Chronically Candid

Morgan Barrett
  • 5.0 (29)
  • PERSONAL JOURNALS
  • UPDATED MONTHLY

Chronically Candid is a conversational, reflective podcast hosted by Morgan Barrett, a Millennial mom to twins and an adult living with cystic fibrosis. The show (formerly Makers, Dreamers, Doers) features open-hearted discussions with guests and solo episodes that explore topics like creativity, chronic health experiences, parenthood, personal growth, and everyday life challenges. Morgan’s aim isn’t to be an expert but to share lived experiences and foster learning, unlearning, and emotional flexibility. The podcast also includes monthly “Fireside Fridays” — brief readings of Morgan's poetry and prose — adding a cozy and personal touch to the series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Trikafta, Living Longer Than You Expected, and Using the Time You Have with Author Cindy Baldwin

    4D AGO

    Trikafta, Living Longer Than You Expected, and Using the Time You Have with Author Cindy Baldwin

    This week on Chronically Candid, Morgan sits down with Cindy Baldwin — disability activist, award-winning children's author of Where the Watermelons Grow and No Matter the Distance (the first novel about cystic fibrosis written by an author with CF), and founder of The Salty Pen, a writing support community for writers with CF across all genres and experience levels. The conversation they have is the kind that starts mid-thought and never really stops — which, if you know Cindy and Morgan, is exactly how it was always going to go. Cindy was diagnosed with CF at six months old in an era when that was rare, and she spent much of her childhood genuinely unaware of what the disease would mean for her future. She learned that CF was life-shortening at age 13 — not from a doctor, not from a parent, but from reading a Redbook magazine article written about her own family. If that's not a story that only someone with a chronic illness can tell, nothing is. From there, the conversation moves through so much territory: being one of the first three women in the world to get pregnant on a CFTR modulator (yes, really), navigating a medical team who were just as uncertain as she was, watching modulator babies go from "no data exists" to "there was finally a baby boom." Cindy shares what it was like to be the person people found on Google when they searched "Vertex modulator pregnancy" — and how Trikafta eventually made that a less lonely search for everyone who came after. But this episode really opens up when Morgan and Cindy get into what life looks like when the disease you organized your entire identity around starts to look different. What do you do with the urgency that chronic illness installs in you — the need to hurry up, get it done, find the person, publish the book, have the baby — when suddenly the timeline shifts and you're not in the last chapter of your life anymore? Cindy describes a genuine identity unraveling when her daughter turned eight and she realized: she might actually be around for a long time. That realization was harder than she expected. They dig into the strange grief that can come with getting better. Missing the hospital — the structure, the being-taken-care-of, the world where everyone already knows what CF is and you don't have to explain yourself. The weird guilt of feeling like you can't fully claim your CF identity anymore when you're healthy. The way Trikafta didn't fix fatigue, and what it means to be a writer when your brain force-quits on you after just a few hours of being awake. There's also a genuinely fascinating thread about creating while chronically ill — how Cindy learned to write entire books in ten-minute increments while her toddler wasn't napping, and why she believes the most important thing she does by showing up online is simply be the person she didn't have growing up: proof that you can pursue something creative and meaningful, even when the conventional writing advice has absolutely nothing to say to you. The episode closes with Morgan's "fun Q&A" (which, as always, is not really fun in the light and fluffy sense — it's more that it tends to make you examine your soul a little). Including the question that never gets easier: would you remove chronic illness from your life if you could? Cindy's answer is worth sitting with. Cindy's poetry collection Don't Live Like You Are Dying is forthcoming. Find Cindy and The Salty Pen online, and support Morgan's work by reading and subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com. Support my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 34m
  2. Finding Home in the Tallgrass: Art, Place, and the Prairie with Kelly Yarbrough

