Open Secrets Magazine: Finders and Keepers podcast

Exploring Gender and Being Non-Binary via Fashion with Alligator Tears author Edgar Gomez

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:02:44 GMT

Choosing which clothes to wear on any given day is about so much more than our appearance in the mirror. How we dress is often deeply connected to our self-expression, creativity, and gender identity, which we dive into with our guest Edgar Gomez, author of memoirs Alligator Tears and High-Risk Homosexual.

Gomez discusses curating a queer life, how being non-binary relates to their fashion choices, selecting the right clothes for productive writing sessions, the power of wearing fun outfits and accessories in public, why they treasure their grandmother’s costume jewelry collection, and their most beloved outfits and clothing items, including two capes that were owned by Walter Mercado.

Edgar Gomez in one of their favorite outfits, a green cape and pants that were owned by astrologer Walter Mercado

“I’m drawn to clothes that exude joy and happiness and gratitude and that don’t feel like I’m limiting myself because of some arbitrary rules that somebody decided about what boys can and can’t do,” says Gomez in this episode.

About our guest:

Edgar Gomez is a queer NicaRican writer born and raised in Florida. He is the author of the memoir High-Risk Homosexual, winner of the American Book Award. Their latest book, Alligator Tears, was called “triumphant, dazzling, and unfailingly stylish” by Publishers Weekly, won a Florida Book Award, and is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir. Gomez lives between New York and Puerto Rico.

edgargomez.net

Instagram: @otroedgargomez

Substack

Alligator Tears

Finders and Keepers is hosted by Rachel Kramer Bussel and is a production of Open Secrets Magazine. Thank you to Sound Off Network and Dan Schroeder for audio production support. Please rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts to help us reach new listeners. Want to share your own stuff story, tell us who we should interview next, or share your own most treasured possession? Contact us at findersandkeeperspod@gmail.com or leave a voicemail at speakpipe.com/findersandkeepers

For more about our attachments to our belongings, read the personal essays in the Object-ives and Stuff-ed sections of Open Secrets Magazine at opensecretsmagazine.com, where you can also submit your own essays.

Finders and Keepers is hosted by Rachel Kramer Bussel and is a production of Open Secrets Magazine. Thank you to Sound Off Network and Dan Schroeder for audio production support. If you like the podcast, we’d greatly appreciate if you’d leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts and tell your friends about it to help us reach new listeners. Want to share your own stuff story, tell us who we should interview next, or share your own most treasured possession? Contact us at findersandkeeperspod@gmail.com or leave a voicemail at speakpipe.com/findersandkeepers

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How to Decorate a Jail Cell and What Items Are and Aren’t Allowed While Serving Time with Kari Ferrell

Open Secrets Magazine — Fri, 29 May 2026 18:46:48 GMT

In the late 2000s, Kari Ferrell become infamous online when she was dubbed the “Hipster Grifter” in the media for scamming men out of money in Brooklyn. While the sensationalized version of her life grabbed headlines, behind the scenes, a lot more was going on. Ferrell’s memoir, You’ll Never Believe Me: A Life of Lies, Second Tries, and Things I Should Only Tell My Therapist, explores what led up to her illegal exploits, from her upbringing as a Korean adoptee in a Mormon family in Utah, with few Asian American peers, to mental health struggles, embracing her queerness, and exploring her multi-faceted identity.

Eventually, Ferrell’s exploits caught up with her, and she wound up on Utah’s most wanted list. Ferrell documents what her jail stint was really like, from prison riots and relationships to how she and her fellow inmates used what was available to them to decorate their jail cells, and themselves, turning towels into swans, using candy wrappers to make bouquets, and improvising makeshift makeup. She writes honestly and humorously about this time: “We made do with what we had to in order to make things feel a little more like home. I was like a law-breaking Martha Stewart. Oh, wait.”

In this episode of Finder and Keepers, Ferrell goes in-depth about having to part with her suitcase of possessions, how she adapted to the strict rules about which items (and how many of them) were allowed and which were restricted, the creativity fostered by that mandated minimalist environment, and how her relationship with her belongings changed once she was done serving her sentence.

Ferrell also discusses the reasons behind the often draconian rules about belongings behind bars, where even books are closely monitored, the dehumanizing intent of these restrictions, her prison reform activism, and the items she is now most grateful to have access to.

