Podcasts about Pratt Institute

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Constitution remains the most consequential document in American life — and more people are reading it than ever. But pick up almost any commercial edition and you'll find the same thing: small type, no imagery, nothing that invites you in. Jessie McGuire noticed this too. Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jessie-mcguire Every copy her studio ordered looked identical — dense, utilitarian, forgettable. So they redesigned it. They printed thousands of copies, donated them to New York City schools, and invited designers like Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast to create posters for each amendment in the Bill of Rights. That project became a turning point — not just for the studio, but for how they think about what design is actually for. Jessie is Managing Partner of Thought Matter, the independent design and creative studio that just won the 2026 National Design Award for Communication Design from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum — the field's highest national honor. It's an award that recognizes not a single project but a decade of practice, and Thought Matter's practice has been built around a bold idea: that imagination is a radical act. A Salvadoran-American designer, New Yorker, and mother of two, Jessie brings a perspective shaped by navigating spaces that weren't always designed for her. She teaches entrepreneurship at Pratt, mentors emerging designers, and leads a studio that works with cultural institutions, nonprofits, and commercial brands — all grounded in the belief that design is civic infrastructure, a tool for helping people see themselves as participants in shaping the world around them. In this episode, Jessie talks about the origin of the Constitution project, what it means to fund the work you actually want to talk about, why she thinks scale and speed aren't serving us, and why sitting down to make something with your hands — like the beaded bracelets she makes with her kids — still matters. Bio Jessie McGuire is Managing Partner of Thought Matter, the independent design studio that won the 2026 National Design Award for Communication Design from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum — the field's highest national honor. She leads the studio's strategy and long-term vision, working with cultural institutions, nonprofits, and commercial brands on work grounded in the belief that design shapes what people believe. A Salvadoran-American designer and mother, Jessie is committed to expanding who gets to lead in the design industry. She teaches entrepreneurship at Pratt Institute, lectures on design as civic infrastructure, and mentors emerging designers. Before Thought Matter, she worked in-house at Kimberly-Clark and led projects for multinational brands. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MPS in Branding from the School of Visual Arts. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you'd like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you'll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books. New premium subscriber benefit: we've launched a private Slack workspace…join now to connect with designers, product leaders & creative practitioners in our community. And get a behind-the-scenes pass to every episode with The Roundup, where each week we bring you insights and actionable tactics from recent episodes. You'll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the designer's real job isn't to design the object at all? In this episode, hosts Giulia Donatello and Lee-Sean Huang sit down with Todd Bracher -- industrial designer, founder of Bracher and BetterLab, and author of two books -- to dig into a practice built on removing ego from the design process and letting context drive the answer. From a Pratt exam that accidentally changed his career, to a decade across four European countries, to unlocking a NASA scientist's 25-year-old patent, Todd makes the case that design's most powerful move is understanding the system before touching the object.In This EpisodeThe accidental industrial designer. Todd originally applied to Pratt Institute as an illustrator. A complex respirator brief on a Pratt entrance exam made him ask, "What is this thing?" The answer was industrial design, and he never looked back.Designing the context, not the tree. Todd's framework, laid out in his book Design in Context, argues that designers make a fundamental mistake when they start designing the object without first mapping the "governors" -- finance, legal, supply chain, competition, human needs -- that will ultimately determine the output. His metaphor: a tree's shape isn't an opinion, it's the result of its ecosystem. Design should work the same way.BetterLab and the patent moat problem. Many of the world's most promising scientific breakthroughs sit unused -- stuck in litigation, sitting in drawers, or bought up by companies with no intention of using them. BetterLab is Todd's venture platform to change that. One example: partnering with a former NASA scientist whose UVC light patent for hand sanitization had been sitting unused for 25 years.Visionary execution. The BetterLab manifesto holds that visionary solutions don't spread on merit alone; they require visionary execution. Getting design into the room with scientists, not just at the end of the process, is the intervention.Ergonomics as wellness. After nearly 20 years collaborating with Humanscale, Todd traces the shift from ergonomics as basic human measurement to ergonomics as a long-term health discipline. Humanscale's gravity mechanism does away with knobs and levers entirely, using the sitter's own body weight to instantly adjust the chair.Legacy brands in the age of AI. The competitive threat for heritage companies often isn't a competitor's product -- it's the experience gap. Consumers who use Spotify and Airbnb every day bring those expectations to every brand. Links & Resources Todd Bracher - https://toddbracher.com/ Observations, Research, and Design (Phaidon monograph) -- https://www.phaidon.com/en-us/products/observations-research-and-design | Use code NEW20 for a discountDesign in Context framework - https://toddbracher.com/bookField Notes: "The De-Evolution of a Business" -- https://toddbracher.com/field-notes/the-de-evolution-of-a-businessBetterLab - https://betterlab.comThe Measure of Man - https://ia801906.us.archive.org/34/items/TheMeasureOfManDreyfuss/The%20Measure%20of%20Man%20%28Dreyfuss%29_text.pdf 99% Invisible, "On Average" - https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/Humanscale - https://www.humanscale.com/ Action Office - https://www.hermanmiller.com/products/workspaces/workstations/action-office-system/About Todd BracherTodd Bracher is an industrial designer and founder of Bracher, a Brooklyn-based studio, and BetterLab, a research and design hub at the intersection of science and design. Named International Designer of the Year three times, he has designed products for Herman Miller, 3M, Zanotta, and Issey Miyake, holds over two dozen patents, and has brought more than 200 products to market. His 2025 book Design in Context is his framework for strategic differentiation through context-based design. His Phaidon monograph, Observations, Research, and Design, covers 25 years of insights, failures, and lessons learned.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for ArtistsOn this week's episode I'm joined by Will Hutnick.Will is a painter based in Sharon, Connecticut. He holds an MFA from Pratt Institute and a BA from Providence College. Hutnick is a 2021 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Painting. His solo exhibitions include High Noon in New York, the McDonough Museum of Art, Geary Contemporary, and Pamela Salisbury Gallery. His work has been featured in The New York Times, New American Paintings, and Hyperallergic. He's held residencies at Yaddo, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, and Vermont Studio Center. Will currently serves as Director of Artistic Programming at the Wassaic Project, a nonprofit that uses art and education to foster social change.Will and I sat down last month at High Noon in Tribeca, where his solo exhibition  “Time's a Goon” was on display. Will and I discussed planning a painting, starting a painting, new content, landscapes, working on 15-year-old canvases, his printmaker background, the challenges of editing and finishing and his love of works on paper. We also discuss chance, noise, and the lack of control, decoration, orchestration and the arbitrary, Will's work as Director at the Wassaic Artist Residency and the simple efficacy of the Thank You Note.Before we begin, a reminder that ARTMATTERS is entirely listener-supported. If you want to support the show and help make more conversations like this possible, consider joining the ARTMATTERS Patreon. Supporters get video versions of every episode, as well as more behind-the-scenes content. Find the link in the description or go to patreon.com/artmatterspodcastSupport this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  If you have an any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com host: Isaac Mannwww.isaacmann.cominsta: @isaac.mann guest: Will Hutnickwww.willhutnick.cominsta: @willhutnickThank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

