Happy summer and welcome to this special bonus episode of For Real! Today we are chatting about the glories of summer, most notably the State Fair! The Fair is a big deal around here, and it’s been that way for 170 years. Whether you are a Fair person or an air-conditioning-and-please-don’t-make-me-go-to-the-Fair person, I think you’ll love this behind-the scenes conversation about food competitions at the Fair. Let me just say I am not meant to be a judge in the tofu division. Carol McGarvey and Kay Fenton Smith have gathered history, human interest stories, and a treasure trove of blue ribbon recipes, and I had a blast hearing about their passion in this delightful, sunny conversation.

Kay Fenton Smith has been winning ribbons and learning the Iowa State Fair Food Competitions since 2007. She learned from her mom in upstate New York where she and her siblings also loved going to the State Fair in Syracuse.

A native of Boone and Perry, Iowa, Carol McGarvey is a proud graduate of Iowa State University with a B.S. in home economics journalism. She started as a food judge as part of her job as a features reporter for The Des Moines Register.

Learn more about their book, Baking Blue Ribbons, here.

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.

The perfect guest joins us for this final episode of the season. Myquillyn Smith, also known as the Cozy Minimalist, is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcaster, and interior design mentor to millions. Myquillyn and I got to chat about her new book, House Rules: How to Decorate for Every Home, Style, and Budget. If you have always wondered if making your home the place you love has to cost a billion dollars and involve a team of experts, this conversation is for you! Myquillyn dispels that myth and instead arms us with the rules that make sense of design. Myquillan says to think of her approach as a fun decorating school you didn’t have to leave your house for and where your best friend is the professor. Bring in the fun and the friend professor! And bring in practical ways to help us bring beauty to the places where we live!

For the past ten years, Myquillyn Smith, also known as “The Nester,” has been encouraging women to embrace their homes—imperfections and all. Her lived-in, loved-on home has been featured in Better Homes & Gardens, Ladies' Home Journal and Cottages & Bungalows. Myquillyn is the author of The Nesting Place and Cozy Minimalist Home and was chosen by Christianity Today as one of the top twenty creatives in 2016. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and three boys. Find her online @thenester.

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.

For this episode I have two lovely guests in the studio with me. Laura Klynstra and Mumtaz Mustafa join me to talk about their very odd jobs as creative directors and book designers and to chat about their new beautiful cookbook, Gather and Graze: Globally Inspired Small Bites and Gorgeous Tablescapes For Every Occasion. These two have a combined four decades or so of experience in the publishing industry, so I found it fascinating to peek behind the curtain of their work. In addition to that shared work, they also share a heart for both excellence in design and photography and for bringing people together around delicious food. I think you’ll leave our conversation feeling inspired and hungry, two of my favorite states of being.

Mumtaz Mustafa is an award-winning graphic designer working in branding, digital marketing, and focusing on book cover design. She is Senior Art Director at HarperCollins Publishers in charge of the lifestyle imprint Harvest Books. A native of Karachi, Pakistan, Mumtaz currently lives and works in New York City

Laura Klynstra is senior art director for Revell Books and a freelance graphic designer and photographer. Previously she worked as art director at Hyperion Books and at HarperCollins Publishers in New York City. She is the co-author and photographer of Christmas Baking and lives in Michigan with her family and a menagerie of dogs, cats, chickens, and ducks.

Find them on Instagram @spiceandsugartable, @mumtazmustafadesigns, and @lauraklyn

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.

Katherine James is an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction. She is an extraordinary writer, a visual artist, just an insanely creative person, and I was floored by her book A Prayer for Orion: A Son’s Addiction and A Mother’s Love. Addiction seems like one of those things that is hidden in plain sight, a reality, not just an idea, and something we are all hungry to put language around so we can figure out how to face it, straight on. I loved learning from Katherine, and I’m so grateful she let us eavesdrop on her life and experience and wisdom.

Katherine James is the award-winning author of the novel, Can You See Anything Now? which won Christianity Today’s book of the year and was longlisted for the Doris Bakwin Prize, as well as a memoir, A Prayer for Orion, about her son’s journey through a heroin overdose. Her short stories, essays, and poetry have been published in a variety of journals and anthologies, and her short story Fishhook, was a finalist for a Narrative Spring Prize.

