying to kind of embrace good erotica because a lot of great writers have written good erotica. Most of it on the internet is bad, but there are some great writers who have written good erotica and the best erotica is not specific because it invites you to imagine yourself. I think I said at another talk a couple of days ago how erotica is more specific to women and more popular to women because they’re not seeing some guy rail a woman in a kind of gross, upsetting way. They’re imagining themselves, not seeing someone else do it. So, I think it was important to us to also stay true to the good erotica that we’ve seen. KL Yeah. Things start out super strong with the opening vignette and I will read it, if I may. [laughs] “The cop asks if I know why he pulled me over. ‘Because my taillight is out?’ ‘Yes ma’am, it’s not a huge deal, but it could be a potential safety issue. I’m happy to escort you to a busy and well-lit garage a few blocks up run entirely by female mechanics. I won’t give you a ticket if you can take care of it now.’ ‘That’s fair,’ I say, my eyes lingering over his clearly visible badge and identification.” So, [laughs] A) that’s hot. [FT laughs] B) I know this is satire, but legitimately it turns me on too, which makes me think about how sad I am that literal fairness, equality, and not being treated terribly is so scintillating. [laughs] Can you tell us more about how you explored the play between satire and erotica and maybe what kind of boundaries you came up against, if any? [19:26] FT I think one of the things that we discovered while we were writing this is we read our joke and we were like, “haha, that’s so funny.” And then we were like, “but is it really funny? Because that’s how the world should be.” And then there was sort of a mixture of sadness and rage in there as well. So, I think that’s what we tried to do with the satire is just sort of create—it’s funny, but it really shouldn’t be funny because this is really how the world should be. BP And our UK team, as part of the promotion of the book, created a “My Feminist Fantasy” hashtag and had readers kind of write their own vignettes about what their feminist fantasies would be. And it was—they were very funny and very good, but also it was striking that so many of them just centered around safety—just basic safety. Someone wrote in and the gist of the vignette was that they were waiting at a bus stop and a man comes up next to them and takes off his headphones and says, “I can tell that it’s making you uncomfortable that I’m here and you don’t know me, so I’m just going to wait at a different bus stop.” [laughs] And that’s the whole vignette. And that so many of these are just like you realize that we’re not at a place societally on either side of the pond where we can just take our safety for granted. And so even though we’ve come so far in the last year or so in the national conversation, this was sort of also chance to say, “yes, but big and small, there are still so many inequalities that we still have to address and that are still so far from being our erotic ideal [laughs] or reality.” CW Yeah. I’ll also say my approach to writing this book was a little different than my co-authors in that I just read a lot of erotica. This is also how I approach a lot of my satirical writing and comedy. I just go deep into the thing that I’m trying to satirize. So, I just read a lot of erotica and I thought, “okay, I just read a really upsetting master and dom thing with a buttplug and they were coworkers, how can I make this into—spin the feminist issue on this?” So, instead of thinking of what are the issues I want to address, I did what are the erotica things I want to put in the book and then how can I spin them? So, it was really eye opening. KL Yeah, I can imagine. That’s super interesting. And in another set of vignettes in the New Erotica for Feminists Who Are Parents chapter—that chapter is perfection. One of our faves from that, [laughs] again if I may. “I open my blouse, my naked breasts peeking through for a fleeting moment. I breastfeed my child in public. It is extremely uneventful and everyone is chill about it.” So racy! [laughs] I mean, we know from friends with babies that this is quite literally a fantasy. You’re never far from a judgey person or a creep. Why do you think it’s important to call this out and why was it important to include these in the book? BP Fiona and I are both parents. But obviously even though Carrie and Caitlin are not currently parents, they are very supportive of women who choose to be parents. And so the four of us really felt like parents are really just an overworked and under-appreciated part of the population. And feminists who are parents are facing a lot of really real challenges and a lot of the most egregious examples of this inequality—the lack of paid maternity leave being a great one. Or talking about a less than perfect split of emotional labour in the household. And so, I think we have a joke in the table of contents that says something like, “we’ll explore the fantasies of these parents, even if it’s really just naps.” And I think we wanted to make sure there was a parent chapter, even though I think it was the hardest to write because obviously, you don’t want there to be any whiff of that you’re trying to eroticize children. [laughs] And so it was the hardest entry point