In this episode, Brian is joined by Aliya Khan, VicePresident Global Design Strategy & Product Development at Marriott Hotels & Resorts. As Vice President Global Design Strategy & Product Development, Aliya oversees the creative direction for over 30 brands across the Premium, Select and Midscale portfolios. With a background in both Architecture and Industrial Design from Pratt Institute, she has built areputation for translating brand strategy into thoughtful, resonant guest experiences at scale. Tune in to hear who Aliya Thanks for helping her along the way.

Rochelle Voyles (b. 1989, Toledo, Ohio) is a Brooklyn based multi-disciplinary artist whose works explore the cyclical nature of humanity's patterns and the underlying impulses that drive behavior. Mining historical textile diagrams and found images, Voyles arranges fragments of different moments meticulously in collage on-wood cut sculpture. She dislocates, interrupts, and re-purposes found images in order to decontextualize her experience of reality and decipher our collective relationship to photographs. She received her BFA in Fine Arts/Printmaking from Pratt Institute in 2012. She is an upcoming resident of the Wassaic Project, and was a resident at The Peter Bullough Foundation, the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony and the ChaNorth Residency. She has shown at galleries in New York such as Below Grand, 81 Leonard Gallery, Trestle Gallery, Peninsula Art Space, Field of Play Gallery, and Collarworks. Voyles has been published in blogs and online such as Collé, Shoutout LA, Paradice Palase, and The Jealous Curator. Her recent solo show “Unreliable Narrators” at 81 Leonard has been featured as a March 2026 editors select in Impulse Magazine, and as an editorial feature on Art Rabbit. Additionally, the show received favorable reviews in Art Spiel and White Hot Magazine. Neptune in Pisces, 2026Mixed media; collage, paper, and wood, 20 x 23 in. The Bowline at Dusk, 2025 Mixed media; collage, paper, and wood 32 x 31 in. Returned in Fragments, 2026 Mixed media; collage, paper, wood 8 x 7 in.

In the Season 3 finale, Jo sells Charlotte on Alan Warner's “amazingly textured” Movern Callar, which leads the hosts to reflect on some of the season's recurring themes. They're then joined by the radically reflective William C. Anderson, who explains how the Buddhism transmitted in Thich Nhat Hanh's Zen Battlest, a commentary on the teachings of Master Linji, informed his political development.William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, Alabama. His work has appeared in The Guardian, MTV, British Journal of Photography, Logic(s) Magazine, and Prism, where he's a monthly columnist. He is the author of The Nation on No Map (AK Press 2021) and co-author of  As Black as Resistance (AK Press 2018). He's also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast. His writings have been included in the anthologies, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? (Haymarket 2016) and No Selves to Defend (Mariame Kaba 2014). Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Episode 521 / Nat MeadeNat Meade received his BFA from the University of Oregon and his MFA from Pratt Institute. His work has shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, and has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Juxtapoz, The Boston Globe, and Hyperallergic. He attended the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture 2009, the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in 2016, the Siena Art Institute in 2018, and the James Castle House Summer Residency in Boise, Idaho in Summer 2021. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.Nat returns to the pod as he just hung a show called Franklin at Hesse Flatow for a talk about his new work, funny sad songs, cinema, teaching, making work for fellow painters, titles with multiple meanings and much more. 

