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The weekly podcast drDOCTOR isn't about medicine, and it doesn't feature any actual doctors. Hosted by Nashville resident Luke Wiget and Los Angeles resident Sam Farahmand, drDOCTOR specializes in all things writing.
The pair met while working on their MFAs in creative writing at The New School in New York City and started drDOCTOR as a reading series and podcast in 2014. With zero MDs or PhDs between them, the name originated as a tongue-in-cheek response to their then-newly appointed teaching positions following graduation. (A third 'doctor,” Mila Jaroniec, based in Akron, Ohio, serves as managing editor.) A 2015 move to Nashville for Wiget and Los Angeles for Farahmand meant pausing the reading series and focusing on the podcast.
'We're trying to branch out constantly so that it becomes more of a lifestyle podcast than just a writing podcast,” Farahmand says.
Each week, the duo serves up a mixture of interviews, discussions, readings, and reviews. 'It's always been about communitythat's what we're after,” says Farahmand.
This year, drDOCTOR expands beyond the airwaves to include online content like a May photo essay from Rita Bullwinkel featuring Nashville singer-songwriter Caitlin Rose and more from their DOCTOR to DOCTOR essay series (in which 'artists make art about other artists' art”). Their biggest endeavor comes with the planned launch of a print journal later this year, which Wiget says 'will not be academic but experientialsomething anyone can read.”