to try and crack, but it was important for us to include. KL So, talking a little bit more about the process, what was the book writing process like for the four of you? FT I think it was less challenging because there were four of us, which made it a lot easier. Someone always has an idea, even if someone else is like, “I am totally braindead at this moment.” So, what we did is we opened a Google Doc. First, in our book proposal we worked out the sections. So, everyone just started throwing ideas in there and I think our work on The Belladonna—we edit together, we write pieces together, we’re just so used to working with each other now that I don’t think there’s ever been an issue where someone has edited or added to someone else’s work and anyone has had an issue with that because we all make each other’s work stronger and better I think. So, people would have an idea, sort of throw it in there, get it as far as they could, then everyone else would sort of come in and go at it and make it stronger and I think that we’re just really lucky that we collaborate well together. CW Yeah. I think another thing we did really well was communicate on when we were going to work a bunch on the book. So, I would send a GChat to the group like, “hey, I’m getting up early on Saturday morning and I’m planning on spending the entire day writing.” And we were just really good about communicating when we could, and so I think our contributions to the book were all very equal. I mean, we’re—like Fiona said, because we do edit each other and add jokes to some that maybe we—I originally wrote, we all have an imprint on every single part of the book. A lot of people have been asking, “oh, so which chapters did you write, Carrie?” And I’m like, “I wrote the whole book. We all wrote the whole book.” [KL laughs] [25:30] BP I would just say the other piece of that to tack on—we all bring a sort of different sensibility to our writing, so Fiona has a lot of literary depth, as does Caitlin. Caitlin has a strong knowledge of mythology. Carrie, being an entertainment reporter, has a ton of science fiction and TV and referential knowledge. So, everyone just brings something different to the table and has a slightly different voice. And so they meld really well together and so it was a good check on ourselves because there were a few times where we would go back and edit and then in the early stages—the original person that had started the draft of that vignette and would say, “oh, that wasn’t actually the joke that I was originally going for.” But then if we weren’t getting it, maybe the audience wouldn’t have gotten it. KL That’s so cool. It really sounds like you all do really work very well together. You also all co-founded The Belladonna together, which is a satire site by women and other marginalized genders for everyone. We love this. How did you decide to found the site and what are your goals for it? BP I think one of the pieces that was really important to us was that what we didn’t want to do was create a site that the byline wasn’t really of value. The tricky part when you’re a new site and you don’t have any cache or followers yet [laughs] is that we wanted to make it really clear that we wanted to make this a high quality writing site that was selective. Not so selective that women felt they could never be part of it or develop their voice on it, but also not something where you could just send anything in and we would just put it on the site. Because I think those sites exist and they serve their purpose, but they’re not as valuable of a professional byline because they’re not a selective site. So, we wanted there to be an editorial process that was really focused on A) showing women’s voices—developing their own voice, rather than having them fit into a specific style that way that say _The Onion_— FT Yeah, because we want to really help writers and at the moment, unfortunately, we can’t pay because we’re not making any money from the site. One day we hope to have that change, that is a goal. So, in terms of—we can’t pay people, so we are trying to make sure that we give them valuable feedback that will help them get published on our site, help them get published on other sites. And sometimes when we read a piece and it’s good, but it’s not quite right for us, we’ll make suggestions about where they should submit it in order to get another byline. So, we really just want to be a place where voices that wouldn’t be heard that frequently are sort of amplified and we do want to be able to monetize and we do want to be able to pay writers and I’m sure we have other goals too. BP Yeah, I think just the biggest thing is just building that community and widening that pipeline. SWB So, you mentioned that you’re not yet making money off of the site and that you’d like to, and I wanted to ask a little about just sort of where you see the site going and how you kind of keep it in perspective. Because I know that running an indie editorial site is famous for being hard, right? We all miss—well, maybe I won’t speak for all of you—but I know me and Katel definitely miss The Toast, I miss The Awl, and I’m curious—as you’re thinking about what you want to do with The Belladonna, how do you kind of make it work, despite the fact that it is hard to run an editorial site on the internet without necessarily having a big influx