    MAR 17

    Finding Home in the Tallgrass: Art, Place, and the Prairie with Kelly Yarbrough

    This week on Chronically Candid, Morgan sits down with artist and arts leader Kelly Yarbrough for a rich, wide-ranging conversation about what it means to truly belong to a place — and how art, curiosity, and a willingness to be a forever student can completely reshape the way you move through the world. Kelly — painter, drawer, MFA graduate of Kansas State University, and founder of the Tallgrass Artist Residency in Matfield Green, Kansas — grew up in Plano, Texas, a rapidly expanding suburb of Dallas where roots ran shallow and the land felt more like backdrop than home. Morgan, who grew up in Olathe, Kansas, finds immediate kinship in that suburban experience: both women lived alongside prairie their whole lives before they ever truly saw it. The conversation explores what it actually takes to become "prairie aware" — and why it's so easy to drive straight through the Flint Hills your entire life and never register what you're looking at. Kelly traces her own awakening to relationships and volunteer work in Kansas City, where people introduced her to grasslands not as the absence of something, but as a rich and irreplaceable ecosystem in its own right. That curiosity eventually led her to K-State for her MFA and, ultimately, to the tallgrass prairie itself. Morgan and Kelly dig into what it means to find your intersection — that overlap of passion, skill, and calling that shapes the work you're meant to do. For Kelly, that intersection is art and prairie: using drawing and painting to pull viewers into an intimate, visceral experience of landscape rather than offering them a neat, conquerable view of it. Her work resists the tradition of early American landscape painting — the Thomas Moran-style epic vistas that functioned as visual propaganda for manifest destiny — instead putting the viewer in the middle of the experience, disoriented and present, forced to reckon with a place rather than pass through it. That thread leads to a genuinely moving discussion about colonization — of land, of perception, of beauty itself. Kelly shares how her MFA show grew out of a desire to unlearn inherited narratives about place and find a more honest, intuitive relationship with land that was taken. The conversation holds space for the weight of that history without collapsing into shame — both women arrive at something more generative: the idea that letting go of systems that don't serve us can actually be a beautiful, life-giving act. Along the way, there's warmth and laughter too — composting disasters, coyotes, and the meditative magic of sitting by a pond at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve with a journal on Mother's Day. Kelly also opens up about building the Tallgrass Artist Residency from scratch as a grad student in 2016 — a program she describes as simply connecting dots between people who cared — and what it's meant to watch artists from across prairie regions arrive in a town of 50 people and leave transformed. Now in its 11th year, the residency is the thing she's most proud of, and it shows. The episode closes with a "fun" (read: Morgan needs to rename this section) Q&A and a reminder that wherever you live, magic is available if you slow down enough to look for it. Learn more about Kelly: "Tallgrass Prairie & the Power of Perenniality" | Kelly Yarbrough | TEDxAustinCollege: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha_HKlNTMQAKelly's studio work, including the painting Survivor (watercolor featuring a coyote in prairie grass): https://www.kellyyarbrough.com/studio-workSupport my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 hr
  3. Religious Trauma, Purity Culture, and Honest Writing with Author Carrie Etzel

    MAR 3

    Religious Trauma, Purity Culture, and Honest Writing with Author Carrie Etzel

    This week on Chronically Candid, Morgan sits down with writer Carrie Etzel for a layered, thoughtful conversation about growing up inside an authoritarian, evangelical subculture, unraveling purity culture and discovering who you are outside of that subculture when you have no 'blueprint' to follow. Carrie—essayist, Substack writer at Sister Swan, romance novelist, and mom of five—shares how narrative shaped her from childhood. Raised in a deeply religious environment (with a pastor father and missionary grandparents), storytelling was woven into her identity early on. But, in her twenties, life as she knew it imploded as she increasingly questioned the tenets she was raised on. The conversation explores: What authoritarian religion actually looks like from the insideHow questioning faith can cost you your community—and why people still choose to do itThe nuance of recognizing the harm and feeling gratitude for the people and spaces that shaped youThe long shadow of religious trauma, including how our bodies remember Morgan and Carrie dig deep into purity culture—what it is, how it functions, and why Carrie calls it “a system of sexual ownership.” They unpack the ways it reduces women to objects and men to uncontrollable urges, creating confusion, shame, and distorted frameworks for intimacy. Carrie speaks candidly about how these teachings shaped her sense of self and the slow, ongoing work of disentangling those beliefs. One of the most powerful threads in the episode is Carrie’s reflection on romance novels as a tool for healing. After years of self-policing very human emotions, she found freedom in a genre that centers consent, female pleasure, and emotionally mature partnership. That discovery inspired her to write her own romance novel—one where purity culture itself is the villain. Her hope? That other women who left or want to leave authoritarian systems might see themselves on the page and imagine something different. The episode also touches on: The intersection of religion and politics in AmericaWhy dehumanization is a hallmark of authoritarian systemsParenting after authoritarian upbringingsThe complexity of telling your story when it overlaps with others’ Throughout, Morgan and Carrie model what it looks like to stay curious, hold nuance, and speak honestly about painful things without flattening them into caricature. This conversation is tender, brave, and deeply reflective—an invitation to examine the stories we were handed and decide which ones we want to keep. If you’ve ever untangled faith, questioned inherited beliefs, wrestled with shame around sexuality, or wondered how to tell the truth about your past without burning everything down—this episode will resonate. Resources mentioned in the episode: STRONGWILLED on Substack: https://strongwilled.substack.comShiny Happy People on Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Shiny-Happy-People/0TRV2VQKIE3NEHOPKZ5G3HION5Bridgerton on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80232398Carrie's Substack: https://substack.com/@sisterswanA Well-Trained Wife: My Escape From Christian Patriarchy - https://tialevings.comSupport my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 20m
  4. Publishing a Debut Novel Through Grief and Early Motherhood with Thea Weiss