¿Qué define la frontera entre la belleza absoluta y la provocación insoportable? En este episodio de FOTÓGRAFOPRO, nos sumergimos en la vida y obra de Robert Mapplethorpe, el artista que no solo capturó imágenes, sino que esculpió cuerpos y flores con una precisión casi divina.Exploramos su viaje desde sus inicios en el Pratt Institute y sus días de bohemia en el Chelsea Hotel junto a su alma gemela Patti Smith, hasta convertirse en el epicentro de las Culture War) en Estados Unidos.En este episodio analizamos:La Cámara como Cincel: Cómo el dominio de la Hasselblad y el uso de fondos negro profundo permitieron a Mapplethorpe elevar el cuerpo humano al nivel de la escultura clásica griega.Retratos de Flores: El fascinante mundo de sus bodegones, donde tulipanes y orquídeas no son simples plantas, sino "personajes" capturados con el enfoque de un headshot humano.Arte y Censura: El impacto del juicio de Cincinnati en 1990 y cómo la exposición The Perfect Moment desafió los límites de la libertad de expresión y el financiamiento público del arte.El Legado del Deseo: La búsqueda del clímax de la belleza tanto en lo sagrado como en lo profano, y cómo su muerte por complicaciones del AIDS aceleró su producción creativa final.Acompáñanos a descubrir por qué, para Mapplethorpe, "la belleza y el diablo son la misma cosa". Un análisis profundo sobre la intención, la simetría y el orden en una obra que, décadas después, sigue siendo imposible de ignorar.Presentado por: John Vargas. Escucha ahora y descubre los secretos detrás del lente más controvertido del siglo XX.

This week we finish breaking down Weight Loss. The Office gang continues to lose weight for the Dunder Mifflin Weight Loss Challenge, and a truly unexpected proposal happens. We hear an audio clip from Paul Feig about what it was like to be the Season 5 “Tastemaker”. Jenna tells us about some very special cats at Pratt Institute, Angela breaks down what it was like to have a fruit fly wrangler on set and we learn everything we ever wanted to know (and maybe not wanted to know) about the famous Jim and Pam gas station proposal. Enjoy! Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestion  Follow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPod Follow Us on YouTube Follow Us on TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Charlotte puzzles over who exactly wrote Brighton Rock before Jo shares a newfound fascination with big machines, spurred in part by Don Gillmor's On Oil. A conversation with the preternaturally wise Rayne Fisher-Quann starts with Iris Owens' After Claude, then opens up into a rousing feminist seminar on Margery Kempe, sexual obsession, and women's humor of past and present. Rayne Fisher-Quann is a Brooklyn-based writer. Her blog is called Internet Princess, and her first book, COMPLEX FEMALE CHARACTER, is forthcoming from Knopf. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jo and Charlotte turn their attention to Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe's mindblowing A Personal Matter and Troubled Lands: Stories of Mexico and Cuba, a collection translated by Langston Hughes, before they're joined by Gothic-literature-loving writer-of-all-modes Nicholas Russell, who puts the spotlight on Algernon Blackwood's unsettling preoccupation with mysterious forces in the natural world. Nicholas Russell is a writer and critic from Las Vegas. His work has been featured in McSweeney's, The Baffler, Conjunctions, The Nation, and Orion, among other publications. He's a long-time bookseller, a contributing writer at Defector, and managing editor at Still Alive magazine. His debut novel Observer will be published by Ecco at HarperCollins on September 15th. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Episode 519 / Cyrilla MozenterCyrilla Mozenter is known for her gouache-painted, pencil-drawn works on paper and hand stitched industrial wool felt pieces that include the transplantation of cutout letters, letter-derived and pictogram-like shapes. Her solo exhibitions include Problems of Art and Present Participle, 57W57 Arts, NY; See Why and the failed utopian, Lesley Heller Gallery, NY; the failed utopian & Other Stories, FiveMyles, Brooklyn; warm snow, Adam Baumgold Gallery, NY, and the Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY; More saints seen, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and Very well saint, The Drawing Center, NY. She has produced two collaborative books with photographer/writer Philip Perkis: ar, AC Books, San Diego, 2023, and the bilingual Octave, anmoc press, Seoul, 2020. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, she has also received two fellowships from the NY Foundation for the Arts and two project grants from The Fifth Floor Foundation. She has been in residence at Pianpicollo Selvatico, Dieu Donné Papermill, and Instituto Municipal de Arte e Cultura-Rioarte. Her work is in numerous public collections including the Brooklyn Museum and the Yale University Art Gallery. She taught for many years in the MFA program at Pratt Institute.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for ArtistsOn this week's episode I'm joined by Hiba Schahbaz.Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Hiba Schahbaz trained in traditional Indo-Persian miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore. Her practice spans oil, wood, paper, black tea, and water-based pigments. Schahbaz received an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute and has exhibited internationally since 2002. Recent exhibitions include the FLAG Art Foundation, Almine Rech Paris, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, and Jeffrey Deitch, as well as a public art commission for Rockefeller Center produced with Art Production Fund. Her current retrospective, Hiba Schahbaz: The Garden, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, brings together roughly fifteen years of work tracing her evolution from the disciplined traditions of miniature painting to expansive, immersive works.I sat down with Hiba in her Bushwick loft studio and asked her about the “aha” moment - when a new idea begins to take shape. We also talk about cut-outs and shifting scale, the difference between one-off paintings and a sustained flow state, learning from mistakes, and why she never lets a painting leave the studio before the idea feels fully resolved. We talk materials and process, how Hiba starts a painting, and how she approaches large commissions, museum projects, and multi-panel works differently. Hiba discusses maintaining a daily studio practice and how it shifts with seasonal rhythms, the difficulty and necessity of waiting for ideas to develop, and the importance of physical health in the studio and taking responsibility for one's body over time. Finally, we talk about avoiding creative burnout through continuous learning, and why Schahbaz believes in committing fully to the path of an artist without a Plan B.Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  If you have an any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com  host: Isaac Mann www.isaacmann.com insta: @isaac.mann guest: Hiba Schahbaz www.hibaschahbaz.com insta: @hiba_schahbazThank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