of cash? CW Yeah, it’s not easy. You’re very right that it’s very hard. All of us have made sacrifices in our personal life I think to devote to the site. I think we each spend about ten hours maybe per week, give or take depending on how many submissions we get, on our work for the site. And we all work full-time, so it’s mostly our nights and weekends, our days off. And I think that we keep doing it even though we don’t get paid for it yet because we’re all so passionate about it. I know that sounds very cheesy, but it’s true. We really believe in ourselves, we really believe in our writers and we all want to get ahead—we want big TV writing jobs and we want that. So, we’re going to keep doing this because we believe in ourselves and our community and we know that this is a great way to get ourselves out there. [30:04] BP And honestly, we’ve gotten so many great emails and some of the most moving are when someone writes and says, “you know, I was going to give up on comedy and I just didn’t feel heard or appreciated in this community at all, and now I’m going to keep going.” Or a lot of people will write to us and say, “that was the nicest rejection letter I’ve ever gotten and that makes me want to submit to you again.” To me, those are real people that are experiencing maybe a lasting career shift, or maybe they’ll say, “I found sort of my own writing partners or my own people through this site and through this community and now we’re off writing together for other sites.” That is a real, tangible effect that you had on someone’s life. And so to us, that’s well worth the small time sacrifices and financial sacrifices that we’re currently putting in this site to just see this vision that we’d had actually coming to fruition and happening. SWB Yeah, that’s really interesting. It sounds like it’s not just, “we want to run an editorial site to run an editorial site,” but that there’s all these other potential outcomes that you’re looking at like are there screenwriting or TV writing gigs out there? What kind of community does this create? And that sort of changes some of the incentives, which I love hearing about that. BP And we also have really great interns. We hire a pair of interns every—it was designed to be quarterly, but in the last few rounds they have been so great that they have offered and we have begged them to stay on for longer, so it’s been more like six month cycles. And they contribute pieces to the site, they help us on the editorial side just making sure, you know, all the trains run on time. They also sometimes have their own special projects of something they’re really passionate about. Whether it’s how can we bring more diversity to the site and curating some initiatives around that, to merch—we’ve been in process talking about how do we maybe do that. So, it’s been so beneficial to have these young women, who are hungry to start their careers and so talented. SWB And so I want to pick up on something that has come up a little bit here and there as we’ve been chatting and that’s that you all are also doing other jobs. So, for those kinds of jobs, is it ever weird to navigate the different parts of your professional identity? Do you ever get worried that commercial clients or, Carrie, for you, journalists or editors will think you’re, I don’t know, not serious about that work or look at what you’re doing with erotic feminist satire [laughs] as being at odds with the other part of your identity? [BP laughs] CW I don’t really care. [laughs & SWB laughs] And if they have a problem with it, I’ll go somewhere else. That’s what I have to say because this is what I care about. [laughs] Honestly! FT Yeah, I haven’t really run into that issue. My boss, I have to say, is really excited that I published a book. He’s going to publish his own book. And he doesn’t necessarily tell clients what the name of my book is, but he’ll be like, “oh, she wrote a book.” You know, which—he’s like, “this helps me too.” So, so far it’s working out. KL So, Brooke, you and Caitlin are both involved in Second City, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that? BP Yeah! So, Caitlin is the person that created the online satire writing program and curriculum for Second City. And she’s taught that as part of their faculty for seven years. And then she brought me on just about a year ago, and now I teach her curriculum and I’ve added sort of my own notes and experiences to that as well for about a year. KL That’s so cool. I would never have ever dreamed there would be an online satire writing program. How did that start and how has it sort of evolved? BP I mean, I think Caitlin could speak to the origins of it more. But I know that the demand is really high, it’s one of the top enrolled programs perennially in the online pantheon of classes at Second City. And first of all, kudos to Second City for having online classes because I’m the only one of the four of us that doesn’t live in New York. I live in Columbus, Ohio, but that doesn’t make me any less serious about comedy writing. And we’re finding that that’s true with a lot of people and especially women, either because they have a job obligation or family obligation, that not everyone can or wants to live in New York or LA, but that that has been prohibitive for people to have professional comedy careers. So, The Second City really saw that and