The painter who stopped painting
With Vera Lindqvist — 2026On walking away from a celebrated career at its peak, the decade of silence that followed, and what finally brought her back to the studio.
ArtSecond actsNew episodes Tuesdays142 conversations and countingNo ads · listener-supported
Long-form conversations, recorded slowly.
A weekly 90-minute show with the people doing the work — designers, founders, scientists, the occasional poet. No talking points, no press-tour answers.
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Latest
New episodes, Tuesdays at 6am ET
Every episode free, transcribed, and unlisted from nowhere. Six most recent below; the full 142 are in the archive.
EP 14218 Aug 202696 min
The painter who stopped painting
Vera Lindqvist on walking away at the peak, the decade of silence that followed, and the morning she picked up a brush without deciding to.
EP 14113 Aug 202624 min
Field notes: the last letterpress in the county
A midweek short, recorded standing up, in a shop that smells of ink and machine oil.
EP 14011 Aug 202688 min
The bridge engineer who reads poetry to her team
On load, tolerance, and why the language you use about risk decides what gets built.
EP 1394 Aug 202692 min
A translator on the words that do not cross
Forty years between two languages, and the sentence she has never been able to carry over.
EP 13828 Jul 2026101 min
A physicist on doubt
Dr Amos Ferreira on his own experiment proving him wrong, and teaching doubt as a first-year course.
EP 13721 Jul 202678 min
Live from the back room: three guests, no plan
The spring live taping, audience questions included, recorded in a room built for forty.
01The archiveTranscripts for every episode
Episodes worth starting with
A physicist on doubt
With Dr Amos FerreiraScience2026The chef who closed the restaurant
With Rosa AndradeFoodWork2025On writing slowly
With Jonah ReyesWriting2025
The show
142
Episodes since 2019
4M
Downloads, all-time
0
Ads, ever — listener-supported
No talking points.
Recorded weekly since 2019. No producer-fed questions, no press-tour loop. The conversations go where they go — sometimes that's ninety minutes on one idea, sometimes a tour of someone's whole life.
90 minutes, usuallyTranscripts alwaysListener-supported
The host
Who is asking
Nadia Okonkwo
Host + producer · recording since 2019
Fifteen years as a print interviewer before the show — long enough to learn that the useful question is almost never the one on the list. She reads everything a guest has made before the microphone goes on, edits the tape herself, and has never taken an advertiser. The show is listener-supported so that the length of a conversation is decided by the conversation.
“The only show where I hear people I've followed for years say something they've never said anywhere else.”
A listener in Manila
From the year-five mailbag
02FormatsAll free, all transcribed
What the show makes
01
The Tuesday conversation
The main event — one guest, ninety minutes, released every Tuesday at 6am ET with full transcript and notes.
02
Field notes
Short midweek episodes from somewhere specific: a studio visit, a walk, a question that wouldn't wait for Tuesday.
03
Live tapings
Four a year, small rooms, real audiences. Supporters hear about tickets first; the recordings join the feed.
04
The archive
All 142 episodes, free forever, with transcripts and a properly good search. Start anywhere; the show has no homework.
03Behind itSlow on purpose
How an episode gets made
Two weeks of reading
Everything the guest has made, said, or regretted saying. The best question is usually on page 300 of something out of print.
The sit-down
In person whenever possible, no time limit, phones in another room. The first twenty minutes are the warm-up nobody hears.
A light edit
Coughs and interruptions out; pauses stay. The silence before an honest answer is half the show.
Tuesday, 6am
Episode, transcript, and show notes land together. The next reading pile is already on the desk.
04From the mailbag
Listener questions
- When do new episodes drop?
- Tuesdays at 6am ET, wherever you listen. Transcript and show notes post the same morning here on the site.
- Why are there no ads?
- Listener support covers the studio and the edit. The trade is that episodes are whatever length the conversation deserves.
- How do you choose guests?
- People whose work I keep returning to, having the conversation I haven't heard them have anywhere else. Listener suggestions genuinely land bookings.
- Can I pitch myself or a client?
- The pitch inbox is real and read monthly. Honest answer: the calendar runs about nine months out, and most slots come from the reading pile.
Start with episode 142.
Or episode one, or the one about doubt. The archive is free, transcribed, and holds up out of order.
Free everywhere · transcripts always
Show notes, weekly
The new episode, the reading list behind it, and occasional behind-the-scenes. One email, Tuesdays.
Contact + guest pitches
Pitches, corrections, kind words, and live-taping enquiries. Everything gets read; most things get answered.
- show@example.com
- pitches@example.com
- None — the show stays ad-free