(Thank you, Heather!). Welcome to the first proper episode of In The Long Run with Katie Dadarria. If you missed the announcement episode, don’t worry, this first episode has been (partially) designed to catch you up to speed. Throughout these episodes, I’m going to be chatting with my dear friend, Katie Dadarria, about a developing personal project she’s working on, which features her interviewing older women about their experiences running. One of the lenses we’re utilizing is the exploration of how run clubs have blown up in popularity, the good and the bad of that, along with the conflicting feelings of community and isolation that we can feel in groups.

As the series progresses, we’ll be investigating the ways in which these talks have affected Katie, and with each episode, we talk explicitly about her thoughts and feelings towards the evolution of these people's lives (including her own). For this first chat, it only made sense to have a direct talk about running, an activity that many of us can’t imagine partaking in (even with the mounting peer pressure to do so).

This is episode 1 of 5 (Intro song is Fa Fa Fire by Andreas Dahlback, from Epidemic Sound). Artwork photo by Katie Dadarria.

I couldn’t be more excited to announce our next mini-series, In The Long Run with Katie Dadarria. Katie is an exceptionally talented photographer and runner based in New York City. Though running has become a focal element of her life, she’s grown hyper-aware of how often the projection of community amongst run clubs can be anything but. Especially regarding older women, who (as Katie puts it) “are often not encouraged to show up, despite having so much to offer.”

Across these talks, I chat with Katie about her experiences talking to these women, how the feelings of isolation, aging, and exclusion can feel more tangible than we recognize. A core of this series is being challenged by our own misconceptions of others and what they’re going through, with Katie also exploring how she’s navigating the changes of her life and learning from the people she’s been meeting along the way.

The first episode will be out on Wednesday, February 11th. Be sure to follow Katie on Instagram and visit her website to learn more about her and her work (Intro song is Fa Fa Fire by Andreas Dahlback, from Epidemic Sound)

I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that ambition can usually be associated with a lot of tropes. The tortured artist laboring over their craft & resigning themselves to perpetually chasing greatness at the expense of everything (no, this isn’t a review of Marty Supreme, but I did love that movie). But what happens when an artist is able to take ambition and view it through a different lens? Even a healthier lens?

That’s been the case with my old friends of the band St. Lucia, with that healthy ambition being evident across their recently released Fata Morgana double-album. Broken up into two halves (Dawn and Dusk) the album is a soaring triumph, with massive swings musically that feel reminiscent of ABBA, Paul Simon, and Brazilian folk music. My favourite part about this project is how it very much feels alive, a high-quality collection of songs that don’t feel marred by perfectionism, which I can say is a new space for St. Lucia to be operating in. To learn more about this album and the way it expanded the band's life, I got to catch up with Jean and Patti at their home in Brooklyn to learn all about the transformative experience of bringing this music to life.