Interview: Faith E. Briggs, Documentarian, Disrupting Narratives About Who is a Runner

In this episode, Jessica Luther talks with Faith E. Briggs, a documentary journalist, filmmaker and co-host of the Trail Ahead podcast, wants to make the outdoors a more inclusive place. They discuss how Faith went from competing in track to outdoor endurance running, her film series Who Is a Runner that focuses on running communities of color, and her work around the intersection of environment, conservation, race and culture.

This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Transcript

Jessica: Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. Jessica here. Today, I'm joined by Faith E. Briggs, a documentary journalist, filmmaker, and co-host of The Trail Ahead podcast. She cares about the environment, conservation, and making the outdoors a more diverse place. Welcome to Burn It All Down, Faith.

Faith: Thank you. Thank you. Excited to be here.

Jessica: So, we are obviously a sports podcast. So I'm going to start there. How do you describe your relationship to sports?

Faith: Yeah, it's such a good question because, you know, I've been an athlete my whole life. I ran track from seventh grade through college and I swam for a while when I was younger, too. It's funny because at the same time I never played like team sports, or really watched many teams sports. Like, I watched a lot of track and swimming, I went to my friend's games, obviously. So, it's funny. My partner now has two little kids, and one plays basketball, the other one plays soccer, and there's constantly sports on in the house. And they quiz me about team names and things. [laughter]

Jessica: Oh, no.

Faith: Like, so it's just a totally different relationship, having been involved in sports. And very much identifying as like a scholar athlete when I was younger and an athlete is a huge part of like my where my confidence has come from and things over the years. So, sports have always been a part of my life. I think it's funny because they were never organized sports. So even sometimes when I'm watching like basketball games, I'm like, oh my god, if someone was throwing something at me, like, I wouldn't want that! [laughter] It’s just a very different, like, physicality to it.

Jessica: When you ran track, what did you run? Like, what was your distance?

Faith: I was a sprinter, mainly the 400. So yeah, 400 and down essentially. I was very much trying to avoid anything up most of the time, like, I got threatened with 800 meters a lot. But 400 meters, so, one lap around. 200, 4 x 100 meter relay, 4 x 400 meter relay most of the time.

Jessica: Wow. Because then as an adult, you transition. I have seen a video – we will talk about it in a little bit – of you distance running, trail running, which is even its own thing. How did you transition from 400 and down to long distance running outside on trails?

Faith: Yeah. I feel really grateful that I found those things because I think, you know, as many college athletes kind of experience, when it ends suddenly, you don't know what to do with yourself. And I certainly had that. So I went straight from undergrad into grad school and I was at the track, I was at USC for a year, and I was like at the track doing workouts all the time. And people were like, what is she doing? [laughs] And people were like, what are you training for? And I'm like, I don't know what else to do. Like, this is all I know. So I'd just be sprinting around. But I also experienced a bunch of injuries. I had six stress fractures in my shins during undergrad.

Jessica: That's a lot of them!

Faith: Yeah. My coach had many nicknames, including Mrs. Glass at different points. [laughs] So, I was doing a lot of swimming, also a lot of pool training, but a lot of swimming in the year after to try to like get back together. And then strangely enough, I read this book Born to Run, which was all about the barefoot running craze, and also about ultra runners. And when I read it, I certainly wasn't like, oh, I want to go do crazy ultra running.

Jessica: Yeah, I was about to say! [laughs] Anytime I hear about it, I’m like, good for those people. [laughter]

Faith: Right. Same. I felt the same way. But then I was kind of fascinated by potentially if what was going on with my shins all this time had been an issue of moving from a minimalist running shoe in high school to more structured shoes in college, because I had been running in like just shoes that I thought were cute in high school and no one was really questioning that. And then I got to college and my college coaches were like, no, this entire list of brightly colored shoes that you sent us, we are not going to get for you. And I think a combination of more structured shoes and the banked inward track was just really hard for my body specifically. And it actually helped to read that book and realize that that research was coming out in like 2009. You know, I graduated in 2010, so people didn't really have the idea that like, oh, some bodies or some runners might be minimalist runners. And so anyway, I ended up…It’s funny because I was embarrassed about it at the time, but I ended up buying some of those, like, Vibram five finger shoes–

Jessica: Toe shoes!

