Creative Portland

Kaitlin: [00:00:00] Hey there. Do you think of yourself as a creative person? If you found yourself here and you're curious, you are. This is Creative Portland, the podcast made for you by the all volunteer team who organized the Creative Mornings Speaker Series in Portland, Oregon. I'm your host, Kaitlin, and I'm really glad you're here.

Each episode, we are going to share a talk from one of the most generous, inspiring, And creative people in the city. You'll hear from people doing things you probably already think of as creative. People who paint, write books, illustrate comics, style photo shoots, make music, even sing opera. There are others who run companies.[00:01:00]

I'm confident you'll take away something different from every person on this show. Each of these talks was originally recorded in front of a live audience, so sometimes they mention things that are on a screen, but those are pretty minor.

Today's talk is from individual creators. Frequent collaborators and wife and husband, Eden Dawn and Ashod Simonian. They gave this talk in May, 2024 at the Kiln for Working Space. Eden and Ashod co-created the Portland Book of Dates and forthcoming additions to the series. You can find more about their work linked in the show notes, and you can also find them at edendawn.com and ashodsimonian.com

thank.

Eden Dawn: Thank you [00:02:00] everyone for coming. I am Eden and he's Ishad. In my years of being an adjunct instructor, I have learned that everyone's like, please tell us what we're going to talk about so I know exactly how long I'm sitting here. So here are our bullet points. We are talking about creating a vibrant personal brand, and why we don't like to call it personal brand in our house because it feels gross, creating a vibrant collaborative environment, and a deep ish dive onto something that's special to us.

Asad Simonian: What is vibrancy? What is vibrant? It is not necessarily what you think it is, or what I thought it was when we were asked to do this presentation. I think of vibrant as being bright and colorful, and it turns out there's this physicality to it, and that excites me, and this idea of moving to and fro rapidly and pulsating with vigor was a feeling that I could relate to, and a lot of you could maybe relate to in the creative field, and for us, it's like when something's clicking, and, uh, [00:03:00] when you create vibrant work, you feel that energy, that stimulation.

Eden Dawn: I messed everything up. There, it's working. And

Asad Simonian: we like to call it the vibe in our house. And so, when we thought about how do we, how do we capture that vibe, it's elusive, how do we, how do we get that thing, the more we thought about it, the more we realized it's when those elements of our personal brand come together and are put on a pedestal to shine.

Eden Dawn: So, we're going to talk about multi hyphenates for a minute, because those on the right are all the things that Ashod does in his life, and on the left here, writer, stylist, producer, MC, et cetera, are what I do. And as somebody who is both a lifelong Oregonian, but specifically been a creative in Portland since the last century, I know that creatives hustle.

We hustle here. We don't have one job, typically. We have many, many jobs. And the thing that has always frustrated me is people saying, You need to focus, you need to [00:04:00] focus. That is bullshit because I have won many awards and have done great things in all these areas I don't need to focus what you need to do And what I have done for me is to make sure that I am fully Myself my brand and bringing it to each of the things that I do

Eden's brand vibe we so at our house I feel like the phrase personal brand just feels kind of gross just feels a little bit like LinkedIn premium in our house Just like sliding into our own DMs. But what we realized is like brand really is your vibe. These things, as you may have noticed in the couple of minutes that we, um, have spent together describe my work and also me as a person, colorful, maximalist, inclusive.

pop culture and a little bit sassy. So people hire me and all of those different facets to bring exactly this to it. No one [00:05:00] is there hiring Eden to be a demure sweet angel in the corner. And if they are, I'm so sorry for them. so let's talk about it a little bit. And this took me, you know, a lot of years to kind of figure out the words that specifically describe me and to see how it came together.

And there have been missteps along the way, but because this is a positive presentation, we shan't talk about those. Colorful. I spent 11 years as the fashion editor for Portland Monthly slash the only fashion editor in Oregon and the final fashion editor in Oregon. And thank you to the decline of journalism.

And in which I have written literally thousands of articles, uh, and a couple of books, but styled hundreds of editorials. And the thing that is consistent in my work is I bring color to it. These are one, , fashion editorials that I have styled. And I also use it in my writing. I think that talking about color, bringing color to a thing is a wonderful way to set the [00:06:00] stage.

Color makes people feel. Like, the second I walk into a room in this outfit, people are like, look at this little pretty Barbie lady. She's probably not gonna be like an emo goth chick. And I wish I could, because when I was young, I thought emo goth chicks were very cool, but I could not, I can't pull off the Wednesday Adam thing.

Asad Simonian: I still do.

