The Ugly Podcast
Lauren talks with creatives and industry professionals about the creative process and how to live more openly and fully through the willingness to make “ugly” things—including this podcast! Lauren aims to let creatives know they’re not alone and they deserve to explore all facets and forms of creativity, not just what is accepted or tolerated as “good art.”
Episodes
July 10, 2023 • 53 mins
In this episode, I'm rejoined by my fellow editor and twin perfectionist, Erika Steeves! We're back to talk about perfectionism but through the lens of Katherine Morgan Schafler's book, The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, the book that asks the question: What if your perfectionism is actually a superpower?
We were both deeply impacted by this book as it aligns so well with the path we'd already begun with our perfection...
Mark as Played
June 19, 2023 • 57 mins
Get ready for ugly-ception!!! In this episode, I'm joined by publisher, editor, author, and maker, Kim Werker, to discuss our parallel discoveries: that ugly art makes everything better! Kim made her discovery seventeen years ago at a fateful crafting party where, in a bout of intense imposter syndrome, she was inspired to make a hideous doll...on purpose. Ever since then, she's fallen in love with making ugly things and wants ever...
Mark as Played
June 5, 2023 • 53 mins
On today's episode, I'm joined by Merle Saferstein, writer, journaler, and legacy work educator. Together we talk about the joys of journaling, how it's useful to get to know ourselves, process our messy feelings, and consider new perspectives as we navigate our relationships and worries. We also talk about Merle's work as a legacy educator and how she helps people live more intentionally by asking them to live out the legacy they ...
Mark as Played
May 15, 2023 • 52 mins
After a brief hiatus for my vacation, I'm so glad to bring this episode to you with my guest Gauri Yardi, a writer and multidisciplinary creative, naturopath, and creative wellbeing coach. She creates resources for tired and burnt out creatives to help regain the energy to make their incredible art through holistic nervous system care. Gauri noticed that when professionals would discuss burnout, they would talk about mindset and sl...
Mark as Played
April 10, 2023 • 48 mins
Sophie Cannata-Bowman is an anti-perfectionist book editor and writing coach, a playwright, theatre performer, rock climber, and amateur herbalist. In today's episode, she joined me to look at improvisation and the ways it can help us get unstuck and find a more joyful writing practice. We talk about Sophie's experience growing up around creativity and storytelling, her study of plays and acting and the ways a writer's words can be...
Mark as Played
March 27, 2023 • 51 mins
Today I was joined by my kindred perfectionism buddy and editor of speculative fiction, Erika Steeves. We talk about our instant connection over perfectionism when we met last year, and you might hear some familiar descriptions of your own perfectionism and self-doubt that echo in your head each day just as it does ours. We discuss how ugly art has helped us build up a tolerance for imperfection--because what is perfectionism but h...
Mark as Played
March 13, 2023 • 55 mins
Can you believe it? One whole year of The Ugly Podcast! I'm so proud of my little bundle of joy, and to celebrate, my original co-host and lifetime creative partner, Emerson Lee, joins me for a vulnerable conversation about coming to terms with the messy middle. We're both painfully honest about where we're at with our businesses, and I had to come down from a monster vulnerability hangover afterward, which I'm sure will rear its h...
Mark as Played
February 27, 2023 • 48 mins
This week I'm joined by Cami Ostman, the founder of The Narrative Project. She's written for Adventures Northwest and the Psychology Today blogger series as well as her own blog: 7marathons7continents.com. Cami has been profiled in O Magazine, Fitness Magazine, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post. Cami believes words are powerful and that we CREATE our identities with words—as we write, we become! We chat about Cami's original cr...
Mark as Played
February 13, 2023 • 44 mins
Today I'm joined by Mae Wagner, an author, speaker, advocate, trauma mentor, and community builder. We discuss what it means to use creativity to process trauma by helping identify harmful coping mechanisms, find agency, and listen to our intuition. Mae says that creativity allows us to shed light on parts of ourselves that thrive in darkness, paving the way for healing and self-discovery.
We also talk about Mae's own relations...