Faith: Toe shoes. I was like in one of the shoe stores trying on sneakers in Union Square. I was living in Brooklyn at the time, because I had left USC and moved back to New York, and ran into some friends from college who basically were like, dude, try these on, like, as a joke. And I ended up…I don't think they knew at the time that I was, like, I'm actually going to get these. [Jessica laughs] And so I bought them and I would bike to Prospect Park, take them off, put them on, and you're supposed to go, like, you start really slow. Like, you build up to a mile, you build up to a little bit at a time. So I was basically embarrassed to wear them. So I was sneakily putting them on, running around, and then putting them back in my bag. Certainly not for everyone, and some people have gotten really hurt using them, but it definitely helped me build up a lot of my strength in my calves and feet, I think. So, that was kind of like the beginning of me starting to run again. But I dropped out of grad school and I was kind of in between places and moved back to New York, and I was kind of embarrassed about the fact that I had dropped out. And so I was just kinda trying to find something that I felt good doing. 

And so I started running, I lived about a mile from Prospect Park, and I was slowly building up to like a mile, three miles, five miles – which was so much running to me at that point in time. And I think I finally experienced that runners’ high people talk about at around six miles. And I was like, this is cool. And then actually one of my college teammates was running with a group in London, there's all these like run crews and run clubs and all these things. So she was renting with one called Track Mafia in London and was like, you might really like this group called Black Roses in New York. And I was like, girl, we don't run anymore. Like, we're retired. But she planted the seed, and it turned out there was an open session like a few days later. So I went, I remember the first practice was 1k repeats. So I was just like, what are we doing here? Like, this is crazy distances. But the group of people were so cool, so I was hooked. So I did that for three years and moved up, like, I ran my first two half marathons with that group, and then we did a trail running weekend in 2016, and I experienced that and was super hooked. And then, yeah, kinda just moved up little by little from there. So, certainly a strange transition, even to myself, for sure.

Jessica: Wow. That's amazing. I do also want to know, how did you get into filmmaking? Because a lot of what we're about to talk about are films that you've made about running, but like, how did you actually get into filmmaking?

Faith: Totally. Yeah. I ended up in undergrad studying African-American studies and film studies. Funny enough, I mean, I thought I was going to be an anthropology major. I've always been really interested in humans, like, how we work and interact with each other. And then, strange twist of fate…So, I had two stress fractures, one in each shin. This was freshman year. And so they had me in two boots and on crutches, and I couldn't get around. It was brutal. And the anthro class I needed to get to was in this building that no longer belongs to Yale – the Yale art gallery has since bought, it because it wasn't ADA accessible. 

Jessica: Oh, oh my gosh.

Faith: So I was like crutching to this class, and I finally was just like, f– this, like, I'm out. And I dropped like a required anthro class. And then I ended up in a film class called like 'Black women in film' in the spring of freshman year. And I remember the professor, Terri Francis, who I still talk to now, was like, oh, you're going to be a film…Like, this is going to be your thing. And I think I really took to it, because I had spent a lot of time…My parents met as summer camp counselors, actually.

Jessica: That’s adorable.

Faith: Yeah, and I grew up running around at summer camps. So I was always like interacting with kids from the city. And I was really aware of how they were consuming media and what that meant they were consuming. And I was always kind of…Disappointed isn't even the word, but like devastated by what stories these like Black and brown kids from New York got to consume about themselves. And I just was like, I gotta interrupt this. Like, there has to be better. They should be able to see themselves in a different way. So I think immediately when I found myself in a film course, I was like, oh, this is how I do that.