Eden Dawn: Oh, maximalist. So, because I come from the world of design and style and have been doing this a long time, trends come and go. One year, it's the chic, minimalist, remember the phase in Portland where all boutiques were just white and two shirts hung in the corner and nothing else? And then there's maximalist where everything's in.

Yeah, but I do all in all the time. I never do minimalism. This is Esperanza Spalding, Grammy winner, beat out Justin Bieber. I'm internally proud of her for that and from Portland. This is some promo work of hers I styled for her album [00:07:00] before last. Again, a frequent collaborator of mine, Holly Andres, a wonderful, wonderful photographer in town.

Holly and I work together great because we believe in color and we believe in maximalism. , inclusive. This is my thing. We get to redefine the projects and the world in which we work in. Fashion is notoriously exclusive, right? And I don't want to be part of that. So, my thing was, how do I call everybody in?

How do I make people, because fashion is for everyone. Every single one of you got up today, put on an outfit to express yourself. Whether that is your favorite band t shirt. Whether that is dressing in all pink. Whether that is a vintage find. Even if you are a nudist, that is a fashion choice that you are making to say something to the world.

So it is for everyone. So whether that was me fighting with an editor in chief to write a story about how our angel Darcelle was actually one of the best designers in the city because she sews all the costumes for the [00:08:00] drag queens at her club. Um, whether it was saying, I don't want to have just 20 year old models.

I want to have Pat who was Miss Hawaiian tropic back in the sixties. And she's an amazing model. I want her to be it. Ashod and I, um, had a company called Claws Out, a nail polish company for several years, , that you might have seen around town, and every color was named after a different cause that we cared about, and then donated 20 percent to a charity that aligned with it.

So the Pink Uterus went to Planned Parenthood, the Gold Matriarchy went to Moms Demand Action. Uh, we were lucky to be the first ever NBA nail polish making the color blaze for the Blazers. And one day I did get a call from Congresswoman Katie Porter, who is as direct and lovely and blunt as you would expect.

And she had us make a nail polish color for Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign. Not something you would think about for a nail polish company, but because they saw our inclusivity and what we were trying to do, we were able to [00:09:00] take that to a different level. Pop culture. I love pop, okay? I love it.

And, yeah, and, and I have a master's degree and I'm smart, blah, blah, blah, who cares? I will kick your ass in the entertainment section of Trivial Pursuit. I love pop culture. I read People Magazine. I have never seen a Desperate Housewives show or whatever, but I like feel like I know who they are because of just the ether.

And I love working in the pop culture space because these are the people representing this moment in time. So you better believe when I got the call to style Tonya Harding as an Oregonian that I was like, I'm gonna dress her like a beautiful Oscar. And there's a whole story about her accidentally wearing my high school prom dress.

That's for another time. You know, Fred and Carrie. I was like, what can we do that's different? Let's take Portland and put it abroad. I am sad in this photo. You can't see that I did have custom made that that pug is wearing a matching turtleneck to them. [00:10:00] We couldn't, I had to go for which joke do I want more pug in the baby carrier or pug in the, in, you know, a Sophie's choice right there.

, the Decembrists, I just styled their current album out right now, but again, I love doing things with pop culture and then bringing that into my writing too. Some people I feel like are weird about having that represent them, but I'll tell you what. People who love pop culture is often women and young women, and we control the buyer's market.

Do you like that I'm 43 and I just said I'm a young woman? I'm basically a teen. And sassy. I like to say, I take my deadlines very, very, very seriously. I do not take my work seriously, because What do I want to implant in the world the world and I work in I do what I can to make it important But I also like to have fun and I think that that is a way that I have learned of my brand Makes an impact.

So in the magazine world, there's a thing called CRMA, which is the magazine equivalent of the Oscars It's all the national magazines around the [00:11:00] world They don't have a specific fashion award. They only have a photo essay award in which we are up against every important, bleak, black and white photo essay from the, you know, gritty street life.

I was never gonna win until I was like, What if for a fashion editorial, I just recreated The Shining? And did an entire fashion editorial of The Shining, including my creepy twins here. This one. This is the first time a fashion well, ever won that award. And it is from Being Sassy. And again, these are That's a Portugal the Man, uh, video I styled.

I can't you can tell the dead fella is actually Glenn Howerton from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and his real life wife who shot him in the video. I still don't entirely understand the plot. But the point is, we had a good time. Pink martini down in the corner all from laughing and for ten years I've curated a series at the Hollywood theater called fashion and film where once a quarter I show a very important film such as [00:12:00] clueless true Beverly Hills Reality bites just the citizen canes of our time trying to get

Asad Simonian: A League of their own

Eden Dawn: A league of their own.