She has an MFA from Columbia University where she received the Felipe P. De Alba fellowship and taught undergraduate fiction. Presently she’s working on a novel about a mute girl growing up in the Vietnam era.

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.

We For Real types are the people who are curious to hear great stories, laugh together, and travel all roads, even the hairpin, pothole-filled ones, with the people we love. If you are any or all of these things, you are going to drink up this conversation with two women I deeply admire, love, and always want more time with, even when we are expiring in the Alabama humidity. Katherine Wolf and Alex Wolf are family and dearest friends. They have written a beautiful new book that comes out of Katherine’s miraculous survival of a near-fatal brainstem stroke that left her with significant disabilities. I don’t even want to take one more second without letting you hear from them, so click in right now and get straight to my conversation with the remarkable and generous, Katherine Wolf and Alex Wolf.

Katherine Wolf is a stroke survivor and disability advocate who leverages her redemptive story to encourage those with broken bodies, broken brains, and broken hearts. She and her husband Jay live in Atlanta with their sons, James and John. Together, Katherine and Jay are resourcing people experiencing disabilities through Hope Heals Camp and Mend Coffee. They have co-authored two best-selling books Hope Heals and Suffer Strong. Katherine’s first devotional collection, Treasures in the Dark, is now available.

Alex Wolf is the Resource and Experience Director at Hope Heals, where she has the honor of creating inclusive spaces and communities for families affected by disabilities. She also has directed Hope Heals Camp since its founding in 2017. It is the joy of her life. Alex and her husband, Henry (the other joy of her life), live in Birmingham, Alabama.

Learn more about Hope Heals at HopeHeals.com and Instagram @hopeheals.

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.

Stephanie May Wilson hosts a wildly successful podcast, Girls Night, and is the author of a brand-new book titled Create A Life You Love: How to Quiet Outside Voices So You Can Finally Hear Your Own. This woman’s heart is for folks wading through what she calls The Everything Era. Between roughly the ages 25 to 35, we make so many formational and transformational decisions. The whole idea can get a tad overwhelming, both for the people living it and for the ones who love them. In this episode, Stephanie offers sound advice, a compassionate heart, and practical tips on building a life that’s made uniquely for you.

8x author and top podcaster Stephanie May Wilson is on a mission to be who she needed when she was younger—walking women through life’s biggest decisions and transitions. Through her books, her podcast, and her online courses, Stephanie helps women take off the pressure of what their lives are “supposed to” look like by now, figure out where they actually want to go in life, and take steps to get there.

Stephanie’s been featured on NBC, the Anthropologie blog, and Relevant magazine. She has also been a longtime blog contributor for CNBC’s Nightly Business Report, Darling magazine, and the Christian Mingle blog.

When she’s not writing, speaking, or recording a podcast episode, Stephanie is usually packing for a global adventure with her husband, Carl, laughing with her close tribe of girlfriends, or curled up in her Nashville home with her twin toddlers, Annie and Quinn. Find her online at StephanieMayWilson.com and Instagram @smaywilson.

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.

I’m happy to say we have a VIP guest for this episode. Marc Stuart is in the studio. I may have to encourage and persuade a tad bit more than my usual guest interactions, but he did it! And I loved it. Nobody knows me better, cheers for me harder, or can provide behind the scenes more diplomatically than Marc. It was a total joy to force him to talk into a microphone, and I’m pretty sure he still loves me. You can judge for yourself in this very rare and very delightful conversation with the one and only Marc Stuart.

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.

Dr. Nijay Gupta is my bright and thoughtful guest on this episode. Dr. Gupta is a professor at Northern Seminary, and he’s also the author of a book I drank in, marked up, and talked out loud to the entire time I was reading it. It’s that kind of book. Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church, made me wonder how I’ve read the names of real women in the Bible, some of them over and over, and yet didn’t know their stories or the way their stories intersect with ALL of our stories. A conversation that inspired me, taught me, and made me cry off mic, listen in to my chat with Dr. Nijay Gupta.

Nijay K. Gupta is professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. He has written or edited over twenty books including Paul and the Language of Faith, A Beginner's Guide to New Testament Studies and the award-winner and best-selling book Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church. His latest book is called Strange Religion: How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling. He also serves as a senior translator for the New Living Translation and co-hosts the popular podcast Slow Theology with Dr. AJ Swoboda. Find him on Instagram @nijay.gupta.

Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠KimberlyStuart.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more from this episode.