    FEB 17

    Publishing a Debut Novel Through Grief and Early Motherhood with Thea Weiss

    In this episode of Chronically Candid, host Morgan Barrett talks with Book of the Month author Thea Weiss about writing her debut novel The Second Chance Cinema amid the grief of losing both of her parents and early motherhood. Morgan and Thea talk about forging ahead and taking creative leaps even when you don't feel completely 'ready', the importance of celebrating small wins, accepting rejection as part of the process, and what 'one less Buble' means. Throughout our conversation, we cover: The process of getting a debut novel publishedHow to make it through writing the middle of a manuscriptContinuing to make art even though the times we're living through feel heavyHow love, memory, and identity show up on the page Books mentioned in this episode: The Second Chance Cinema by Thea WeissThe Artist's Way by Julia Cameron You can follow Thea's work at writtenbythea.com and instagram.com/writtenbythea, and connect with Morgan at morganbarrett.co and instagram.com/morganbarrett__ Support my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 4m
  5. It's My 34th Birthday!

    FEB 6 ·  BONUS

    It's My 34th Birthday!

    Morgan turns 34 today! In this Fireside Fridays episode, host Morgan Barrett pauses to reflect on where she is now—six years into taking Trikafta, three weeks into sobriety, and committed to therapy work that’s teaching her how to finally feel safe in her body. Morgan reads a piece she wrote in 2021, about the times (pre-Trikafta) when every CF exacerbation put the brakes on whatever she had going on in her life at the moment, requiring her to cancel plans to attend to her health. The piece takes a moment to share gratitude for the version of herself post-Trikafta, acknowledging the things she now sometimes takes for granted in this healthier era of her life. Support Morgan's work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Support my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    6 min
  6. Healing Our Inner Teen with Elizabeth Su

    FEB 3

    Healing Our Inner Teen with Elizabeth Su

    This episode of Chronically Candid feels like a cozy, heartfelt conversation between two Millennial women who genuinely get each other. Host Morgan welcomes Elizabeth Su—author, creator, and the mind behind the Everyday Millennial Oracle—and together they gently unravel what it means to acknowledge and heal our inner teen in a world that seems to ask us to disregard our feelings and experiences from those formative years. Elizabeth shares her winding path from Silicon Valley hustle to creative self-trust, opening up about burnout, perfectionism, and the deep emotional cost of staying in spaces that don’t feel aligned. Her story is one of listening to her body, honoring intuition, and bravely pivoting—even when it meant facing rejection, uncertainty, and fear. That honesty becomes a quiet throughline of the episode: healing doesn’t come from pushing harder, but from pausing, noticing, and choosing yourself. The conversation naturally drifts into Millennial nostalgia—not as escapism (okay, maybe a little bit), but as reconnection. Butterfly clips, singing Christina Aguilera songs to yourself in your bedroom mirror, diaries filled with feelings, and the sting of not fitting in all become portals back to the versions of ourselves that still live inside us. Both Morgan and Elizabeth reflect on how teenage wounds—people-pleasing, rejection, jealousy, and the fear of being misunderstood—don’t simply disappear with age. Instead, they wait patiently to be acknowledged. Elizabeth explains how this insight shaped the Everyday Millennial Oracle, a deck that offers the opportunity to give yourself compassion and clarity. When they pull cards together during the episode, the messages land with uncanny tenderness—about knowing your limits, letting discomfort pass, and trusting that pain is temporary. These moments mirror Morgan’s own experience navigating new motherhood and postpartum anxiety, grounding the conversation in real, lived vulnerability. What makes the episode especially resonant is its gentleness. There’s no pressure to “fix” yourself or rush healing along. Instead, there’s an invitation to sit with your feelings, honor your inner teen’s voice, and reclaim joy without apology. By the end, the episode feels like a reminder that growth isn’t about erasing who you were—it’s about finally welcoming them home. You can follow Elizbeth on Instagram and TikTok, and find Morgan on Instagram. Support my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 12m
  7. Dear Future Me,