helped open this new channel that has raised so much talent from across the country and across the world because you can really take classes from anywhere. And it was instrumental to my development. I took Caitlin’s first iteration of classes when she developed the class, I took the first round as a student. And that really helped me polish up work and polish up my skills and find a group of people to write with and earn a lot of bylines that have led to other opportunities. [35:02] KL I love that it sort of morphed into that for you. So, we’re really interested in how you all work together, obviously. And not just logistics of making work happen, creative or otherwise, but also just how it is to work with people who are also your friends. What drives you to keep making things together? BP I think we just really enjoy each other. We are friends and we like being around each other and we really are also true admirers of one another personally and professionally—of our work and our voices. And so it just makes it fun. I wish that I had more time to devote to the things that we’re working on together because it’s much more fulfilling for me—sort of in the vein of what Carrie said—it’s much more fulfilling to me to do this work than it is to necessarily work on a white paper about something. Whereas I’m good at that and I can do it, but it’s not bringing out my passion. [laughs] CW I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that we like each other like Brooke said and we work very well together, but we also know that one day, we can probably help each other do something great or do something great together. We could maybe one day create a show together, or one of us could get hired on a show and try to help us get in too. So, I think it’s just the fact that we have that passion that Brooke is talking about that’s never going to go away. It also helps us just always want to work together because we know that this is something really special that will turn into something big. And it did! [laughs] Our relationship already has benefitted all of our comedy careers, so it can only hopefully go up from here! FT Yeah, and I’m just going to add that I think we all have a lot of rage at society [laughs] in the path to here. And this partnership helps us sort of channel it into a constructive way where it’s at least cathartic and we can feel like we’re helping other people laugh. I mean, that’s one of the things that came out of this book—we would love for it to change the world. It’s probably not going to do that, but at least it entertains people and makes them feel like they are not so alone. And we also have a resource section at the end where people can decide what they can handle and take on and sort of try to change things. And so hopefully our book will make people laugh and then they can sort of go do something constructive as well. KL Sara and I feel this so much. We sort of back each other up and we keep each other going and we’re kind of these—we’re rocks for each other in all of this [laughs] hellscape that’s happening! [BP laughs] And we keep inspiring each other, so I think that’s so important. [FT laughs] And it’s really been important for us to figure out what the boundaries are around and between how we work together and what our friendships looks like. Is there ever any need to adjust or readjust the working relationship in order to kind of keep nurturing the friendships? BP Probably on smaller levels. I mean, I think we all communicate so often and pretty honestly that there aren’t needs for major adjustments too much. One example that’s funny now in retrospect—everyone always tells you how hard the writing process is and that you’re going to get exhausted and that you’re going to have these breakdowns sort of in the middle of it. And I was thinking, “you know, I think we’ve done pretty well, we haven’t had any major breakdowns.” [laughs] And then we were on a call talking about the past—someone had sort of mentioned that they were interested in potentially talking to us about in the future doing a pilot around this idea. And we had tried to start in the process of also doing the book—the book wasn’t out yet—thinking about how could we spin this off into a pilot idea. And I’d had a particularly hard week, I was very exhausted. And I don’t know if you’ve ever reached the creative place where you’re just like, “I don’t have ideas any more!” [laughs] “I don’t have any of any kind!” So, I was just sort of at that point. But I had grown up as a comedy and TV junkie, I’d really, really—what an opportunity when someone brings you to that. So, you’re thinking, “I don’t want to miss this.” And so I was so just sort of beside myself that I didn’t have any ideas [laughs] that were very good for this that Caitlin very gently on an internal call with the four of us said, “do you have any ideas, Brooke?” And I was sort of quiet for ten seconds and then I just burst into tears [laughs] on the call! And I’m like, [wailing] “I don’t have any ideas!” [laughs] It’s only funny now in retrospect, but they were so taken aback and like, “oh, are you crying?” And I’m like, [wailing] “I think so!” But they were so sweet about it and were just like, “well, maybe we should just back up [laughing] and do this after the book comes out. Maybe this is a sign that this is too much to have on our plates right now at