About our guest:

Kari Ferrell is a producer, writer, speaker, activist, and creator. Her work is centered around incarceration and the justice system, mental health, human rights, adoption, and other issues. Kari’s memoir, You’ll Never Believe Me, received a rave review from the New York Times, a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and was named a Goodreads Readers’ Most Anticipated Book of 2025. She is developing a scripted television program with Warner Brothers Discovery and Mindy Kaling’s Kaling International, and is the co-host of the Asian culture podcast Disoriental alongside Youngmi Mayer and Henry Bae.

Kari Ferrell’s website

Instagram: @hotdoghandjobs

Memoir You’ll Never Believe Me

Disoriental podcast

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American Fantasy Author and Bookstore Owner Emma Straub on Why Book Swag Is Everywhere

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 27 May 2026 10:20:41 GMT

To promote her new boy band cruise novel American Fantasy, bestselling novelist Emma Straub, who co-owns Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic, went all out with swag. Partnering with VistaPrint, Straub created promotional items tied to the novel’s theme, featuring things vacationers would need on a cruise, including a Boybands Are Magic hat (her favorite item), a water bottle, sunscreen, breath mints, and playing cards.

All the American Fantasy swag you’d want to take on a boy band cruise

What motivated Straub to get so extra with her offerings, an expansion from her previous swag? Partly, her past job working for the band The Magnetic Fields and seeing how eager fans were to buy merch, along with her bookstore experience, where merch has become more popular than she ever expected. Her history as a Blockhead (aka, a major New Kids on the Block fan) also played a role.

In this episode of Finders and Keepers, Straub discusses her past novels and their attendant swag, and why American Fantasy, whose research included attending a New Kids on the Block cruise, is different, why she loves stuff that represents her interests (and which NKOTB items she still owns from childhood), and the larger rise of BookTok and social media influencers on book swag and merch. You’ll also find out which New Kids on the Block member is her favorite and has played a role in the novel’s evolution. Straub also delves into the surprising role merch has played with regulars and visitors to Books Are Magic, thanks to the design skills of her husband, bookstore co-owner Michael Fusco-Straub, and why it feels good to express fandom of any kind by wearing it proudly.

Mentioned in this episode:

VistaPrint

The Magnetic Fields

Boybands Are Magic hat

Books Are Magic hat

About our guest:

Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books for adults: the novels American Fantasy, This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. She is also the author of three picture books: Gaga Mistake Day, which she co-wrote with her mother, Mama Hug, and Very Good Hats. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and her work has been published in more than 20 languages. Emma and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

Emma Straub’s website

Emma Straub’s Substack

Instagram: emmastraub

TikTok: emmastraubwriter

American Fantasy

Books Are Magic

Books Are Magic online merch store

Instagram: @booksaremagicbk

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Why Fly Fishing Is the Ultimate Sport for Hoarders with Angling Educator Nick Parish

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 20 May 2026 10:38:02 GMT

Host Rachel Kramer Bussel didn’t even know what fly fishing was when author and angling educator reached out to proclaim that fly fishing is the ultimate sport for hoarders. Since Finders and Keepers is all about our emotional attachments to our belongings, Rachel felt compelled to learn more. Parish, who’s based in Portland, Oregon, runs what he jokes is a “fly fishing media empire” online at Current Flow State Fly Fishing (tagline: “Learn to fly fish, change your life”), which includes classes, events, a newsletter, and resources, including an essential gear guide. He gave her an education into what fly fishing is, why people become fly fishers and enjoy the sport, which gear you do and don’t need to get started (and why many people go overboard on buying gear), and the benefits of fly fishing.

Because Nick was so detailed in his pitch, we’re going to share the heart of it here:

“There’s an incredible amount of fiddly equipment, multiple rods (I don’t keep count of mine, because it’s scary), reels, lines, tools, apparel, etc. And that’s not even counting tying your own flies, which entails a mini-Michaels-level commitment to buying threads and fur and feathers and hooks and all sorts of new sets of tools to start a little cottage industry devoted to making more gear for yourself.

The average fly angler spends $1,200 a year on gear, and that’s not even starting to count all the hand-me-downs from parents and aunts and uncles.