In the Season 3 finale, Jo sells Charlotte on Alan Warner's “amazingly textured” Movern Callar, which leads the hosts to reflect on some of the season's recurring themes. They're then joined by the radically reflective William C. Anderson, who explains how the Buddhism transmitted in Thich Nhat Hanh's Zen Battles, a commentary on the teachings of Master Linji, informed his political development.William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, Alabama. His work has appeared in The Guardian, MTV, British Journal of Photography, Logic(s) Magazine, and Prism, where he's a monthly columnist. He is the author of The Nation on No Map (AK Press 2021) and co-author of As Black as Resistance (AK Press 2018). He's also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast. His writings have been included in the anthologies, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? (Haymarket 2016) and No Selves to Defend (Mariame Kaba 2014). Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charlotte and Jo go deep on jealousy, self-hatred, love, and vulnerability in a conversation that touches on A Separate Peace, The Go-Between, Beowulf, and more. Then the canny and intrepid Maya Binyam joins for a discussion about the category of little girlhood, ambiguity in fiction, and female desire.Maya Binyam is the author of Hangman. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is a 2025 - 2026 Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Charlotte puzzles over who exactly wrote Brighton Rock before Jo shares a newfound fascination with big machines, spurred in part by Don Gillmor's On Oil. A conversation with the preternaturally wise Rayne Fisher-Quann starts with Iris Owens' After Claude, then opens up into a rousing feminist seminar on Margery Kempe, sexual obsession, and women's humor of past and present. Rayne Fisher-Quann is a Brooklyn-based writer. Her blog is called Internet Princess, and her first book, COMPLEX FEMALE CHARACTER, is forthcoming from Knopf. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we're breaking down Goodbye Toby. To kick off this two part episode, Paul Liberstein sent in audio clips to talk about what it was like to write himself off the show and introduce Holly Flax, played by Amy Ryan. When Toby has his last day at Dunder Mifflin, Michael insists on throwing him a huge going away party. Angela Martin scoffs at the idea, so Phyllis steps in. While breaking down Pratt Institute, Jenna ends up quoting her own book, The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide. Creed chimes in about his famous “quabity assuance” scene and Angela learns the difference between “hot to trot” and “fired up”.  This episode is cruisin' for a bruisin', so listen up! Link to Jenna's book, The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide: https://www.amazon.com/Actors-Life-Survival-Guide/dp/1944648224 Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestion  Follow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPod Follow Us on YouTube Follow Us on TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jo takes us on a whirlwind tour of their recent reading, including Mary Helen Washington's Paule Marshall: A Writer's Life, and Charlotte explains why Susanna Moore's In the Cut is one of the most thrilling novels she's ever encountered. Then, the profoundly thoughtful Jamie Hood joins to explore the many boyfriends and political disappointments of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. Jamie Hood is the author, most recently, of Trauma Plot: A Life, the hybrid pandemic diary how to be a good girl, the semi-monthly, Proust-infused newsletter, regards, marcel, and a book of love poems, forthcoming in 2026. She has written extensively on books, feminism, #MeToo, and other political matters for many publications, some of them even prestigious. She lives in Brooklyn.Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for ArtistsOn this week's episode I'm joined by New York artist David Hornung.David Hornung is a painter and mixed media artist whose work has been exhibited in the US and UK. Over the course of a long career he has served on the faculties of The Rhode Island School of Design, Indiana University, Skidmore College, Pratt Institute, and Adelphi University. He is the author of Color: A Workshop for Artists and Designers (Laurence King Pub Ltd.), a color textbook. Translated into six languages it is used in art schools around the world. His work is shown at Cynthia Winings Gallery, Elena Zang Gallery, Pulp Gallery, and J.J. Murphy Gallery in NYC.We recorded this episode early one morning at the JJ Murphy Gallery during his solo exhibition "Continuum."On today's episode, David and I explore the nuanced terrain of painting practice and philosophy. We discuss the importance of a painting's surface, how he starts a painting and how one reads a painting. David shares his perspective on scale, arguing that painting is an intimate experience rather than spectacle. We trace his six-decade evolution from observational work through post-painterly abstraction, his collage techniques, and his four recent years of pure abstraction. The conversation touches on Henri Matisse, Ad Reinhardt, Fra Angelico, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Paul Klee. David also talks his love of shapes, collage, a raw edge, painting slower than he is thinking, factual versus fictional painting, and finally, emphasizes the importance of recognizing one's own temperament and painting both honestly and sincerely from that space; which, he argues, is where great paintings come from.Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  If you have an any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com host: Isaac Mannwww.isaacmann.com insta: @isaac.mann guest: David Hornungwww.davidhornung.cominsta: @davidhornungartworkshops: https://www.artfuelstudio.com/scotland-september-2026-hornung madelineartschool.com/collections/workshops/products/exploring-improvisation-in-abstract-painting?_pos=7&_fid=5184b59de&_ss=c Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Jo and Charlotte turn their attention to Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe's mindblowing A Personal Matter and Troubled Lands: Stories of Mexico and Cuba, a collection translated by Langston Hughes, before they're joined by Gothic-literature-loving writer-of-all-modes Nicholas Russell, who puts the spotlight on Algernon Blackwood's unsettling preoccupation with mysterious forces in the natural world. Nicholas Russell is a writer and critic from Las Vegas. His work has been featured inMcSweeney's, The Baffler, Conjunctions, The Nation, and Orion, among other publications. He's a long time bookseller, a contributing writer at Defector, and managing editor at Still Alive magazine. His debut novel Observer will be published by Ecco at HarperCollins on September 15th. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charlotte and Jo revisit Rebecca Novack's Murder Bimbo before taking a quick tour of the Russian Civil War and comrade crushes through Nikolai Ostrovsky's How The Steel Was Tempered. They're then joined by the scintillating Brittany Newell, who meditates on contemporary fiction, cities at night, and Samuel R. Delany's indelible Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. Also discussed in this episode: Emma Cline's The Guest and Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection.Brittany Newell is a writer and performer living in San Francisco. Her debut novel Oola was published in 2017 at the age of 21 in the US, UK, and Germany. You can find her written work in Granta, n+1, McSweeney's, The New York Times, and others. Her second novel Soft Core was published by FSG in February 2025 in the US, UK, and France. She is at work on a third novel about love addiction, emotional vampires, and cannibalism. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Charlotte and Jo go deep on jealousy, self-hatred, and vulnerability in a conversation that touches on A Separate Peace, The Go-Between, Beowulf, and more. Then the canny and intrepid Maya Binyam joins for a discussion about the category of little girlhood, ambiguity in fiction, and female desire.Maya Binyam is the author of Hangman. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is a 2025 - 2026 Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At last, the audio from December's Bookforum x Reading Writers live holiday event! The justly celebrated novelist Stephanie Wambugu joins Charlotte and Jo to talk about the controversial and inescapable Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico.Stephanie Wambugu is the author of the novel Lonely Crowds. Her work has appeared in The Drift, The Nation, Granta, Frieze, Bookforum. She lives and works in New York. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Episode 514 / Michael BrennanMichael Brennan (b. 1965, Pine Island, FL; lives Brooklyn, NY) has exhibited his paintings and works on paper nationally and internationally for the past three decades, including in the United States, Mexico, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, China, Australia, and New Zealand.  Here at the gallery, he previously mounted four very well-received solo exhibitions – Floating Weeds (2023), Late Spring (2018), Grey Razor Paintings (2014), and Knife Paintings (2006) – and has participated in numerous group exhibitions including our major survey exhibition MINUS SPACE at MoMA PS1 in 2008-2009 and Twenty (2023).Brennan's work have been reviewed in publications including The New York Times, Art in America, ARTnews, Art New England, The Brooklyn Rail, ArtNet Magazine, NY Arts, and Philadelphia Inquirer. He is also an accomplished arts writer, and his reviews and essays have been published in The Brooklyn Rail, ArtNet Magazine, Two Coats of Paint, The Village Voice, The Architect's Newspaper, American Abstract Artists, and Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution, as well as in numerous exhibition catalogues.Brennan's work is included in collections such as the Baltimore Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Jose Museum of Art, American Express, General Dynamics, Daimler AG, and Sony Corporation. He holds an MFA in Painting and an MS in Art History from Pratt Institute and a BA in Classics from the University of Florida. He has taught at Pratt Institute since 1998 and is currently Adjunct Professor in the Fine Arts Department. He has also previously taught at the School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, and Cooper Union (all NYC).  