one time.” So, that’s sort of a more extreme example of—you know, I should have been more self aware of just like, “nope, that’s too much for me!” and just been more aware of it. But I was just so exhausted that it just manifested in this sudden breakdown that they were very sweet about. [40:20] SWB I love that story because I think it would be great if we were all so self-aware [CW laughs] that we were going to prevent ourselves from going into meltdown mode. [BP laughs] But you need the friends who can help you even when you do go to meltdown mode, so I love that you all found that in each other. I feel like that’s a theme that me and Katel come around to all the time on the show. So, we are just about out of time though and while we could talk with you all day, we’re going to have to let you go. And so before we do, I want to make sure we ask, where can everybody keep up with more of the awesome stuff you’re working on and very importantly, buy your book? BP So, you can buy our book anywhere that fine books are sold. If your local store doesn’t have it, it would be super great if you could ask them to carry it. Our website is thebelladonnacomedy.com. And we have a lot more ideas in the works that we hope to bring more books and more projects to you in the future if you someone will let us do that. So, that would be great. SWB Well, I certainly hope that they do. And thank you all so much for being on the show! [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] Career Chat with Shopify KL Hey friends, it’s time for our weekly career chat with Shopify. You know, I manage a small business and an online storefront and using Shopify to help us do that is a no-brainer. But what about all those big businesses? That’s where Shopify Plus comes in because they believe large merchants should love their commerce platform too. I really dig that. And the best part? They’re hiring an Enterprise Sales Rep to show high-growth, high-volume merchants like Tesla, RedBull, GE, and L’Oréal all the reliability and flexibility Shopify Plus has to offer. This isn’t just any sales position either. The job description says you’ll need to have a sense of adventure and an entrepreneurial spirit. That means you’ll be taking the reins and growing fast in the role. And get this, you’ll rack up experience equivalent to a real-world MBA. That’s really cool. I also just really love that Shopify values hiring diversity for all their positions. They say, “we know that diversity makes for the best problem solving and creative thinking, which is why we’re dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team and encourage everyone to apply.” So, if that sounds good to you, learn more about the Enterprise Sales Rep position and dozens more at shopify.com/careers. [music fades in, plays for five seconds, and fades out] Fuck Yeah of the Week KL Okay, okay. Let’s get to our fuck yeah. Sara, it’s pretty important this week. SWB Yes, it is. So, you all remember our third co-host, Jenn Lukas. So, back in October, we told you she was out for the season. And, well, she’s decided that she’s not going to be able to come back to the show. And we are really bummed out that we couldn’t figure out a way to make it work, but me and Katel decided we’re going to keep the show going. We actually have a lot more on that next week because we actually have some big news to share about the show! But this week, we wanted to first make sure we took a moment and give a fuck yeah sendoff to Jenn! So, what we want to do is listen to some favorite clips. KL Oh my gosh, yes. This is such a great idea. You know, I have really been missing her voice on parenting and figuring out how to be a mom—and any day now, a mom of two kids—while being awesome at work. And it was so helpful to have her open up about stuff like family leave. JL Maybe two months into my leave, I started watching conference talks [laughing] while I breast-fed because I missed it! I missed being in the know and being still connected to that part of me that is my career. And being like, “how do I stay ambitious while I’m physically acting as food for my child?” [laughs] SWB You know, it was so funny. I remember she actually texted me during that time to ask me, “hey, are any of the talks you’ve given recently online? Are there videos of them?” And I was like, [KL laughs] “yes, but why would you be watching them?” And I just didn’t get! So, that conversation totally helped me get, right? I was like, “oh, because she wanted to feel more connected to the stuff that she felt like she was missing.” And so that made me also remember we need to make sure as we go forward that we talk about parenting-related issues. And we definitely need to bring on more badass moms because otherwise I’m not going to realize all that stuff! KL Yes! SWB You know what I also miss though? I miss Jenn’s sense of humor a lot. She was always bringing so much energy to the show. Like when we all talked about periods? JL You know, they have the Myers-Briggs test and these color tests and I just want you to know that my personality right now is period! KL I know, [laughs] I could not stop laughing. Something Jenn always did was bring a lot of energy to the show, like you said. And also no one—no one—loves Jeopardy as much as Jenn. [45:05] JL At one point during labour, I think I definitely said to my husband and