If this is at all interesting I’d love to explore this with you. I think the broader themes are:

a) Buying stuff as a fantasy and substitute for actually fishing, e.g. I can buy a $120 fly line today, and get a fantasy of fishing, even if I only ever fish with it once or twice months from now, or even if it never leaves the closet.

b) The notion that limited experience in the sport (i.e. I only go fly fishing for one week a year in Belize) induces a sort of “must have everything to be ready” mentality, which is a kind of weird inverse scarcity mindset, an acquisition pattern that’s fear-based, versus “eh, we’ll figure it out, we don’t need to bring everything”. I’ve heard this described in survivalist circles as “Two is one, one is none.”

c) Competitive aspects tied to being “the best.” When I used to go to Montana every summer growing up with the Michigan Fly Fishing Club, there’d be two informal prizes: Top Rod, for who caught the most fish, and Top Wallet, for who spent the most money. The same sort of acquisitive mindset that drives people toward quantities of fish catching drives them to consume more gear.

d) A “horses for courses” false need for precision tools based on mostly industry hype. Golfers can have one set of golf clubs that work around the world, at every golf course, give or take a few clubs. But I’m told I a different rod / reel / line setup to fish for trout in the Catskills, salmon in Newfoundland, bass in Oregon, musky in Wisconsin, carp in Oregon, etc.

I’m interested in this because a younger generation of anglers are re-evaluating this over-acquisition pattern, fishing the same sorts of spots closer to home rather than going abroad, and there have been subsequent industry moves to think more sustainably about all this.”

We get into all of this and much more in the episode. Whether you’re an experienced fly fisher, curious about finding a new hobby, or just want to hear about a sport where people can spend large amounts of money before they’ve even gotten started, we hope you enjoy this conversation with Nick Parish.

Some of Nick Parish’s fly fishing gear

About our guest:

Author, editor, and angling educator, Nick Parish has helped dozens of people to catch their first fish on a fly rod. Born in the Great Lakes state, worked in a series of media jobs at the nexus of the Hudson and East rivers before heading west to the Columbia River drainage and greater Cascadia. He leads fly fishing instruction at Portland Community College and writes a weekly fly fishing newsletter at Current Flow State.

Current Flow State weekly newsletter

Essential gear guide

Instagram: @currentflowstate

Bluesky: @nickparish.bsky.social

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How to Make Miniatures with Sara Schaefer

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 13 May 2026 11:15:13 GMT

Sara Schaefer is a comedian who’s appeared on or written for shows on Comedy Central, Apple+, Netflix, MTV, and more, and is the host of Crafting Through It on YouTube, where she, in her words, “infuses the handmade with the humorous.” In this episode of Finders and Keepers, Sara introduces us to the world of miniatures, from how to make a mini comedy club set to just how much math is involved, where to find materials, and why miniatures are so popular.

In our conversation, she talks about her lifelong relationship with miniatures, what drew her back to the hobby during the pandemic, and how humor and tiny things turn out to have more in common than you’d think. Note: This interview was conducted in spring 2025.

Here’s more of what you’ll find in the episode:

1. The past has a way of finding you again

Sara’s obsession with miniatures started in childhood, where she used to play with her sister’s dollhouse. Around age eight or nine, she got her own dollhouse and spent years collecting miniatures but, over time, she became too busy, though the dollhouse lived with her for her whole life.

But then, in 2020, she and her partner downsized, and she was finally forced to deal with the crumbling childhood dollhouse she’d been carting around for decades. Instead of tossing it, she decided to renovate, and that’s when something cracked open inside her.

Within months, she was building miniatures from scratch, opening an Etsy shop, incorporating tiny scenes into her standup show, and launching her YouTube series. That falling-apart dollhouse she couldn’t bring herself to let go of was the gateway to a whole new facet of her career.

2. Removing the audience changes everything

Sara has spent her career making people laugh via everything from live storytelling shows to standup specials to late night TV and Emmy Award-winning writers’ rooms. She knows what it feels like to perform and be judged.

Miniatures, she says, feel nothing like that: “I feel way less pressure doing miniatures than, say, writing or being funny because I’m just doing it for me really, and there’s no audience.”

That freedom is what lets her voice come through most clearly. Without the pressure of a live room, she started making things with actual social commentary, like a miniature murder board complete with string and thumbtacks, and a tiny comedy club with hand-framed headshots on the wall. The audience, or lack thereof, gave her the opportunity to dive deeper than she would have been able to otherwise.

3. What we can’t let go of tells us who we are

When Sara moved cross-country, the question wasn’t just what would fit in the moving truck, but also what was too important to risk losing forever. For her, the answer was a handmade quilt sewn from her late mother’s clothes.

That same instinct that kept her from throwing away a ruined childhood dollhouse has her saving every padded envelope to reuse for Etsy shipments and still holding onto miniatures her sister owned before she was born.