Jo takes us on a whirlwind tour of their recent reading, including Mary Helen Washington's Paule Marshall: A Writer's Life, and Charlotte explains why Susanna Moore's In the Cut is one of the most thrilling novels she's ever encountered. Then, the profoundly thoughtful Jamie Hood joins to explore the many boyfriends and political disappointments of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. Jamie Hood is the author, most recently, of Trauma Plot: A Life, the hybrid pandemic diary how to be a good girl, the semi-monthly, Proust-infused newsletter, regards, marcel, and a book of love poems, forthcoming in 2026. She has written extensively on books, feminism, #MeToo, and other political matters for many publications, some of them even prestigious. She lives in Brooklyn.Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The hosts discuss Stephanie Wambugu's justly-hyped novel Lonely Crowds before they're joined by Noah Kulwin, an avowed Macdonaldhead who details the pleasures of private eye fiction through 1966's Black Money. Noah Kulwin is a writer based in New York City. He is also the co-host of the podcast Blowback, a history program about American empire. He has written for a wide variety of publications, but more recently can be found in The Baffler, The Intercept, Screen Slate and Protean. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Episode 513 / Langdon GravesLangdon Graves is a Virginia-born, New York City-based artist who holds a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Painting & Printmaking and an MFA from Parsons School of Design. She is adjunct faculty at Parsons and Assistant Professor in the Graduate Fine Arts program at Pratt Institute. Langdon has shown her work throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia with solo and group exhibitions that include Dinner Gallery, TEI's Art in Buildings, Mrs., Tilton Gallery, Deanna Evans Projects, Grimm, Taymour Grahne Projects, STONELEAF and the Delaware Contemporary Museum. Langdon has attended the Fountainhead Residency in Miami, the Kunstenaarsinitiatief Residency and Exhibition Program in the Netherlands, the Object Limited residency in Bisbee, Arizona and STONELEAF Retreat in upstate New York. She is a recipient of Canson & Beautiful Decay's Wet Paint Grant and has been featured in Artnet, Art in America, Hyperallergic, Vice Creators Project, Juxtapoz, Art F City, The Wall Street Journal, the Artmatters podcast and Madeline Schwartzman's See Yourself X.