Jessica: And you have interrupted. So I definitely want to talk about some of these films that you have made. You were the producer on a film called Brotherhood of Skiing, which came out in 2018. It’s about the National Brotherhood of Skiers. And you wrote to me in an email about this film, and you wrote, “A lot of my realizations around that multi-generational angle came from this work with them, talking about how we get from not even participating to trying to be Olympians.” Can you tell us a bit about this group, and then expand a bit on what those realizations were for you in doing this project?

Faith: Totally, yeah. So, the national brotherhood of skiers has been around since 1973. They're an umbrella organization that has over 50 chapters in different states. So they're geographically focused chapters. And they started with Ben Finley and Art Clay, who created this group. They were like Black skiers in the 1960s, and they were getting together via writing letters to each other. And then they planned this big summit in Aspen in 1973. And that was the first time they all showed up and met each other. And one of their goals is representation in the Olympics. They're like, when we look at the Summer Olympics, we see African-American athletes everywhere, but why isn't that the case in snow sports? And so they've been really…In addition to having community, being able to hang out together, feeling like safe and being able to have some of the nonchalance that you should have when you're out recreating for, you know, to do that in the 1970s, a lot of it meant needing to be in groups. So, in addition to just trying to create safe spaces for people to participate in snow sports, they also really wanted to figure out how do we support the next generation of Black Olympians? And spending time with them, one of the things I realized is, like…I have a friend, Brooklyn Bell, who we had on The Trail Ahead podcast, and she called some of the sports that she's involved with – she's a skier and a mountain biker – “mentorship sports.” And I felt like the way she said that was really true. 

Jessica: Oh, that's interesting. 

Faith: Whereas for some sports, you can kind of show up, or there's a team you can join, or there's like…You know, my godson's three and he's playing soccer, but like, how do you learn to mountain bike? Or how do you learn to ski? Like, someone needs to show you how to do it. And so some of the parents in the NBS that I talked to, they're like, my kids are gonna learn some of the things, but they're not gonna able to be Olympians because they're still…I kind of see it as like this gradient of learning. So I talked to this one dad, and his kids are amazing skiers. And he's like, but when I was showing up and I was trying to figure out how to help my kids, other parents were there at the ski race, like, waxing their kids' skis and doing all this stuff that I didn't know how to do. He's like, so my kids will know how to do that. And when they teach their kids, their kids will have the same level of advantage in terms of just the knowledge base that it takes to be a ski racer. Where do you go? How do you do that? What does it cost? Like, what are the disciplines?

You know, so all of those things…Like, it's kind of a multi-generational process, to get to no access, to a base level of understanding and knowledge. And then being like pro enough to start as young as you often need to start. You know, I actually interviewed Errol Kerr a few years back who is a skier who I think still to this day is the athlete from the Caribbean to have made it the farthest in skiing in the Winter Olympics. And he represented Jamaica at that time. And he grew up in California skiing with an NBS chapter there. So, trying to get there. So, we haven't gotten that yet with an American athlete representing the US, but it's certainly something that the folks from NBS are really dedicated to trying to make happen.

Jessica: Mentorship sports. It makes me think of…One of our favorite athletes on the show is Elana Meyers Taylor, the bobsledder who has been working really hard to diversify that sport, and she absolutely has positioned herself in that mentor role. Every time she's on, she’s always like, if you want to bobsled, you can call me! [laughs]

Faith: Totally! And I love watching her, too.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. But that is such a good description. So, you're currently working on this beautiful film series called Who Is a Runner. I cannot stress…Like, it is gorgeous. There's a film on the prolific run crew that is creating a safe space for Black runners in Charlottesville, Virginia. Another one on Victoria Lo who founded Chinatown Runners to connect runners to Asian cultures and promote safety and running and solidarity with AAPI communities by running in Chinatowns across the country. You profile Rosalie Fish, an Indigenous student athlete and activist. How do you find the subjects for these films? And what has the response to this series been? 