These collections are about so much more than the objects themselves, but what they’ve meant to her, and what they might become someday in another form.

Tune in to this week’s episode to hear about this and much more!

Sara Schaefer’s tiny books; via Facebook

About our guest:

Sara Schaefer is a critically acclaimed stand up comedian, writer, and artist. Her Comedy Central Stand Up Presents half hour special debuted in November 2019 and she was the co-host of MTV’s late night show Nikki & Sara Live. Sara published her first book, Grand, in 2020 with Simon & Schuster. She has written for numerous television programs including Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Would I Lie To You, and The History of Swear Words. She won two Emmy awards for her work at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. In recent years, Sara’s satirical sketches have been viral hits, and The New York Times called her new solo show Going Up “ambitious and nimble” and “a feat of comedy.” Her new show, Crafting Through It, debuted on YouTube in 2025.

Sara Schaefer website

CraftingThroughIt.biz

Miniature making tutorials

Instagram: @saraschaefer1

TikTok: @yaysaraschaefer

Facebook

Online shop

Crafting Through It YouTube show

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Listen to Our New Podcast Finders and Keepers

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 06 May 2026 14:50:15 GMT

Many thanks to Nan Tepper for our amazing podcast logo!*

Big news: Today we launched our podcast Finders and Keepers, about our emotional attachments to our belongings! We’ll be covering everything from collections to keepsakes, minimalism, maximalism, hoarding, and everything in between. Hosted by Open Secrets Magazine editor-in-chief and recovering hoarder , Finders and Keepers is available on all major podcast platforms and going forward, Open Secrets subscribers will get 1-2 new episodes in your inbox weekly. Don’t want them? You can adjust your subscriber settings to only receive our essays and text posts outside the podcast.

Without further ado, here’s our four launch episodes:

*If anyone out there knows how to make a much prettier version of the black and white horizontal logo sized for Substack’s banner specs of 1200x630, please let us know!

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What to Do with Things We Inherit and How We Preserve Our Children’s Earliest Moments with Emily Hessney Lynch

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 06 May 2026 04:09:49 GMT

Emily Hessney Lynch, host of the podcast It’s a Lot, joins us to discuss two topics that are emotionally heavy and very much a lot: how to handle items we inherit from family members when we’re not sure why we’re inheriting them or what role they might play in our lives, and how to preserve memories of our children’s earliest moments. Emily shares why an apple juice bottle plays such a pivotal role in her son’s first months, and she and host Rachel Kramer Bussel explore the legacies we want to leave our children, who are currently toddlers, via our belongings. Additionally, we discuss her assorted collections from childhood to adulthood, and how the act of collecting everything from buttons to rocks and beyond has changed for her over time.

Listen to find out why this apple juice bottle is so meaningful to Emily Hessney Lynch as a mom

About our guest:

Emily Hessney Lynch is a digital strategist, content writer, and the founder of Serve Me the Sky Digital. She has more than 14 years of experience working with nonprofits, higher ed institutions, and businesses on sharing their stories through engaging digital content. In addition to her consulting work, she is an adjunct professor at Nazareth University. Emily is also the creator and host of It’s a Lot, a podcast about social media, parenthood, and other things that are a lot. When she’s not working, you’ll find her reading, visiting local libraries, or chasing her toddler.

servemethesky.com

It’s a Lot podcast

Instagram: @servemethesky

Emily Hessney Lynch’s button collection

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How Bestselling Author Deesha Philyaw Builds Her Book Collection and Became an Avid Reader

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 06 May 2026 03:47:08 GMT

How do we develop a lifelong reading habit? What turns someone into a “book person?” And once we are a confirmed book person, how do we decide which books to keep on our bulging bookshelves? Deesha Philyaw, author of the bestselling, award-winning short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and forthcoming novel The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, shares her journey to becoming an avid reader, which books and teacher had a pivotal impact on her at a young age, what’s currently on her bookshelves, and how she curates her reading material and book collection. Note: This interview was conducted in spring 2025.