Charlotte and Jo revisit Rebecca Novack's Murder Bimbo before taking a quick tour of the Russian Civil War and comrade crushes through Nikolai Ostrovsky's How The Steel Was Tempered. They're then joined by the scintillating Brittany Newell, who meditates on contemporary fiction, cities at night, and Samuel R. Delany's indelible Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. Also discussed in this episode: Emma Cline's The Guest and Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection.Brittany Newell is a writer and performer living in San Francisco. Her debut novel Oola was published in 2017 at the age of 21 in the US, UK, and Germany. You can find her written work in Granta, n+1, McSweeney's, The New York Times, and others. Her second novel Soft Core was published by FSG in February 2025 in the US, UK, and France. She is at work on a third novel about love addiction, emotional vampires, and cannibalism. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charlotte and Jo spring into the new year with a conversation about ancient poetry: Beowulf, The Iliad, and Dante's Inferno as translated by Mark Musa, Mary Jo Bang, and Danny Lavery. They're then joined by the wise and wonderful Hanif Abdurraqib who—after sharing a scoop about what series of book he reads every year (!)—reflects on the formative impacts of his encounter with Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place. Other titles discussed: Toni Morrison's Jazz, Bebe Moore Campbells' Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain. Hanif Abdurraqib is a writer from the east side of Columbus, Ohio.Danny Lavery's translations of The Inferno can be found here.Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

At last, the audio from December's Bookforum x Reading Writers live holiday event! The justly celebrated novelist Stephanie Wambugu joins Charlotte and Jo to talk about the controversial and inescapable Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico.Stephanie Wambugu is the author of the novel Lonely Crowds. Her work has appeared in The Drift, The Nation, Granta, Frieze, Bookforum. She lives and works in New York. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this host-only bonus episode, Charlotte and Jo discuss some of their most memorable reads of 2025. Authors discussed include Shon Faye, Sarah Schulman, Ai Yazawa, Marjane Satrapi, Ariana Reines, Kyung-Ran Jo, and more.Please consider supporting us on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The hosts discuss Stephanie Wambugu's justly-hyped novel Lonely Crowds before they're joined by Noah Kulwin, an avowed Macdonaldhead who details the pleasures of private eye fiction through 1966's Black Money. Noah Kulwin is a writer based in New York City. He is also the co-host of the podcast Blowback, a history program about American empire. He has written for a wide variety of publications, but more recently can be found in The Baffler, The Intercept, Screen Slate and Protean. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a scandalous rejection of holiday spirit, Jo and Charlotte reflect on the dark, elegant pleasures of Gabrielle Wittkopf's The Necrophiliac alongside contemporary novel conventions as deployed in Rebecca Novack's Murder Bimbo. The hosts are then joined by dear friend Clio Chang, who outlines the timeless, charming, annoying allure of Cheryl Strayed's hit memoir Wild (2012).Also discussed in this episode: Charlotte Roche's Wetlands, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, and Lillian Fishman's Acts of Service.  Clio Chang is a staff writer at Curbed who can do three pullups. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Charlotte and Jo spring into the new year with a conversation about ancient poetry: Beowulf, The Iliad, and Dante's Inferno as translated by Mark Musa, Mary Jo Bang, and Danny Lavery. They're then joined by the wise and wonderful Hanif Abdurraqib who—after sharing a scoop about what series of book he reads every year (!)—reflects on the formative impacts of his encounter with Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place. Other titles discussed: Toni Morrison's Jazz, Bebe Moore Campbells' Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain. Hanif Abdurraqib is a writer from the east side of Columbus, Ohio.Danny Lavery's translations of The Inferno can be found here.Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this host-only bonus episode, Charlotte and Jo discuss some of their most memorable reads of 2025. Authors discussed include Arthur C. Clarke, Shon Faye, Sarah Schulman, Ai Yazawa, Marjane Satrapi, Ariana Reines, Kyung-Ran Jo, and more.Please consider supporting us on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Niama Safia Sandy is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist, curator, organizer, and change agent.Her essay “Red” weaves a meandering tale that touches on Sandy's coming of age through rememberings of family lore, food, and key engagements with cultural organizing anchored through sorrel. The essay considers the ubiquitous staple Caribbean holiday drink as a microcosm of the collisions of political histories, desire and ancestral memory. Sandy's work across disciplines delves into the human story - through the application and critical lenses of culture, healing, history, migration, music, race and ritual. Her creative practice often is an examination of the ways history, economics, migration and other social forces and constructs have shaped modern realities. Her aim is to use the visual, written and performing arts to tell stories we know in ways we have not yet thought to tell them and to lift us all to a higher state of ontological and spiritual wholeness in the process. Sandy has taught undergraduate and graduate students at Columbia University and Pratt Institute.

