Episode 32: Canada, Cannabis and CEOs with Alison Gordon

This moment is a turning point for normalizing cannabis, and Alison Gordon is in the MILK Studio with Mallory to tell us why. Alison is the CEO of 48North Cannabis Co., a medical cannabis company based in Toronto.

Named one of Canada’s Top 10 Marketers by Marketing Magazine, Alison has been celebrated for her unique ability to shift public opinion and consumer behavior in the right direction. As a co-founder and EVP at Rethink Breast Cancer for 13 years prior to joining the medical marijuana industry, Alison is credited with growing a new generation of young breast cancer supporters -- a previously untapped demographic compelled by her ground-breaking communication and branding expertise.

Alison’s extensive work with patients, physicians and government, coupled with her entrepreneurial approach and marketing experience, has uniquely positioned her in the marijuana industry. Alison lives in Toronto with her family. Follow her @cannabisculturist on Instagram.

Episode 31: Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs Of Resistance, Dear Client, and #TheseKids with Designer Bonnie Siegler

Designer and author Bonnie Siegler is in the MILK Studio with Mallory. Bonnie has two new books, Signs of Resistance, a visual history of protest in America, and Dear Client, a how-to book about working successfully with creative people.  

Photo by Ryan Christopher Jones

Bonnie founded and runs the award-winning design studio Eight and a Half, and was voted one of the fifty most influential designers working today by Graphic Design USA. She is best known for her design work for Saturday Night Live, the Criterion Collection, HBO, Late Night with Seth Meyers, StoryCorps, Participant Media, and Newsweek.

Most recently, she was the creative director of the Trump parody autobiography “You Can’t Spell America Without Me” by Alec Baldwin and Kurt Andersen and created the main title sequence for Will & Grace. She has taught at the graduate level for many years at the School of Visual Arts and Yale University, conducted workshops at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Rhode Island School of Design and judged design competitions all over the place.

On the day after the National School Walkout Against Gun Violence, and a few days before The March for Our Lives, Bonnie and Mallory talk about pussy hats, Trump obsessions, memes, fonts, Our Bodies Ourselves, being a mother, and fear of failure. Check out Bonnie’s work at 8point5.com

Episode 30: Violence and Memory, Empathy and Diversity, #MeToo and Oysters with Journalist Rona Kobell

Journalist Rona Kobell is in the MILK Studio with Mallory. Moved by the trauma of the Parkland, Florida shooting, Rona and Mallory collaborated on a print piece about their high school classmate Karen Hurwitz, who was brutally murdered when they were all seventeen years old. Read the piece that prompted this conversation.

Rona began her career covering crime in rural Missouri and later Pittsburgh, and was on the staff of the Baltimore Sun from 2000 to 2009. After a journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan, she moved on to the Chesapeake Bay Journal, a monthly newspaper focusing on America’s largest estuary. There, she started a monthly radio show, “Midday on the Bay,” broadcast for five years on Maryland’s largest NPR station. Rona also freelanced for several publications, including Grist, Slate, Modern Farmer, and The Washington Post. Now a science writer at the University of Maryland’s Sea Grant College, she lives north of Baltimore with her husband, also a journalist, and two children. Follow Rona’s writing @rkobell on Twitter. 

Extras: In the episode, Rona and I talk about articles and podcasts you should check out. Find them here:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/640/five-women

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/books/review/little-fires-everywhere-celeste-ng.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/03/how-to-lose-your-job-from-sexual-harassment-in-33-easy-steps/555197/

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/arts/television/viola-davis-plays-shonda-rhimess-latest-tough-heroine.html

Episode 29: Cartoon Coping, Unpaid Custodial Work, and Goop-y Wellness with Dr Grace Farris, MD

Cartoonist and physician Dr. Grace Farris MD is in the MILK Studio with Mallory. Dr. Farris graduated from Brown Medical School and completed her internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She practiced as a hospitalist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and was a fellow in bioethics at Harvard Medical School in 2016. In 2017, Dr. Farris joined the Icahn Mount Sinai School of Medicine as assistant professor and Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Mount Sinai West. 

In addition, Grace draws the most excellent, wry, New Yorker-ish cartoons and shares them on Instagram, about momming as a doctor and woo-hooing at every Soul Cycle around NYC. It is a spot on, self-deprecating (because look at her resume!) look at life as a curious NYC transplant, a physician who is often mistaken for a nurse, #boymom. Check her out @coupdegracefarris on Instagram and @gracefarris on Twitter.