    JAN 16 ·  BONUS

    Dear Future Me,

    In this Fireside Fridays episode, host Morgan Barrett reflects on returning to the podcast after a long hiatus and marks a deeply personal turning point in her life. Looking back on the past three years, Morgan shares how her relationship with alcohol gradually became something she could no longer ignore—and how, after years of fear and hesitation, she attended her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Morgan opens up about the vulnerability of asking for help, the stigma she wrestled with, and the relief and inspiration she felt hearing others’ stories. With honesty and compassion, she reframes seeking support not as a failure, but as a proactive choice made before alcohol could turn her life into something she no longer recognized. The episode closes with Morgan reading a powerful letter she wrote to her future self in April 2025—a reflection on living in the gray area of “functional” drinking, the fear of giving alcohol up, generational patterns, and the reminder that worth is not defined by sobriety. Though she’s only at the beginning of this journey, Morgan shares this moment with hope, humility, and a desire to help destigmatize conversations around drinking and recovery. Support my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    9 min
  8. Publishing Myths & Messy Truths with Jessica Berg of Rosecliff Literary

    11/24/2025

    Publishing Myths & Messy Truths with Jessica Berg of Rosecliff Literary

    In this episode of Chronically Candid, host Morgan Barrett returns after a year-long break to explore her long-held dream of becoming a published author through a heartfelt conversation with literary agent Jessica Berg of Rosecliff Literary. Morgan reflects on how chronic illness—especially her lifelong experience with cystic fibrosis—has shaped her creative voice and inspired her mission to build a space where people with chronic illness feel seen and validated. She shares how stepping into writing publicly, including through her Substack, has been a vulnerable but transformative part of embracing her calling. Chronically Candid is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Jessica brings warmth and “big sister energy” as she breaks down the myths and opaque systems of the publishing world. She explains her own unconventional path into agenting, her commitment to making the industry more equitable, and why storytelling should never be limited by privilege or pedigree. Together, Morgan and Jessica discuss the confusion built into traditional publishing, the slow evolution toward amplifying marginalized voices, and the realities of querying, platform-building, and treating authorship as both creative passion and business. The episode ultimately serves as both encouragement and roadmap for anyone dreaming of writing but unsure where to begin. Jessica Berg is a literary agent, author, and the founder of Rosecliff Literary, where she champions bold, emotionally resonant fiction with unforgettable characters, strong stakes, and a sense of urgency. She is currently closed to fiction. She is especially drawn to upmarket, historical, and supernatural suspense, with a soft spot for haunting atmosphere, richly layered relationships, and characters who carry deep emotional wounds. Give her a protagonist standing at the edge of reinvention, a world on the brink of change, or a past that refuses to stay buried. She loves stories that explore grief, longing, ambition, and survival and the complicated ways they intersect. If your book feels like it belongs in a candlelit room with a storm raging outside, she wants to see it. She earned her MFA from Spalding University and contributes regularly to Writer’s Digest. Jessica serves on the boards of the Women’s National Book Association and the Historical Novel Society, and teaches nationally on querying, comp titles, and the business of authorship, with a focus on building sustainable, long-term writing careers. Her client list includes Vincent Zandri, Lisa Roe, Arizona Bell, and others. Thanks for reading Chronically Candid! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Chronically Candid at morgannbarrett.substack.com/subscribeSupport my work by reading & subscribing to Chronically Candid on Substack at morgannbarrett.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 12m
See All (44)

5
out of 5
29 Ratings

About

Chronically Candid is a conversational, reflective podcast hosted by Morgan Barrett, a Millennial mom to twins and an adult living with cystic fibrosis. The show (formerly Makers, Dreamers, Doers) features open-hearted discussions with guests and solo episodes that explore topics like creativity, chronic health experiences, parenthood, personal growth, and everyday life challenges. Morgan’s aim isn’t to be an expert but to share lived experiences and foster learning, unlearning, and emotional flexibility. The podcast also includes monthly “Fireside Fridays” — brief readings of Morgan's poetry and prose — adding a cozy and personal touch to the series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Morgan Barrett
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Morgan Barrett
  • Show Website
    Chronically Candid