That's what thank you for This is a league of their own and seeing how that is what the costume designers are doing how that impacted And when everything comes together, when you can get all of those things to shine, is when I am the happiest and my work is the best. Leading to, last year I became a Guinness World Record holder for producing the longest drag show in the history of the world.

And that is me after being awake for 48 hours, 11 minutes, and 30 seconds with my two co producers. , of which we, I also recorded and put out a podcast called Slaying a Dragathon, which has now been optioned and is a documentary in the works. So the point is, my personal brand of all those different things, had I produced a drag show before?

No. Did I know what I was doing? No, I did not. It had all the elements of me. So much me that I was like, I cannot fail. And that [00:13:00] Delulu behavior works. If you believe it, you're up champ.

Asad Simonian: Let's do it. All right, let's talk about me for a while. Yeah, so let's, these are some of the things, I just pulled some stuff from my work, , similar exercise, let's see how all of these things work together to, I didn't win any world records, but, uh, some fun stuff has come from, uh, my long, illustrious career, , starting with this colorful work from, uh, I designed these cans and all the packaging for Guayaquil Yerba Mate, and, , this is probably the work of mine that has the most eyeballs, and that I have seen the most out in the world, including, Fun story, one time we were, , driving through the redwoods in California, out in the middle of nowhere, and could not find a place to pee, and so we just pulled off into a little pull out, and I ran down into this gully, and there next to me was one of these cans, and as a graphic designer, there is [00:14:00] I'm not a fan of litter, but there are a few things more gratifying than seeing your work in the world, literally like in a Redwood forest.

It was really, really special. And then I wanted to include some of my earlier work to show maximalism. I went to Armenian school, so these are some Armenian letters. And, , the reason I wanted to include it is because when you're thinking about your vibe, It's not something that you should be manufacturing that you should be creating for other people that you should be thinking about what would what kind of vibe does the audience want this is something that's in you that's in your DNA and it sometimes takes some thinking about and you know it's sometimes what do you spend your time googling what kind of content are you consuming what are the things that bring you joy in life and how can you Translate that into your work progressive.

This is some, , work I did for Hydro flask during the [00:15:00] pandemic. I concepted and directed a bunch of episodes of a series called why we go. That was about why people go outside and because the outdoors are for everyone. It was a really fun opportunity to get some, uh, new ideas out there and show that the, how people use the outdoors across the spectrum, including this lovely woman, Karma, who was a runner in Alabama.

And while she was out running, she kind of realized that she was trans and she didn't want to be trans. And, , being in her head and spending that time with herself, let her kind of discover who she was and who she needed to be to live her true self. Really beautiful story. Also, Ashley was one of my favorite episodes.

She is a disabled skier. And, uh, we shot her in her , adaptive skis skiing at night because During the day she would go out skiing and people would see her and say great job and give her the thumbs up and it Always made her feel uncomfortable And so she really opened up and told us a story about why she likes to ski at night [00:16:00] So series very close to my heart.

a short speech today So we're not going to show you any episodes, but feel free to look those up on the tube This is some older work of mine in my twenties, I played in indie rock bands, various indie rock bands, and toured around the world. And then as I got into my thirties, I was like, I cannot do this for the rest of my life.

A, I wasn't very good at it. And B, it's just not a, not a very sustainable lifestyle. So I was trying to figure out the next chapter of my life. And I had all of these Polaroids laying around of musicians not playing music. And there was something really special about it. This is Elliott Smith, who's no longer with us, who had just, he had been to the mall that day.

and bought himself an outfit and this weird toy and was giving us a fashion show in his living room at three in the morning. And the book is full of stories like that. And they're all Polaroids. They're all, this is the cover. You could see how it's flawed. And that's the beauty of analog to me. It's it's, it was my secret power when I was playing music was I wasn't [00:17:00] very good.

I was a little rough around the edges. And that was the thing that I brought to the projects I worked on. And it's still the thing I bring to all of my projects today, even though I'm working in the digital space a lot and in Photoshop. I still try to do as much with my hands and bring this analog vibe into everything I do.

And this is a campaign that I co directed for Pete's Coffee, and uh, starring Eliza Schlesinger, who is a wonderful comedian. And we had written a bunch of jokes for this campaign and had it all planned out and we got on set and it turned out the stuff that she was saying in between takes was so much better than anything we had written.

No surprise. It's her job. And and in a really beautiful moment of being playful, we're like, you know what? Let's throw out the scripts. Let's just try something else. And we let her riff a little bit. And of the five spots, 100 percent of them is just her talking off the top of her brain. And it was a really good lesson for me in a being collaborative and letting other people's brand [00:18:00] shine, giving them a pedestal to do their thing.