Episode 28: Trendspotting, Corporate Spying, and Voicing Pharah with Fashion Dilettante Jen Cohn

Voiceover actress and fashion consultant Jen Cohn joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Jen’s versatile voice can be heard on hundreds of commercials, cartoons, video games, promos, industrials, and books on tape.

Photo by Kara Mia Collier-Ibanez

She currently is the voice of Pharah from the video game Overwatch, which has a passionate and enormous fan base. When Jen isn't running around talking into microphones and schmoozing, or hanging out with her husband and son, she can be found obsessively researching new concept stores, hunting for the best Japanese nail salons, swooning over and interviewing emerging designers, and plotting her next trip to Paris. Check her out, especially her boot collection, @FashionDilettante on Instagram and @heyitsjencohn on Twitter.

Episode 27: Desert Runners, Film Fatales, Motherland and Single Motherhood with Filmmaker Jennifer Steinman Sternin

Jennifer Steinman Sternin is an award-winning filmmaker with over 20 years of experience in television and film, and she joins Mallory in the MILK Studio.

Jennifer talks about trusting the creative process to do its magic, growing up with strong female entrepreneurial artists as role models, becoming a single mother by choice, and how that decision changed her life and her work. She has a beautiful story about finding love at the perfect time, and how hitting milestones out of order has made perfect sense in her life.

Jennifer is currently working on a film with percussionist Sheila E., and another project with Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American Muslim woman to be elected to a state legislature in Minnesota. She lives in the Bay Area with her family. Check her out at JenniferSteinman.com.

Episode 26: Modern Loss IRL, Pastel Platitudes on Pillows, and The Richness of Living with Author Rebecca Soffer

Rebecca Soffer joins Mallory in the MILK Studio to talk about her book, “Modern Loss: Candid conversations about grief. Beginners welcome.” Rebecca is the CEO of the website Modern Loss, which she founded with co-author Gabrielle Birkner. A former producer for the “The Colbert Report,” Rebecca is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of loss and resilience, and contributes regularly to books, magazines and other media.

Rebecca Soffer; Photo by Elaina Mortali

Blurbed by everyone from Mindy Kaling to Stephen Colbert to Anna Sale, “Modern Loss” is practical, surprising, and filled with the darkly humorous and tender details of death's inevitability. Rebecca talks about her own messy story of loss, and how she lives her life as a mom, wife, and journalist with as much richness as possible. Check out modernloss.com.

Episode 25: Women Killing It, Willing It, Faking It and Making It with Podcast Host and Investigative Journalist Sally Hubbard

Sally Hubbard, Creator and Host of “Women Killing It” Podcast, joins Mallory in the MILK Studio.

Through interviews and real-life storytelling, Sally’s mission is to create a movement of women celebrating successes and inspiring one another. Sally attended NYU Law School and later became an investigative journalist, striving to uncover just how do successful women do it? Inspired by stories of shattering the proverbial “glass ceiling,” Sally looks to reveal a playbook for how women can kill it in their careers.

She and Mallory talk, at the tail end of 2017, about the reckoning of male sexual assaulters and harassers, how to keep up the good fight as an activist, and how flexibility in the workplace is good for all of us.

Check out Sally, and her fabulous feminist positive podcast at www.womenkillingit.com.

Episode 24: How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids, Marriage Under a Microscope, and Cyndi Lauper’s Vintage Kitchen with Jancee Dunn

Jancee Dunn joins Mallory is in the MILK Studio to talk about her latest book, "How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids."

Photo: Elena Seibert

Jancee is the New York Times bestselling author of five books, including a memoir of her years at Rolling Stone, a book she co-wrote with Cyndi Lauper, and a children’s book, "I'm Afraid Your Teddy Is In Trouble Today," about stuffed animals up to no good. Her essay collection, "Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?" was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Parents.

Check her out at JanceeDunn.net

Episode 23: Wedding Toasts, Gentrification and Gen X Mid Life Crises with Journalist Ada Calhoun

Ada Calhoun joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Ada is the author of  “Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give,” a funny and poignant personal examination of marriage – her own and the institution itself.

In addition to this essay collection and her first book “St. Marks is Dead,” Ada writes for The New York Times, The NewYorker.com and Oprah.com about MILKy topics like Gen X female mid life crises, gentrification, and loss – many of Mallory’s favorite dinner party topics.

Check her out at AdaCalhoun.com.