Faith: Yeah, the response has been so incredible. It's like, I'm so grateful to the people in the films for sharing their stories and for trusting us with them, because a lot of times, you know, it's a lot to like put your story out there and not know where it's going to go or how it's going to be handled. So, I'm always really grateful as a filmmaker to get to have that experience. In terms of finding people, I don't know. We certainly do a lot of sleuthing, and then we also just kind of know some people. Like Vics, who started Chinatown Runners, I've known for years. I met her running in New York. And so when the opportunity came up to think about, like, who are people who are doing some things with running? Vics came to mind and, you know, I'd kind of like shared some of her stuff or tried to figure out what to do. So basically came up with a list of people that we knew were doing cool things in sport, and then pitched it back to Brooks. And they were able to say, like, these are the stories that are resonating a lot with us. 

Jessica: Brooks running company.

Faith: Brooks running. Yeah. They're the people that wanted to pull this series out into the world, and we partnered with them to make that happen. Rosalie Fish was someone that I'd seen quite a bit, partially because I know one of her mentors, Jordan Marie Daniel, who–

Jessica: Oh, we had her on the show!

Faith: She's amazing. 

Jessica: Whenever the Washington NFL team changed their name, 2020. 

Faith: Yeah. During this last two, like, confusing years of time. [laughter] Yeah. But Jordan had inspired Rosalie to put the red handprint in honor of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women on her face when she was running her high school meets, and I'd heard about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's issues for years. And I think as a non-Native woman I've both been really wanting to support and also trying to be really aware of like what stories are mine to share and how can I support those, and like the amount of work that you need to do to be ready to share a story like that and handle it well. So I think having had, at that point, years of learning around it and being really grateful to so many Indigenous friends that have shared that and kept putting it on the radar and kept putting it out there. I felt like if there's something that we can amplify through this series, it needs to be that.

And I was really grateful when Brooks like went for it, you know? I think there's a lot of times that like Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women as the movement...Even just using the word “murdered,” I was like, is a brand going to go for this? Is this going to feel too heavy for them? So I was really grateful that they put it out there. But yeah, I think, you know, prolific…Tim Kemple, my partner, co-director on this, like, he found them on Facebook and sent them my way. And I was like, all right, let's start DMing and sleuthing and, you know, a lot of times people are definitely like, “Who's this girl in my DMs?” [laughter] But that's certainly how I connect with a lot of people. So I'm grateful that they find me in those, you know, unread messages and respond. Yeah. 

Jessica: Again, the series is called Who Is a Runner, and we will be putting links to all of this in the show notes on our website. I just want to tell everyone, because you gotta see ‘em. The last film I want to talk about is one that's about you. It's called This Land, and it's a short film about you and some friends and you all ran…I wrote, as I was watching, I like wrote this: “From Portland, Oregon, to New Mexico.” Which…What?

Faith: So, not all in one stretch! I can explain that.

Jessica: Okay. So, please explain that. And also explain why, why did you do this?

Faith: Totally. Yeah. You know, I think when I moved from…So, I moved from Brooklyn to Portland in 2016 – culture shock in many ways, as you can imagine. [laughter] And essentially the conservation community out here is very strong, and I was kind of immediately getting involved in different organizations and meetings and things here. Essentially, like, realizing that there was an extreme lack of representation in conservation and environmental spaces. And I should back up to say, so before I moved out here, I was working at the Discovery Channel in the environmental filmmaking department, and I was like super entry-level and we had a tiny department of four people. And so one of my roles was to be the first eyes on basically anything that got sent in. So, from hours and hours of Shark Week footage to, like, “we got 30 hours on narwhals, and like, we need someone to see if there's a story there,” to all of these incredible stories coming from Indigenous activists trying to protect their homes, trying to stop deforestation; people talking about droughts, like around the world.

And it was a pretty like shocking, slow dawn, like it dawned on me to be like, hold on. All of these communities of color are on the front lines for environmental disaster all around the world. And, in terms of what is broadcast quality, those stories aren't making it, right? Either people don't have the right cameras or, you know, we're not ready to take a risk on subtitles at this time, or whatever it was. But I was like, hold on. The influx of stories from people of color around the world, talking about their homes being poisoned, lack of access to water, like, all this stuff was really…I was like, hold on. Like, we have to be in these conversations. So, it started to dawn on me then. I didn't consider myself a conservationist. I thought it was like a really privileged endeavor. And I thought like, “Oh, that's where people that care more about birds than they do about people.” Like, I just didn't really think that that was a viable place to try to make a change.