And then also Sometimes being playful is just letting go and not, not being in charge of everything. And so how did all of this come together for me? This is, , a perfume brand I started in 2012 called Imaginary Authors with a buddy of mine named Josh Meyer. He was a perfumer. I have no real interest in perfume.

This thing started out, and he wanted me to do packaging, and I was like, sorry buddy, I'm busy, it's a lot of packaging, you don't, you can't afford me. And then what ended up happening was I wore some out and I got a lot of compliments and I was like, Oh, I think I need to be a part of this thing. And so I told him I'll do all of the work from

Eden Dawn: women.

He's not telling you that, but from women,

Asad Simonian: we're married now. It worked. Uh, so yeah, we, uh, I'm totally lost now. Where were we? Oh, so, uh, we started this brand and. Uh, it was an opportunity to use every crayon in the Crayola box, just like the work that I've done. And, , and it was an [00:19:00] opportunity to tell stories that were diverse.

And, , to cut up old magazines and, and make collages and have some fun. And it's, you know, when we started, it was just a little silly side project that I, I became a partner in the company. And we were, we would just go to little craft shows initially in Portland. And then we would go to Seattle and we went to LA.

And now we're a global brand, 3. 5 million revenue last year. And I have to believe it's because all of this stuff is clicking on a level. When we started, the perfume space was very minimalist, white labels, black type. Everybody was doing the same thing. And we came in there and we put ourselves into it.

We put our heart into it. And that resonates with people that gets that vibration going and so very proud of this work still doing it Officially full time this year.

Eden Dawn: So why did we make you sit and listen to this other than the fact that we are Greedy Leos who need a lot of [00:20:00] validation in our lives In talking about creating a vibrant brand and knowing ourselves, it has led us to learn about who are good collaborators, who are people that line up with us, because this brand that is me does not mean that I think this is the only type of brand that should exist.

You know, we look over at this other random audience segment. Neutral, minimalist, luxury, classic, relaxed. That's a genteel woman. I know who that woman is. That is like a lovely, that person sit in first class, right? Like I'm in the back of the plane hanging on to the tail barely. But it's important for knowing because that audience isn't going to align with me.

That audience Is a goop audience, right? They want that. And I say, and this is something that took me many years to, to feel uncomfortable in saying, and now I relish in it. Make work that people don't like. I make work that I specifically know [00:21:00] that audience isn't gonna like, and that's okay. They're not my audience.

When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. A thing I often, I have, you know, , taught college and had many interns at magazines over the years, and a mistake young writers make a lot is they come in and they try to write something very general to make it feel like it's to everyone. I say, but specificity is the thing that creates universality.

The more specific you are with your experience or with your design aesthetic, I actually think the more people find attraction to that. So, I make work that Goop would hate and I like that.

Asad Simonian: It's also worth mentioning that while this side kind of looks a little bit more vibrant maybe, you could also reach vibrancy when all of this stuff is in chorus.

So just getting all of your brand pillars aligned is, is going to create that excitement and that stimulation for yourself and for the audience.

Eden Dawn: I mean, yes, they're a multi million dollar brand who is very successful. Great

Asad Simonian: example.

Eden Dawn: But what we have learned is [00:22:00] we wouldn't be good collaborators. But! Who might be a good collaborator?

I don't know. Hmm. I don't know. This is a blind date and we're finding this out for the first time. , we are good collaborators, not only because we share a bed and that's convenient, but because our design aesthetics actually, so much of it matches up who we are. Our colorfulness, our maximalism, you know, our values.

He is more vintage analog, and I am more, do you know who Ethan Hawke is dating right now? , that kind of a thing.

Asad Simonian: It's a little vintage now.

Eden Dawn: That's a good point. I will send your apologies to Ethan immediately. And so we use our combined skills for our, this family project.

Asad Simonian: Yeah, so we thought we would share with you how this came to be.

We were out [00:23:00] on a date, the origin story of this, this book, the Portland Book of Dates, which is, uh, if you don't know, a compendium of adventures, escapes, and secret spots, things in and around Portland and Oregon and up into Washington, and we were out on a date just sitting by the Washougal River having a little picnic.

at mile marker 11. And we were like, why don't our friends ever do this? And I said, uh, our friends don't know about mile marker 11. This is if there was a book that said mile marker 11, then they would be here. Someone should write that book. And we decided that someone should be us.

Eden Dawn: Turns out it was us.