doula, “I wonder who won College Jeopardy.” [SWB & KL laugh] SWB Yeah, so when Lilly Chin, who was the winner of that College Jeopardy tournament that she mentioned, when she agreed to be on the show, I thought Jenn was going to lose it. [KL laughs] Not quite like Ke$ha level of lose it, but still, she was going to lose it! KL Yeah. SWB So fuck yeah, Jenn, we miss you. And we are sending you all of our best vibes as you prep for baby number two! KL Fuck yeah! That’s it for this week’s episode of No, You Go. NYG is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia and produced by Steph Colbourn. Our theme music is by The Diaphone. Thanks to Brooke Preston, Carrie Wittmer, and Fiona Taylor for being our guests today. And if you loved today’s show as much as we did, don’t forget to subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Your support helps us do what we do and we love that! See you again next week for our season finale! SWB And big news! Bye! KL Bye! [music fades in, plays alone for 32 seconds, and fades out]

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On today's episode I have comedy writer, Caitlin Kunkel! I first got to know Caitlin as one of my teachers at The Second City and have continued to follow her career as she as her comedy writing partners launched The Belladonna Comedy in New York. Caitlin and her Belladonna Comedy team recently released the hilarious new satire book, "New Erotica for Feminism".  I talked with Caitlin about how she got her start in comedy writing, teaching at The Second City, what inspires her to write, creating a network, the new book, and so much more!  Caitlin is also giving you the chance to win a copy of New Erotica for Feminists. The first 3 people to comment on Facebook or Twitter and tell me where Caitlin went to grad school will win a copy of the book. Make sure to listen to the episode for the answer!  A huge Thank You to Caitlin Kunkel for taking the time to join me on the podcast. This was a long time coming and I'm so glad we finally made it happen. Make sure to follow her and Belladonna Comedy on all of the links below, and most importantly, go buy the books! Thanks, Caitlin! Enjoy the episode!

We all know The Rock reaches high heights. but just because you can physically jump all the way from that tower crane to the tower, that doesn't mean you you should. You might land the jump, but be worse for wear afterwards. That's what happens here. It turns out the rock isn't quite strong enough or fast enough or charming enough to save a really boring script from working. This is a movie about a really tall tower and The Rock, and I thought that would be enough for me, but it turns out I'm starting to demand a little bit more. It's okay, and it's better than if The Rock wasn't in it, but this #TheRocktober just tipped over at the end. Mentioned on the show Caitlin's new book New Erotica for Feminists drops November 13th. Pre-order it now for everybody in your social network!

In the kickoff to Season 2 of Cultivate Curiosity, we have the honor of picking the brain of comedy writer and satirist, Caitlin Kunkel. Episode 11 is filled with riveting conversation as we talk about the courage it takes to stand by your curiosities, why a supportive community is so important, and how the digital world allows us to expand both our horizons and our connections at the click of a button. You don’t want to miss this episode! To learn more about Caitlin Kunkel, check out these resources: Caitlin’s website, containing all-things-Caitlin: https://caitlinkunkel.com/ Caitlin’s newsletter: https://bit.ly/2gZwhFa The BellaDonna: https://thebelladonnacomedy.com/ The BellaDonna Co-Founders: Carrie Wittmer, Brooke Preston, and Fiona Taylor The Second City: https://www.secondcity.com/ New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay: https://amzn.to/2kHJa9U   Other sources mentioned in this episode: The New Yorker: Shouts & Murmurs: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/shouts-murmurs Reductress: http://reductress.com/McSweeney’s: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/ Anne T. Donahue: http://www.annetdonahue.com/about/ Matt Foley: Chris Farley Motivational Speaker SNL skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv2VIEY9-A8 Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: https://www.celesteng.com/little-fires-everywhere/ The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer: https://bit.ly/2xEPcS9 Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple: https://www.amazon.com/Whered-You-Go-Bernadette-Novel/dp/0316204269 Plume: http://www.penguin.com/publishers/plume/ Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: https://amzn.to/2Jepqp5 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: https://www.huxley.net/ Swing Time by Zadie Smith: https://amzn.to/2gK33hb

This episode of Talkward welcomes guest Carrie Wittmer! Carrie is a comedy writer, performer and a co-founder of The Belladonna Comedy –  Comedy and satire by women, for everyone. She along with her co-editors Caitlin Kunkel, Brooke Preston, and Fiona Taylor have penned their first satire book New Erotica for Feminists due out in November! Follow Carrie on the twitter @carriesnotscaryRead the article that is becoming a book!https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/new-erotica-for-feministsPre-order the book now!