About our guest:

Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. Philyaw is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction (with Dawnie Walton) and Reckon True Stories (with Kiese Laymon). She is currently at work developing TV shows based on her short fiction. Deesha’s debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, is forthcoming from Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, in September 2026.

deeshaphilyaw.com

Instagram: @deeshaphilyaw

Threads: @deeshaphilyaw

Substack Writing, Wandering, Wondering

Deesha Philyaw’s National Book Award finalist The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and forthcoming novel The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman

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The Allure of Costco and Bulk Shopping with American Bulk author Emily Mester

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 06 May 2026 03:26:46 GMT

Emily Mester, author of American Bulk: Essays on Excess, joins us to discuss the thrill of Costco shopping, the agony of online shopping returns, and why we just can’t quit the excitement of looking for the next item that will change our lives. Can shopping be just a pleasure instead of a “guilty” one? Join us as we dive into Emily’s family history with shopping, reading reviews of products we’re considering buying, which products she most enjoys shopping for, and the lure of browsing online and offline that keeps pulling Emily and host Rachel Kramer Bussel back in.

About our guest:

Emily Mester is from the suburban Midwest and went to Costco every Sunday. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she was the winner of the Prairie Lights Nonfiction Prize. American Bulk is her first book. She lives in New York.

emilymester.com

Instagram: @arbys_rising

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Meet The World-Traveling Teddy Bear Jointly Owned by This Friend Group

Open Secrets Magazine — Wed, 06 May 2026 02:10:00 GMT

Kristyana, April, and Twanna have been friends for over 25 years, and teddy bear Nathaniel Behr has been an integral part of their friend group. What started as a small purchase has morphed into decades of shared memories as the teddy bear has traveled with them on adventures around the world. The three friends live in different cities in the United States and Portugal, but their teddy bear gets sent between them periodically. They discuss how their friendship and joint ownership of Nathaniel Behr, whose travels and poses they document on a private social media account, have evolved over the years, and why even in midlife, their teddy bear is as active a part of their lives as he was in their twenties.

Nathaniel Behr visiting the pyramids in Egypt

About our guests:

April Banks is based in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, and works as a freelance proofreader, editor, and writer. She is also the owner of several stuffed animal friends. @april.is.not.just.a.month on Instagram

Twanna A. Hines, M.S. (she/her) is an award-winning sexual health educator, healthy relationships advocate, and entrepreneur. A Sundance Creative Change alum, she has written for many magazines and news outlets, including NBC News, HEALTH magazine, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Time Out, Mashable, Fast Company and The Huffington Post. She has been interviewed by outlets from coast to coast, from the San Francisco Chronicle to The New York Times. Founder and CEO of the social impact firm FUNKY BROWN CHICK, she has appeared on CNN, NPR, Sirius, CBC, Paris Première, and in documentary films.

twannahines.com

@funkybrownchick on Instagram

Kristyana is based in NYC and is a sales and marketing director in the natural consumer packaged goods industry.

@flightsofphamcy and @brownbearinnyc on Instagram

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We're Launching the Finders and Keepers Podcast This Week - Here's the Trailer!

Open Secrets Magazine — Mon, 04 May 2026 02:57:38 GMT

We’re thrilled to announce that this week, we’re launching the podcast Finders and Keepers, about our emotional attachments to our belongings, hosted by Open Secrets Magazine editor-in-chief . You can listen to the trailer above.

The podcast will cover everything from keepsakes to collections, minimalism to maximalism to hoarding and far beyond. If it’s about possessions and how they impact our lives, we’re open to covering it. The podcast builds on reader interest in our personal essay categories Object-ives and Stuff-ed, to explore why our stuff means so much to us.

Season 1 of Finders and Keepers features a wide range of topics, from a teddy bear who’s been jointly owned by three friends for over 25 years and travels around the world to bestselling author ’s book collection and how she became an avid reader, memoir author on gender and fashion, on how everyday objects get repurposed in jail, essayist on her Black memorabilia collection, bestselling novelist on why book swag is so popular, American Bulk author Emily Mester on the allure of browsing Costco and other shopping highs, Crafting Through It host on how to make miniatures, on collecting and saving Lego sets, , host of The Declutter Queen, on why we should be decluttering on a regular basis, navigating unwanted inheritances and parting with our children’s old toys, the return of indie print magazines, and what’s inside multiple storage spaces, among other topics.

We’ll be launching this week with four episodes, and then will air a new episode every Wednesday, with short breaks between seasons.

Every episode will go out to Open Secrets subscribers (and if you want to opt out of the podcast emails, you can do so in your subscriber settings) and the show will be available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

Have a question or comment for the podcast? Want to suggest a guest or become a sponsor? You can leave a comment here, email us at findersandkeeperspod at gmail dot com or leave a voicemail at speakerpipe.com/findersandkeepers and you can follow us on Instagram @findersandkeeperspod for clips and fun news about art, objects, and possessions.

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