Asad Simonian: And that idea sat with us for a while. We left that picnic Not thinking this was something we were going to do. And, , that was in July, August, something like that. Holidays, we took a week off and we went to the coast and started to build a proposal because it was still vibrating within us. And that proposal was colorful and it was maximalist not just in the aesthetic, but we went deep into the research and into the [00:24:00] data.

We found out how many people were moving to Portland. We found out how many Airbnbs were in Portland. We found out who was on the dating apps. And we put all of that into a indestructible document, , for a publisher to say, Hey, this book needs to exist and we need to be the ones to write it. The funny thing is that publisher used to write guidebooks.

They don't anymore because the internet killed guidebooks. And they saw this proposal and they were like, I think, I think you might be onto something here.

Eden Dawn: Yeah, they were like, uh, we wrote guidebooks, everything went away because now the world has Yelp and Google and people can search for everything. But what can you do that Yelp and Google can't do?

Well, for us, one of the things was to have Ashod's beautiful illustration so it doesn't look like every other guidebook. There isn't just a picture of a beautiful Frappuccino or whatever it is. We wanted to make it something so it felt like an art piece, something that you would want to gift a crush, and then using our same things, inclusive.

What I do that Yelp [00:25:00] doesn't do is in my books, think about every type of couple. Who would feel comfortable going here? What are the dates that I call out? Like this would be a good place that you might want to take your parents to. Would you feel comfortable coming here if you were a same sex couple?

Would you feel comfortable? And it goes all over the state and you better believe the place in random Eastern Oregon that had a confederate flag did not make the cut. You don't get to be in my book. And then, you know, highlighting businesses that are minority owned, that are woman owned, that are And at the end, we also had a sensitivity reader go through and make sure that everything felt really comfortable, because we also recognize, like, we are, you know, straight middle aged people, and don't always know what we're talking about, but we try.

And then, of course Always have a gay bestie read through and literally we have a section called gay approved

and then I brought my pop culture sassiness to it Our second book the Seattle book of dates is literally dedicated to my current husband a shot into my future husband Eddie Vedder

Asad Simonian: I think it's the [00:26:00] other way around. I think it's Eddie Vedder first, and then me.

Eden Dawn: Oh, well, you both made the cut. , and making it silly, all of my 90s pop culture references in it.

My publishers let me get away with quoting the great American poet, Britney Spears, you better work, bitch. They signed off on that. Our headlines are kind of famous throughout the book for being silly with things like there's a medieval village in, um, where it's like always the year 1300 in eastern Washington.

You can go to this right now and we called that book Joust the two of us and I'm so incredibly proud of it. We get those headlines such as a wonderful day in the taperhood by right before we go to print a shot And I basically drink a bottle of tequila and sit down with all the heads in the decks It's painful the next day, but it's worth it for what gets made in print

Asad Simonian: collaboration And all of the illustrations, uh, I'm not an illustrator, I, I did not come up being an illustrator, but I am a fan of illustrators, and I wanted to be one, [00:27:00] and I was especially a fan of this printing style, , these risograph copying machines that existed in the 70s.

And, , and while I was not able to print the entire book on risograph, I kind of used that style digitally to replicate. So the entire book is just three colors and the way that they're layered on top of each other is what brings the other colors into it. And I brought in this, this kind of collage style.

There's lots of receipts and tickets and things that we found along the way at antique stores that worked their way into the illustrations. And when you're doing 150 illustrations for a book and, and then two books, you get a little bit bored. And so I brought some of that playfulness in. I don't know that when you're whale watching, you're ever going to see a bald eagle taking off from a killer whales, uh, snout

Eden Dawn: if you're very lucky,

Asad Simonian: but it makes you want to go whale watching.

Right? Like it's, that's, that's the whole idea. We were just having some fun and trying to make these dates seem like something that would be really special. And they are.

Eden Dawn: So here's the deal. We thought it would be fun. We thought it would be an interesting thing. [00:28:00] We truly believe that because Ashod and I brought our best selves and our great publishers, who are Sasquatch, Penguin, Random House, let us fully be our ridiculous selves.

Portland Book of Dates has done better than we could have ever expected. It has spent three years on Powell's non fiction bestseller list. Like, next to David Sedaris and Michelle Obama, I don't understand. I walk by sometimes and I'm like, they should not let that happen. That feels not okay. , Malt, a couple years on the Pacific Northwest Bestseller Association list.

Our reviews, even on Amazon, are so nice. Cause people are like, they get it. The customers who understand our brands get us. It then spawned the Seattle Book of Dates, which came out in November, which has been getting just as much love. We just signed a contract for the third book, and with the publishers wanting us to keep churning them out in a national series, where I will be making sexual innuendos combined with R& B references for as long as [00:29:00] someone will let me.