But I think like, over time, then moving out here to the west coast, and conservation and like public lands being such a larger part of the conversation than it is on the east coast, I was kind of like, okay, but if we're not in those rooms and we're not making those decisions, then things are going to continue to happen to us. Things are gonna continue to happen to communities of color who are living right next to these factories, or right next to these mines. And we were not even in the rooms to kind of weigh in on that. So, that was kind of my impetus to continue to be involved in conservation conversations. And then like the biggest thing happening in 2017 was the rollback of the national monuments. Mind you, I was like up in arms about it, and I'd call my friends, you know, from college, and be like, yeah, man, this thing…And they're like, what are you talking about? [laughs]

Jessica: I know. It was like, my friends in Utah cared very much. Yeah. [laughs]

Faith: Totally. And everyone else was like, I saw this headline and I kept scrolling. And so essentially our question, working with my good friend and now podcast host Addie Thompson was like, how do we tell a story that adds more to these headlines, so that people are actually paying attention? So people understand what's at stake and what the risk is. So we actually set out to make a very cut and dry conservation film, and ended up making something very different. But essentially we thought, if we go to each of these monuments and we run there, people will get to see these spaces and, you know, the way running and sport works, we were like, okay, what amount do we need to run to pull in people from different audiences? So, some runners just want to see people running for a long time. And if you run for a long time, people might be like, what? That's an endeavor. Let me pay attention. But we didn't want it to be performance-based. We thought that if we did a marathon a day, everyone's going to be like, oh, marathon, like, time, how many hours? 

Jessica: Yeah. How fast?

Faith: Right. But if we ran like five miles a day, people be like, that's cute, but it wasn't necessarily going to pull in additional eyes, depending on like what your audience is, right? At this point, if I was running five miles a day, I'd be like super jazzed with myself, because I'm certainly not doing much running right now. But I think at that point in time, I was like, what if we did 20 miles a day and we did like three days in each of these locations? And I had done a race like that before where it was like 20 miles then you camp, then you get up the next morning and you run 20 miles again, and then you camp. So I had that experience and I was like, this is something that's doable.

Jessica: Oh, you are a different person than me. [laughter] Okay. 

Faith: Yeah. And evidently I had enough wild friends that were like, absolutely. I'll meet you and I'll run 20 miles with you! 

Jessica: Sounds great! [laughs]

Faith: So yeah, it really became about, for me, what are the perspectives that we need to have when we're talking about public lands? And really knowing that even that, even though it's an official title that we use, like, “public lands” are a designation. Even that is problematic in the sense of, you know, Indigenous people were removed from their homelands by force and by war and by genocide in order to make our national park system. So even to use the language of conservation and public lands is definitely one that is controversial, even for me. And I think, in order to be in the room and be a part of those conversations, I do use that language. So it was kind of about the beginnings of that conversation and what can we do in 10 minutes to show these places, show that they're at risk, and bring in multiple voices that I really respect? And I was humbled by the fact that folks wanted to be involved because, you know, José González and Dustin Martin, Jen Castillo and Addie Thompson are all people who not only do I really respect their opinions, but as runners, a lot of them had been in the game for way longer than me. So I was like, if they run with me, maybe I can make it. [laughter]

Jessica: I just wanted to mention to you, since I have you here, there's that one shot of your eye that reflects…That is just… [exhales] 

Faith: That is that my dear friend, Ben Moon with the eye shot.

Jessica: Well, cheers to Ben. Because I was like, it took my breath away. I was like, I don't even understand how that's possible. So, you mentioned your friend, Addie Thompson. You all started The Trail Ahead podcast in March of 2021. The short description is, “a podcast at the intersection of race, environment, history, culture, and the outdoors.” How did this project come about, and what have you learned from it so far? 

