more audio essays about the fires

Los Angeles Fires: The Immaterial World

Los Angeles Fires: Remembrance of Things Past (written essay)

Los Angeles Fires: What Is A Catastrophe?

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Meghan Daum is the creator and host of The Unspeakable Podcast and the author of seven books, including The Catastrophe Hour: Selected Essays, forthcoming in April 2025. Her previous book, The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars, was a 2019 New York Times Notable Book, and her collection of original essays, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, won the 2015 Pen Center USA Award for creative nonfiction. A Los Angeles Times opinion columnist from 2005 to 2016, she has written for numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Vogue. Meghan is the recipient of a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts grant. She has taught graduate writing students at Columbia University and The University of Iowa, and now teaches private workshops in personal essay, memoir and op-ed. In 2022, she founded The Unspeakeasy, an intellectual community for freethinking women (and occasionally men) for which she leads “free speech vacation” retreats across the U.S. From 2022 to 2024 she co-hosted, with Sarah Haider, the podcast, A Special Place In Hell. She lives in the Los Angeles area, most recently in Altadena, the subject of her recent series of audio essays.