And I really feel like this is, all comes from a collaboration that made sense, that was about us. We didn't try to be Something we weren't. We tried to just be like, Hey, we're kind of ridiculous and colorful and cheesy and silly. And also I will try to get in as much references as possible and tell the children who Ramblin Rod is because they need to know.

And thank you for the people who know how important Ramblin Rod is. , and, and it has worked. It has worked for us, which is. We're going to, we're going to kick it all back together. So

Asad Simonian: what's the moral of this story?

Eden Dawn: We're going to kick it all back together here.

Asad Simonian: When you create work that makes you vibrate, it will make others vibrate too.

And hopefully today, we did a little bit of that. I hope that you guys all go into your Friday vibrating a little bit. And take that into your work.

Eden Dawn: Also this part, we should have prepared you. I've been an MC for a long time and I feel like it does best when you prepare people. We're going to move to [00:30:00] Q& A because then when we say it, it's the awkward.

We also should have planted a question in the audience first. Okay. So Brett's question I'm repeating for our recording is how do we make Portland more colorful? Well, I do have strong opinions on this because. As evidenced, evidence A. , two things. One, I think Portland actually has a lot of color. I think our nature and our city are so beautiful if we stop and pay attention.

It's really hard sometimes in all of the gray to notice, but I find it all of the time when I'm walking around. It's also why I'm a big proponent in not having gray houses. It's just a personal hill I will die on. but I also think the nice thing about Portland's kind of neutral palette, again, as, as evidenced by here is when you wear color, you really stand out.

And I often feel like when I go on stage or do things, I bring the color because in this city, many people don't. So bringing specifically color is a way [00:31:00] that you get noticed. I think your work gets noticed, you as a person gets noticed. And sometimes we don't want that. There are times I go to the grocery store looking like a troll of a human.

but I think that we have an opportunity in a kind of a neutral city to use color as a point of focus. And I think that for me, particularly in my styling portfolio, it has gotten me a lot of work. because if you want the neutral chic thing, I'm definitely not your best bet. There are many wonderful stylists in town who can run circles around me there.

But if you want the, the crazy sort of circus came to town look. Eden's your girl.

Asad Simonian: So the question is, yeah, how do we process question? How do we juggle all of these things, uh, and, and how much are we juggling at any given time? I learned last night I said to Eden, Oh, it's your brand. You are maximalist in the amount of things you're juggling as well.

And we both, are constantly, yeah, have a thousand things on the plate, [00:32:00] oftentimes not getting paid as creatives, know very well. And we both support each other and prioritize that, , outside of work hours. So we try to create some boundaries and, and make the 9 to 5 the time when we work on this stuff.

And then when it spills off or when she's, you know, has, has to prep for a world record and it is, is, , not able to do the dishes for two months straight,

I step up and I gladly do them. So it helps find a partner , that supports you and, and picks up some of that slack.

Eden Dawn: He did do the dishes for basically two months straight. So everyone do give props to a shot, but my, my technical answer to that as someone. Who handled the spreadsheet and, and drag queens who are famously not people known for sticking to a schedule and had a 783 line spreadsheet for dragathon, which, for the record, with the Guinness judge sitting there, if a single one was more than one second over, we would lose [00:33:00] 783 times had to be perfectly on track.

I am a really firm believer in having systems in place and I get to be silly and fun and jokey because I have a lot of systems in place. I, my friend, Fran, back here, who runs Back Fence PDX, uh, we, um, we years ago took the Lisa Congdon's time management class, which was an online class, and I, I really learned a lot from that, for time blocking, which was for creatives, and I'm sure you can find it online somewhere if you Google it.

But I basically use that to create systems, which is like having one big spreadsheet where I dump all of my big projects in at once. And then I have a notebook where every week at the beginning I write down all of the things that have to be done for that week, figure out which day. And then each day I have a time block of time to work on that project and always leave in some admin time, which is like shit's gonna hit the fan time because in the worlds we work in there always is something.

so I start every single day. With [00:34:00] being silly and fun in a few minutes of tick tock and connections and wordle and all of the things that we do but then I sit down and I have my time block and I really try to stick to that and I don't think I would function if I didn't have everything we've hit a point in our careers where there's no just like I'll remember.

I will not every single thing is written down. We have an internal family slack. You can have an unpaid slack as a family. We organize everything there. I really encourage it. Travel business things. start one with your family right away. Bet appointments. We have a whole one that's just called the girls for our two cats.