Mark as Played
January 30, 2023 • 55 mins
In today's episode, I chatted with artist, writer, and accidental astrologer, Heather Buchanan. You know her from her distinctive, goofy, watercolors and oil paintings with noseless faces as well as her weekly, totally real, horoscopes, Horror Scoops. We discussed her days of painting portraits and when she realized that she wanted to find her own style rather than relying on what other people wanted to see and what would make her ...
Mark as Played
January 16, 2023 • 57 mins
Leisa Greene, the founder of Indie It Press, spent the first forty-one years of her life completely unaware that she had anything creative to offer the world. Coming into her creativity later in life, Leisa immediately felt the imposter syndrome. "Who do I think I am?" "I haven't been dreaming of this since I was a kid, so I must not be a real writer." In learning to navigate the creative process, she began learning more about impo...
Mark as Played
January 2, 2023 • 51 mins
My guest today is changing how I see myself as a writer. Meg is a developmental editor, writer, journalist, and certified Gateless Writing teacher, and her new Gateless Writing salons aim to take down the inner critic and get writers more deeply in touch with themselves and their creativity. Gateless Writing is a framework developed by acclaimed author and Fulbright Scholar Suzanne Kingsbury and is based in neuroscience and Zen pri...
Mark as Played
December 19, 2022 • 59 mins
In today's episode, I'm joined by another Lauren who is basically my twin. Lauren Henderson is a self-proclaimed creative dabbler. She's been an engineer for consulting firms for twelve years and is specialized in technical editing and quality control. Throughout most of those years, she's had creative side hustles, including book review blogging, selling used books, making pottery, and freelance editing. After deciding to pursue f...
Mark as Played
December 5, 2022 • 57 mins
My guest today is Rey Ward, a youth development professional who uses art and creativity as part of a trauma-informed practice when serving young clients. Working with kids has taught them infinite lessons on seeing beauty in imperfection and finding healing in the process rather than the result.
Mark as Played
November 21, 2022 • 41 mins
In this episode, I'm joined by Alex the Undercover Novelist. She is the host of the Novel Marathon podcast and a lifelong writer and learner. She started the Novel Marathon podcast after years of writing classes and a failed NaNoWriMo attempt as a way to hold herself accountable and help other writers through their book writing journey. We talk about exchanging a fixed mindset for a growth mindset and realizing that it's never too ...
Mark as Played
November 7, 2022 • 56 mins
In this episode, I talk with Anni, an author, developmental editor, and writing coach, about the creative process in all its forms and rhythms. There are those times when you're in the groove and you feel aligned with everything that's on the page, and—maybe more often than not—there are those other times when you aren't sure you could use a keyboard if your life depended on it. We discuss honoring your feelings in the moment AND t...
Mark as Played
October 24, 2022 • 52 mins
My guest today is Kharysa Watt, a horticulturalist turned freelance editor and a pencil artist. We chat about the journey to making art for yourself and all the stumbling blocks therein--from fearing what your parents and peers think to learning that it's ok to leave things unfinished and to take breaks when we get frustrated.
Mark as Played
October 10, 2022 • 56 mins
On today's episode, I talked with my friend and fellow editor, Gabrielle (Gabby) Goodloe, about the importance of creating community in the writing world. At the end of the episode, we introduce our new writing community, The Writer's Helm. Yo ho!
Mark as Played
September 26, 2022 • 56 mins
Content warning: mental health, self-harm, and other health-related traumas.
My guest in this episode is an intuitive abstract artist based in the Midwest. Art has always been Medora's way of composting pain so that something new can thrive from it. Experiences, in all their diversity of intensity and meaning, are what she most portrays with paint. She started creating abstract work in 2018 after a traumatic event, and her passi...
Mark as Played
September 12, 2022 • 57 mins
A change is coming to the podcast, and we thought it was time to finally record part II of our Growth episode. The Ugly Podcast is both growing and shrinking! Growing in that guests will be joining in the following episodes to explore various topics on creativity and mindset in an explosion of creative genius (if I do say so myself). And shrinking in that our beloved Emerson is stepping away from the podcast. We chat about the reas...
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
NFL.com's "Around the NFL" crew (Gregg Rosenthal, Dan Hanzus and Marc Sessler) break down the latest football news, with a dash of mirth.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.