In a scandalous rejection of holiday spirit, Jo and Charlotte reflect on the dark, elegant pleasures of Gabrielle Wittkopf's The Necrophiliac alongside contemporary novel conventions as deployed in Rebecca Novack's Murder Bimbo. The hosts are then joined by dear friend Clio Chang, who outlines the timeless, charming, annoying allure of Cheryl Strayed's hit memoir Wild (2012).Also discussed in this episode: Charlotte Roche's Wetlands, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, and Lillian Fishman's Acts of Service. Clio Chang is a staff writer at Curbed who can do three pullups. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Bonfire Conversations, host I down with Hugo Martin, the acclaimed Game Director behind*DOOM (2016), DOOM Eternal, and DOOM: The Dark Ages. Together, we explore the creative evolution of the modern DOOM trilogy, the philosophy behind making something truly “badass,” and the design decisions that shaped one of the most influential first-person shooter franchises in history.Hugo shares stories from his childhood, his early journey into game development, and the breakthrough moments that brought him to id Software. He explains how he tests ideas, builds emotional impact through gameplay, reinvents DOOM's identity with each entry, and pushes combat design into bold new territory. They also discuss the legacy of DOOM as it reaches its 32-year milestone, the challenges of carrying a cultural icon forward, and the creative risks behind The Dark Ages.The conversation ends with the “Penny for Your Thoughts” segment, where Hugo answers personal and imaginative questions about creativity, habits, favorite films, top games, dream directors for a DOOM movie, and more.Bonfire Conversations is available on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the most influential voices in entertainment, games, and pop culture.Chapters:00:00 Intro & The "Badass" Philosophy02:04 Childhood & 80s Pop Culture04:51 The Birth of Gaming: Atari to Nintendo06:44 The Journey to Game Development07:05 Early Art Training & Illustration09:02 Pratt Institute & Concept Art10:44 Art Center Degree Decision12:42 Freelancing (Wizards of the Coast, MTV)14:38 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome16:44 First Big Break: Naughty Dog18:43 From Pacific Rim to ID Software19:01 The Philosophy of "Luck"19:47 The Creative Process: Research & The Teapot Story28:15 How to Design "Badass"29:11 Inspiration for the Doom Slayer37:10 The One Rule: Make Them Feel Something40:53 The Theme of Doom: The Dark Ages41:58 The Brilliant Idea Hugo Abandoned47:02 Reading vs. Audiobooks48:20 Dream Director for a DOOM Movie59:39 Conclusion#hugomartin #doom #gamedevelopment

Charlotte delves into Ecclesiastes through the work of liberation theologist Elsa Támez (When the Horizons Close) before Jo shares some of Pierre Guyotat's horny, rapturous literary memoir, Idiocy. Icon of many RW conversations past, the thoughtful Jackie Ess then joins to discuss Tolstoy's crank-inflected final novel, Resurrection.Jackie Ess is the author of a novel called Darryl, and more recently of a long short-story length chapbook called Eugene. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersOur Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Charlotte delves into Ecclesiastes through the work of liberation theologist Elsa Támez (When the Horizons Close) before Jo shares some of Pierre Guyotat's horny, rapturous literary memoir, Idiocy. Icon of many RW conversations past, the thoughtful Jackie Ess then joins to discuss Tolstoy's crank-inflected final novel, Resurrection.Jackie Ess is the author of a novel called Darryl, and more recently of a long short-story length chapbook called Eugene. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jo and Charlotte discuss secret gardens, indoor kids, and Peter Pan's baby teeth before they're joined by culture-shaping Annelise Ogaard, who introduces listeners to the lavish, creepy world of Gabrielle Wittkop's fiction.Annelise Ogaard is a writer, translator, filmmaker, vibesmith, area woman, and friend of the pod. She has translated a variety of Japanese manga, including Hauntress, (one of the NYPL's top ten graphic novels of the year

Jo and Charlotte discuss secret gardens, indoor kids, and Peter Pan's baby teeth before they're joined by culture-shaping Annelise Ogaard, who introduces listeners to the lavish, creepy world of Gabrielle Wittkop's fiction.Annelise Ogaard is a writer, translator, filmmaker, vibesmith, area woman, and friend of the pod. She has translated a variety of Japanese manga, including Hauntress, (one of the NYPL's top ten graphic novels of the year