I get into trouble. We have a documented but I think having those, you have to be really organized to have the fun creative work. I wish there was a way not around it, but it just doesn't work. my quick answer to that is, , is to, yes, is we have an entrepreneurial spirit. What about people who don't have that and how did we learn that?

, I would say I did grow up learning that. My, my [00:35:00] family built nursing homes, the most creative industry possible. But, like, I was raised having to, you know, when I was nine years old, famously, my first job was calling bingo numbers in a, in a nursing home to earn a leather jacket. I worked all summer because I wanted to have one like Top, Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

It was very cool at the time. But, so, I do have an entrepreneurial thing, and then my mom's an ER nurse, so I also learned, like, there's no time for a fall apart. You, fall aparts don't happen. You just need to stay focused and get stuff done. But, I also think that in this city particularly, because everybody wants to be cool and creatives are cool, which means they want to underpay us.

And they want to pay people like hedge fund managers a lot because they're not cool, right? That's the trade off. and so. Being in charge of your own projects and making your own projects are the way you get shit done. If you're sitting around waiting for somebody to do a cool fashion editorial in town, there's just not many people doing it.

I know, because I did it for years and I was [00:36:00] the only person in the state that had that job. So anybody who was waiting to have my job, I'm so sorry you had to wait so long. So I think that some of it came out of like, I want to do stuff. People aren't doing it. We need to do it. And then people take notice.

Asad Simonian: Yeah, piggybacking on that. I came out of punk rock and do it yourself culture. And in that world, there's no questions. You're just like, Oh yeah, I could do it. I can make an album. I could do this thing. And there wasn't barriers. And I didn't realize that I had that until later in life when I got into some of these other projects.

And I actually learned through running, which is this another thing that I, I was never athletic, never good at running. And I got into it, and I ran one mile, and the next day I ran two miles, and I was keeping track on my app, and pretty soon I had amassed 500 miles, and I was like, who am I that I ran 500 miles, and also why am I spending my time doing that and not writing a book, because if I do one page a day, I'll soon [00:37:00] get to 500 pages, and so I think, maybe not 500 good pages, that's the next step.

But, uh, the, I think that breaking things down into those small steps, and also knowing that you are allowed everywhere, there's, there's nowhere, everyone that has any, any modicum of success, found their way there, and it belongs to all of us, and it's just figuring out, okay, there's where I want to be, what's the one, the first step I take to get there, and what's the second step, and breaking it down that way I found is, is, and also a lot of that is like, You know, that, that perfume company was not profitable for a lot of years and I had other jobs that were paying the bills in the meantime.

So a lot of it is sacrifice. So the question is, how did we do our research for the Portland book of dates and all the different dates that are included there? And I will say that we did the same thing when we first started dating. We had a little game we called 23 picnics where the first, the first months we started dating that summer, we're like, let's go on 23 picnics this summer.

And we took turns and we picked places [00:38:00] to surprise the other. And, and that was kind of the impetus for our, getting the ball rolling and then I'll let you tell the story about research...

Eden Dawn: the short answer to that is I am a huge proponent of regional journalism forever. And , I've been a journalist in Portland for 15 years, so, and lived here forever.

So Portland Book of Dates in many ways was easier because I was like, hold on, if people don't know about Enchanted Forest, I'm ready to tell them. I had my eighth birthday there, my 13th birthday, like I was ready to go. We got engaged there. So I've been all over the state. And so that one was a little bit easier for sure.

But. Moving into other cities, it often is, you know, between our careers and who we are as people, we know people all over, but I'm also always hitting people up. I asked a niece today, he was like, Oh, you know, Derek used to live in Nashville. And I was like, Derek lived in Nashville. I would like to talk to him about that at some time, like whenever we hear things.

So we hop on the phone with people. I read, , all as much as I can about regional journalism. And then we. We [00:39:00] do deep internet stalking, I look at something, if I see a cool photo where someone's in the background of anything good, I'm looking at geotags, I'm going to that, we have lists of things, we call people, have you ever been here, I still do old fashioned journalism where sometimes I call someone and say, can I ask you a question about your establishment, and at which point they're usually like, We open at four.

I'm like, no, I have more questions than that. , this is a side conversation that I won't get into, but I have taught. It is very important for those of you who own businesses. Let me tell you as a member of your friendly local press. Have your stories on your website. Talk about what makes you different.

Talk about when you were founded, what you did, how you were set apart for the competition. You have no amount, , no clue how many times journalists like me have gone to your website to be like, what makes this person special? And then it's just like one cool photo in your email. You know what I'm doing?

