Show Notes
"No just means not right now." That's the philosophy that kept writer and Oldster founder Sari Botton going through decades of rejection before building one of Substack's most beloved magazines — at age 60. In this episode of The Messy Parts, Sari gets honest with Maryam about the messy middle: the identity searching, the failed attempts, the mean girls that never quite went away, and the moment she finally stopped contorting herself to fit someone else's story. She also shares the writing st...
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One night in 2016, Eliza Reid was cooking dinner for her four young kids when a stranger called the family landline and asked if her husband would consider running for president. Within 24 hours, a tsunami of messages followed. Eliza, a Canadian immigrant, Oxford graduate, and freelance writer, never planned to become the First Lady of Iceland. On this episode of The Messy Parts, Maryam sits down with Eliza, author of “The First Lady Next Door,” for a candid conversation about that unexpected...
Vote for The Messy Parts! We're nominated for Signal Awards in TWO categories. You can easily vote for us by clicking on the links below. Thank you! Individual Episode - Business: "'Who The Hell Do I Think I Am?' Melissa Ben-Ishay on Running Baked by Melissa While Doubting Herself" - VOTE NOW Shows - Conversation Starter: The Messy Parts - VOTE NOW "I was kicking and screaming, but I didn't have a choice." That's how Maha Abouelenein describes accepting a job as a billionaire's secretary, a r...
"If your goal is to feel completed by success, it's gonna get worse and worse the more successful you get." Comedian and former SNL writer Rosebud Baker joins Maryam for a conversation that goes everywhere — sobriety, motherhood after IVF and miscarriage, growing up the granddaughter of Secretary of State James Baker, and a surprise divorce announcement that even Maryam wasn't expecting. Rosebud talks candidly about learning to operate outside of chaos, what burnout actually feels like once y...
Jake Barton worked on the 9/11 Memorial Museum for 8 years. One photo still makes him cry: a young firefighter in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, headed toward the towers, in what turned out to be the last picture ever taken of him alive. Jake joins Maryam on the blue couch to talk about the radical choice at the heart of that museum: letting the people who ran out of the burning buildings speak for themselves instead of being spoken for. And about the messier parts of his own story — an outcast...
He ran Southern Living and top Time Inc. titles with no college degree — then got fired, and calls it a gift. What followed was darker: broke, aged out of media at 50, and homeless. Ron King, now known as "Donkey King," rebuilt his life running a sanctuary that rescues donkeys from slaughter — 220 of them and counting. In this episode of The Messy Parts, Ron opens up to Maryam about hitting rock bottom twice, the hustle that built (and rebuilt) his career, and the simple mindset shift — "thin...