Charlotte overcomes her resistance to novels about sexual abuse in order to read Kate Elizabeth Russell's excellent My Dark Vanessa, after which Jo introduces listeners to the freewheeling criminality of Diane DiMassa's Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian. The ferociously intelligent Torrey Peters then joins for a conversation about plant consciousness and our relationship with the organic world. Other titles mentioned in this episode: Jamie Hood's Trauma Plot, The Incest Diary by Anonymous, Is a River Alive? by Robert MacFarlane, Melanie Challenger's How To Be Animal, Sunaura Taylor's Beasts of Burden, and Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life.The Rabindranath Tagore quote that Charlotte gets wrong at the end (I'm sorry! —CS) is:I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.Torrey Peters is the author of the novel Detransition, Baby, which won the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction and was named a Best Book of the Century by the New York Times. Her second book, Stag Dance, was a national bestseller. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Charlotte overcomes her resistance to novels about sexual abuse in order to read Kate Elizabeth Russell's excellent My Dark Vanessa, after which Jo introduces listeners to the freewheeling criminality of Diane DiMassa's Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian. The ferociously intelligent Torrey Peters then joins for a conversation about plant consciousness and our relationship with the organic world. Other titles mentioned in this episode: Jamie Hood's Trauma Plot, The Incest Diary by Anonymous, Is a River Alive? by Robert MacFarlane, Melanie Challenger's How To Be Animal, Sunaura Taylor's Beasts of Burden, and Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life.The Rabindranath Tagore quote that Charlotte gets wrong at the end (I'm sorry! —CS) is:I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.Torrey Peters is the author of the novel Detransition, Baby, which won the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction and was named a Best Book of the Century by the New York Times. Her second book, Stag Dance, was a national bestseller. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane. Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWriters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Jo discovers the seminal elegance of Sylvia Wynter's Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World, while Charlotte considers how well she would fare if she traveled back in time to the era of Alexander the Great, as depicted in Mary Renault's The Persian Boy. Then, the dazzling Lauren Michele Jackson joins to discuss the chaotic, thrilling, sexually vibrant, and deeply unwell narrator of Nettie Jones' Fish Tales.Also mentioned in this episode: Percival Everett's Glyph, Danzy Senna's Symptomatic, Street Zen by David Schneider, Eve Babitz, and Samuel R. Delany's Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.Lauren Michele Jackson is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and contributing writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of White Negroes and the forthcoming essay collection, Back. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today we're joined by Tanya Van Cott. Tanya is a New York–based architect, industrial designer, and educator whose work explores how design and storytelling can drive social change. A graduate of Pratt Institute, Tanya has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts with a Presidential Design Achievement Award and has been published for her innovative approach to interdisciplinary design. Before launching her own practice and press, WomanBecool PRESS, she honed her skills at world-renowned studios Pentagram and Lippincott. Through both design and the written word, Tanya examines how disruptive technologies shape our lives — often through the eyes of powerful female protagonists. [Nov 10, 2025]   00:00 - Intro 00:25 - Intro Links -          Social-Engineer.com - http://www.social-engineer.com/ -          Offensive Security Vishing Services - https://www.social-engineer.com/offensive-security/vishing/ -          Offensive Security SMiShing Services - https://www.social-engineer.com/offensive-security/smishing/ -          Offensive Security Phishing Services - https://www.social-engineer.com/offensive-security/smishing/ -          Call Back Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/offensive-security/call-back-phishing/ -          Adversarial Simulation Services - https://www.social-engineer.com/offensive-security/adversarial-simulation/ -          Social Engineering Risk Assessments - https://www.social-engineer.com/offensive-security/social-engineering-risk-assessment/ -          Social-Engineer channel on SLACK - https://social-engineering-hq.slack.com/ssb -          CLUTCH - http://www.pro-rock.com/ -          innocentlivesfoundation.org - http://www.innocentlivesfoundation.org/                                 02:12 - Tanya Van Cott Intro 03:04 - The Path to Architecture 03:58 - Primal Screams 06:57 - Bandwidth -          Bandwidth - Tanya Van Cott 08:15 - The Human Element 10:42 - Lack of Empathy 16:51 - The Parent Trap 19:26 - Is Empathy an Action? 24:22 - We're the Problem! 29:14 - Mentors 32:50 - Book Recommendations -          Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut 35:13 - Find Tanya Van Cott Online -          LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanyavancott/ -          Website: http://www.tanyavancott.com/ 36:37 - Valuing Real Connections 39:35 - Guest Wrap Up & Outro -          www.social-engineer.com -          www.innocentlivesfoundation.org

Reading Writers is BACK, and in partnership with Bookforum Magazine!In this first episode of Season 3, hosts Jo and Charlotte delve into the (separate) letter collections of Vincent Van Gogh and D.H. Lawrence before they're joined by superstar novelist Rumaan Alam to reflect on magazine eras of yore via Tina Brown's The Vanity Fair Diaries. Also mentioned: Cat Marnell's How To Murder Your Life, Jean Godfrey June's Free Gift With Purchase, Michael M. Grynbaum's Empire of the Elite, Stet by Diana Athill, the diaries of Helen Garner, and the diaries of Andy Warhol.Rumaan Alam is the author of four novels, including, most recently, Entitlement.Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersOur Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this eye-opening episode of The Hen Report, hosts Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan welcome back Jan Dutkiewicz, professor of political science at Pratt Institute and co-author of the forthcoming book Feed the People: Why Industrial Food is Good and How to Make it Even Better. The conversation centers on a problematic New York Times article about animal rights activism in…