Grammy Award-winning violinist and acclaimed author Ling Ling Huang joins host Laura Federico to explore the tangled relationship between envy, desire, and creative life. From unwanted projections as a child prodigy to discovering her bisexuality later in life, Ling Ling discusses how she moved from being passively desired to actively desiring—and why that shift changed everything.

They dive into the intersection of envy and love in female friendships, betrayal as a creative catalyst, the torture and liberation of jealousy, and what happens when you finally achieve the thing you've been choking on bitterness to reach. Plus: AI as confessional, pregnancy mysteries, Luddite parenting, why friction makes music (and relationships) worth experiencing, and how showing up—even when it hurts—might be the most radical act of all.

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Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

Ling Ling Huang

Natural Beauty

Immaculate Conception

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04:13 — Welcome to Ling Ling Huang

04:45 — The central question: Is it better to desire or to be desired?

06:12 — Traveling alone as a young violinist and inappropriate adult attention

07:17 — The active versus passive nature of desire

08:10 — The torture of envy as a human experience

09:14 — Competitive music conservatory culture and coded critique

10:24 — When her best friend cheated with her boyfriend

11:45 — The continuation of love after betrayal and stepping back as an observer

13:01 — Showing up even when it's painful

15:25 — Writing as a "baby writer" and wanting everyone to talk about envy

16:44 — "Choking on the bitterness"

19:05 — Debut anxiety, goalposts, and comparing yourself to other authors

21:00 — The mystery of our bodies, especially in pregnancy

27:23 — Using ChatGPT as a confessional space

29:12 — What happens when human relationships have more friction?

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Aidan Ryan and Rachelle Toarmino—two award-winning writers who are also married—join Laura Federico to explore desire, ambition, and creative partnership. They discuss the ecstatic "adrenaline rush" of making art, the relationship between absence and wanting, and how they navigate power dynamics in both their work and relationship. From Rachelle's viral poem "You up?" to Aidan's examination of his aunt and uncle's art world journey, they reveal how desire evolves from abstract wanting to deep connection, why intimacy matters more than fame, and what it means to think through writing as two people building a life together.

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Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

Rachelle Toarmino

Hell Yeah

You up?

Aidan Ryan

I Am Here You Are Not I Love You

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TIMESTAMPS

05:14 — Is it better to desire or to be desired?

06:23 — Desire as the engine of creative work

07:51 — The relationship between absence and desire

08:53 — Desire vs. ambition in the life of an artist

10:00 — Aidan's early encounters with publishing and fame

12:32 — The discomfort of being desired and misinterpreted

13:24 — Rachelle on rejecting careerist poetry tracks

14:56 — "I want to be read because I want to be felt and understood"

16:59 — What ecstasy feels like when writing a poem

18:21 — How Aidan and Rachelle met

21:41 — "Our understanding of our desires improves as we age"

22:06 — What changes as the relationship evolves

23:46 — The intimacy of direct address in Rachelle's poetry

25:15 — Finding the out-loud voice of new poems

27:07 — The story behind "You up?" the viral Tumblr poem

29:38 — Gender roles in creative relationships

33:41 — Power dynamics beyond patriarchal stereotypes

34:52 — Where desire and power intersect

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.

Laura Federico sits down with Stephanie Wambugu, author of the critically acclaimed debut novel Lonely Crowds, to explore the intimate relationship between desire and suffering in the lives of Ruth and Maria.

Together, they unpack the complex dynamics of Ruth and Maria's decades-long friendship, examining how childhood shapes adult patterns of longing, the shadow Catholicism casts over pleasure in the novel, and why penance becomes inextricable from passion. Stephanie shares her perspective on trauma narratives in fiction, the problem with making suffering too tidy, and how secular life leaves us without clear pathways for moral absolution.

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Laura Federico

The Cycle Book

Stephanie Wambugu

Lonely Crowds

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TIMESTAMPS

04:49 — Why Stephanie believes desiring is better than being desired

06:21 — Ruth's patterns of desire and reenactment in Lonely Crowds

07:58 — Remembering vs. forgetting: The responsibility of memory

08:31 — Pop psychology and the trauma narrative

10:45 — How we narrativize traumatic events through language

17:12 — The compelling unavailable person

18:52 — Ruth as Maria’s acolyte

24:10 — Secular life and the search for moral absolution

25:08 — Religion as organizing principle in times of collective pain

28:37 — Mental illness without metaphor

32:01 — Why novels can hold unanswerable questions

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Our music, Hit Her Up, is written by Nakisso Peralta and performed by Chillers.