(Photo courtesy of Stephanie Logan)
By DCist contributor Allison Hageman
“DC Diary” is capturing the conversations of the city again. The podcast that starts conversations with residents at happy hours around the District will be premiering its second season on July 24, according to creator Stephanie Logan.
Launched in March of 2017, the show is made up of chats at bars focused around one theme per episode. Logan sets up her makeshift sound booth at happy hours, coaxes interviewees inside, and has candid talks about happiness, burnout, and dating, among other topics. Now for Season 2, following its gold award win in the podcasting category at the DC Web Fest this spring, Logan and her new team are focusing on diversifying the voices in the booth. Topics this season include side hustles, drinking with co-workers after-hours and answering the question “when do you feel most like yourself?”
“The cool thing about Season 2 is that people around the city kind of know about ‘DC Diary’ now so we are getting connected with all kinds of groups and different organizations and individuals,” Logan says.
Though she’s keeping mum on many details of Season 2, Logan shared a bit with DCist about what listeners can expect. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How will Season 2 of ‘DC Diary’ be different from Season 1?
The first season we focused a lot on the introduction to D.C. and the introduction to me, and it was more focused on things that had to do with work. So for Season 2, we are focusing on everything outside of work—anything beyond your nine-to-five is fair game. It’s going to be a bit little different: We are doing episodes on social sports, creative side hustles, and travel.
Will Season 2 be more diverse than Season 1?
We are trying to branch into parts of the city that we previously hadn’t really been in, trying to get more folks outside of my immediate network. We’re definitely trying to focus more on the city outside of the perspective of, frankly, white urban millennials.
Will there any be repeat guests from Season 1?
We are not planning on it right now, but it’s hard to really predict. Our sound booth is anonymous, so I actually really don’t know who says what. So we may have repeat guests from our happy hours, and I just would never know.
What was it like to win gold at the DC Web Fest?
It was such an honor. We did not set out with the goal idea in mind to win awards and going to award shows. We set out to be able to create the kind of events we wanted to attend, and have the conversations we wanted to have, and fill that space that I thought were missing in media and share the conversations that I had been hearing.
What is your favorite part of creating the second season?
I come from a sports background, I was a volleyball player in college. It’s funny because there are different parts of me that come out in different ways: There is the professional side, there is the social media-podcast host side. Those two get combined when I work with “DC Diary.” And there is this sports side of me that doesn’t really doesn’t necessarily hit with the other two. Doing the social sports episode with ProjectBlackFlag Sports, it was really cool to combine all three of those sides of me that don’t necessarily come together that well. We have only done recordings for two of the episodes so far, so that’s my favorite so far, but I am sure there will be more favorite moments to come.
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