Honestly, when I'm under a deadline. Closing it, moving to the [00:40:00] next, but if I go and there is your beautiful about me, where here's what I do that nobody else does. Here's the thing that I learned. Here's my pizza place where my sourdough is 400 years old. Here's any of it. If there is interesting stuff on there, you are going into a press story for me.

And if it isn't there, you cannot assume that people will know. So that is. A journalism side rant, but it is one I firmly believe in and tell all creatives and business owners to do that. Thank you for your service.

Asad Simonian: I wanted to add something because the answer to both of those questions is also community and we didn't mention that.

, I learned that also from rock and roll days. I've had so many bands sleeping on the floor of, of my living room and, uh, they all owe me now. So when we go to these other cities. I have a lot of connections and the same is true of, of entrepreneurship, having, having a community, having people you could, ask the hard questions to.

And we've never been competitive in the perfume space, especially, [00:41:00] and very supportive and open to talking to other brands and letting, letting them know our success. We're very transparent in that. And I believe across the board, there's room for creativity of all types, as long as you're bringing your special sauce to it, then, um, that's what's important.

What was our process for pitching to publishers? Do you want to take that or do you want me to? I'll field that question! Uh, I mean, we shared a little bit of it here. We pitched We had a couple of friends that were, that worked in the industry, not in the areas where we needed them to work, so they didn't have a lot of pull for us.

we did a lot of research, both with, , Real Fun, my previous book, and Portland Book of Dates. It's, I did a lot of, , I call it dating, where I would just go to the bookstore and try on a bunch of other publishers and just kind of figure out who am I going to connect with, who's going to like me as much as I like them.

And so we had our eye on Sasquatch because they did have some of those guidebooks and they were regional and they had these things that I was like, maybe, and they were supported by Penguin, which seemed like, hey, this is a cool. [00:42:00] that we would have some extra support from New York on this project. And so, uh, we wrote three sample chapters for that.

This is a kind of a general nonfiction rule. , fiction's different. You're going to need to do the whole thing. But, for this, we wrote three sample chapters and a ton of illustrations and like a big, beautiful proposal deck. I've since seen other people's proposals and they are. Three paragraphs on word, and they also got book deals, so there's, there's no right way to do it, but we, yeah, I'm always a fan of going all in, and, I think that shows, I think there's not a lot of people who are putting themselves on the line like that.

Eden Dawn: So basically, yes, for nonfiction, kind of an industry standard is three sample chapters, having your market research, competitive titles, , understanding who the customer was, we had some data on. Like we said, who would be buying it, we even were just looking at, like, look at all the people that are on Tinder and Bumble and everything right now, [00:43:00] these people need something to do because we're talking to women and every single time they're like, he wants to just go to the same bar and have a drink.

Boring. , so we had all of that as well as bios of who we were and why we were kind of like authorities in the space. And then we put it all together into a beautiful, I think it was about a 30 page PDF. In my years of teaching, I was an adjunct instructor for fashion, and one of my students who interviewed, , some top gun at Nordstrom said something that has always stuck with me, and they said, just be the obvious choice.

And we put together such a good presentation. We were like, the obvious choice here is to say yes. We have all of the data here and it looks beautiful and we know their stuff. So we, they were our second publisher. They were kind of our first in mind. And then we actually got hit up by, , out of San Francisco, Chronicle talked to us about doing a separate project with them.

And we're like, Oh, Hey, while you're here, can we show you this? And they're like, Hmm, we're not really ready to do a deal. And then we send it off to, We send it off to Sasquatch and the Publisher called us in like two [00:44:00] days and got on a call and was like, we don't do this. Why would we do this? It's awful, but also maybe And then and then it happened the end

Thank you

Kaitlin: This podcast is produced by the all volunteer crew who bring you creative mornings events in Portland, Oregon You can reach us At mornings, portland@gmail.com and watch the videos of all the talks that are featured on this podcast, plus others@creativemornings.com slash pdx. Thank you to the Regional Arts and Culture Council whose 2024 grant funding helped us launch this podcast.

Thank you also to our sustaining partner welcome, who makes. Each of these original events possible, [00:45:00] and to Kova Coffee, who caffeinate everyone who attends. Thank you to Johnny and Simon of Weird Wonderful for their audio production and podcast wizardry, and to Laura Nickelhoff for managing production.

And just a huge hug to each person who's been part of the Creative Mornings Portland volunteer team over the years. Thank you to Antha, Rogan, Shamisa, Charlie, Chelsea, Christopher, Crystal, Elizabeth, Hannah, Yvonne, Joan, Julia, Javier, Laura M, Laura N, Leah, Lucy, Sarah, Sumit, Tyler, and [00:46:00] Vinny.