Version 1

Claire Akkan on creative writing about NYC, staying disciplined, and designing vintage bags

Claire Akkan (@​​claire.akkan) is a writer and designer based in New York. Claire has a background as a venture capital chief of staff and brand strategist. She is a Fulbright scholar and graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Russian & Eastern European Studies and a B.A. in Humanities. She writes the Substack award-winning newsletter Cappuccino Thoughts and runs a sustainable luxury bag brand (@claireakkan.bags). In this episode, we discuss how she got started on Substack, not experiencing writer’s block, staying disciplined, and designing and repurposing vintage bags.
 
Follow Claire’s Cappuccino Thoughts on Substack: https://cappuccinothoughts.substack.com/
Buy Claire’s bags: https://claire-akkan.myshopify.com/ 
 
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Anjali Sundaram on creativity in cooking, experimenting with flavors, and food writing

Anjali Sundaram (@cooking.4.1) is an NYC-based food writer and recipe developer, focusing on tips and methods for the solo chef. She loves to discover new flavor combinations and push the boundaries of home cooking, using her years of writing and videography experience to inspire people to love cooking for themselves. In this episode, we dig into how Anjali started cooking and developing her own recipes abroad, how she experiments with pairing different flavors, how she balances creating and working full-time, imposter syndrome, and how she takes the pressure off herself to always be posting that helps prevent burnout. 
Subscribe to Anjali’s substack: https://anjalicooks.substack.com/ 
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Emmanuel Dzotsi on his love of storytelling, finding inspiration, and embracing challenges

Emmanuel Dzotsi (@newsmanual_) is an award-winning journalist, podcast host, and producer for This American Life. He’s reported stories on everything from backroom deals for political power, the strange phenomenon of white people sending Black folks venmo payments as reparations, to vast money-making phone scams hidden in plain sight. He co-hosted the third season of Serial and the popular podcast about the internet, Reply All. In this episode, we talk about his diverse background and how that influenced his love of storytelling, his stints in filmmaking and politics before switching to radio and podcasts, what his creative process looks like, and how a story for This American Life comes together. 
 
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Miles of The Tea Stand on growing community, building connections, and serving free tea around NYC

Miles is the founder of The Tea Stand, a community project which serves free tea at public parks, food distributions, and local events around Brooklyn. With The Tea Stand, Miles seeks to create spaces for folks to connect with themselves, one another, and the natural world. On this episode, we discuss switching careers to be more in alignment with your values, growing a community, sustainability in keeping The Tea Stand going, the challenges around running a non-profit, and how The Tea Stand has impacted him and others. 
 
Learn more about The Tea Stand: https://www.theteastand.org/
The Tea Stand’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theteastandnyc/
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Laura Lorena Barbosa on navigating the media industry, mental health, and powerful storytelling

Laura Lorena Barbosa is an accomplished TV/film producer with over 12 years of experience at networks such as NBC News, Telemundo, CNN, and Al Jazeera. As the founder of The Creative Power Agency, Laura inspires others to reclaim their creative potential, crafting narratives that foster inclusivity and illuminate the beauty of humanity. We discuss hustling through journalism school at Penn State, how her background being an immigrant from Colombia influenced her love of storytelling, how important her support system is to her mental health, and starting her own creative agency.
Follow Laura on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraalorenna/ 
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Rachel of Rachel Off Duty on finding fulfillment, working while traveling, and changing corporate culture

Rachel is a career & travel expert, and the founder of Rachel Off Duty – a website for ambitious women seeking more adventurous lives. Based in Los Angeles but often workcationing around the globe, Rachel also works as a Travel Storytelling Consultant in the advertising space. We talk about finding fulfillment outside of corporate America, creating your own metrics for success, changing corporate culture, where she is most productive and creative while traveling, and how she manages working full-time, having her business on the side, AND traveling a lot. 
Follow Rachel Off Duty on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/racheloffduty/
Visit Rachel Off Duty’s website: https://racheloffduty.com/ 
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Eva Reign on career highs and lows, learning on set, and blending acting and journalism

Eva Reign is a Peabody and GLAAD Award-winning Brooklyn-based actress, writer and artist from St. Louis, Missouri. She is the star of Billy Porter’s directorial debut Anything’s Possible from Amazon Studios and MGM’s Orion Pictures. Her writing has appeared in Vogue, Vice, Them, The Cut, Byrdie, PAPER and Highsnobiety. On this episode, we chat about Eva’s creative process in getting ready for her role of Kelsa in Anything’s Possible, her experience with The Artist’s Way, getting over imposter syndrome on set, and how to navigate slower times in your career. 
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Alice Lemee on writer's block, making changes in her career, and creator gravity

Alice Lemee is a self-taught writer who left her budding career in the music industry to pursue writing full time. She’s a writing coach and newsletter ghostwriter for seven-figure business owners, award-winning YouTubers, and TV anchors. We talk about making changes to be happier – whether that’s changing careers or changing services within her writing career, the advantages of being self-taught, how she gets past writer’s block, and what creator gravity is. 
 
Subscribe to Alice’s Substack: internetly.substack.com
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Ryan Herrera on creative writing, balancing time, and beating writer's block

Ryan Herrera is a creative writer who is pursuing his Masters in Writing at Johns Hopkins, and works in ad tech for his 9-5. He has experience writing across a wide variety of genres including fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, humor writing, and journalism. He hopes to start writing his first novel upon graduating in 2026. We talk about how he makes time for creative writing while working full-time in advertising, how his identities play a role in his work, how he gets ideas, and much more.
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Patrick Thomas on creativity in business journalism, why running leads to the best ideas, and writing a book

Patrick Thomas writes about agriculture and the food industry for The Wall Street Journal. He covers meatpacking companies, supermarkets and how American food is grown. He joined the Journal in 2018 writing about corporate breaking news and is a native of Omaha, Nebraska. He joins this episode of Version 1 to talk about what makes business journalism creative, how running leads to breakthroughs and how he takes hundreds of pages of notes and distills it down to an article.
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