Faith: Yeah, we really started the podcast because of the film, This Land. You know, the film technically like had its festival premiere in November of 2019, and then we actually got some more funding and went and shot some more and re-edited it and then put it out online in March 2020, like March 1st, 2020.

Jessica: [laughs] Oh boy. Yeah.

Faith: And then rather than have this like robust in-person festival life, we had to switch to a lot of online. And that actually was really great for us. We realized that we could put all these panels together. A lot of them, I moderated. I just got to grab like amazing people and be like, hey, will you be on this panel?

Jessica: Yeah. Accessibility was really re-imagined. 

Faith: It was incredible. We just had so many screenings with panels and with incredible speakers. And we were just like, people want to have this conversation. Like, this is the beginning. We were like, we dipped our toes in with This Land. And if the desire to keep having these conversations is there, and if people are hitting us up afterwards being like, thank you for that perspective, like, I hadn't thought about it that way. We're like, we kind of have to keep these going. So that's where The Trail Ahead came from, was really like a year later we were just like, okay, what can we do to keep these conversations going? And like, what does that look like? And I mean, oh my gosh, we've learned so much. I think, you know, similar to documentary filmmaking, I think, you know, sometimes I feel like it's like a selfish endeavor because you learn so much, and then you barely get to put it all into a film.

Jessica: Yeah. You edited it way down.

Faith: Oh my gosh! Versus a podcast, like you get to include a lot more, which is wonderful because I'm like, I don't want to edit these! We're both really involved in the editing of our show and we're always like, oh, you know, it's so difficult to decide what doesn't make it in. You know, in terms of the learning, I think one of the big ones that we talk about a lot is the language that we use. And realizing, like what we kind of talked about with the language of public lands or calling things what they are, like using the word ‘genocide.’ It's important for this language to be inclusive for people to feel like they can be a part of the conversation, because if you invite people in and then ask them to just play by the rules that exist and you don't acknowledge the history, like, you don't acknowledge…You know, when we talk about land in this country, you know, I live in Portland, Oregon, right? We have an extremely racist history here, and there's a large history of areas of town through redlining, et cetera, where the deed said, “No Black, no Chinese.” If you don't know that, like, if you don't know that there were Chinese workers who helped build Yosemite.

And if you don't know that the largest cause of land loss for Black people in the United States is at the hands of the USDA being racist and not extending the same farm loans. And therefore agricultural land right after slavery was at 14%. Now it's 2%. If you don't know about the history of the land and you're just saying, like, oh, come on, come be a conservationist. Like, yeah, we really want you to be here, but you don't acknowledge what the trauma related to that land is? It’s just, we can't move the movements forward. So I think our main thing is listening to all of these different perspectives and being like, we all can learn to just look outside of our own experience. That's what we're trying to do. We just feel really lucky that we get to talk to all the people that we do. 

Jessica: Yeah. I feel that right now, [laughter] doing this with you.

Faith: Thank you.

Jessica: Before I let you out of here, I want to hear about your favorite outdoor place. Like, can you paint a picture for me of your favorite outdoor place?

Faith: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I think there's so many places, but I have to go close to home here in Portland, Oregon. If you haven't been to the Pacific Northwest, I highly highly suggest coming out here. One of the things I didn't know is that the Pacific Northwest is a temperate rainforest zone. So, the shades of green that you will see when you come into a forest out here…But in Portland, we have this park called Forest Park. It is one of the largest metropolitan parks in the country. We have over 80 miles of trail within city limits. And as soon as you get there, like, I love bringing people here, because you get there and you’re like, the trees are huge. There's moss like wrapped around the branches, and kind of like cascading down. We've got all of these ferns. It's always a little wet because temperate rainforests, it rains a lot here. And so we've got so many waterfalls and little like streams and just water coming off everywhere and like rocks are glistening. And I just really love the fact that we have that park here in the city. I didn't start driving until the pandemic, so I could bike, I could take the bus there, like, to do a 12 mile trail run and then hop on the bus to get home is really special – back to like access and everyone being able to get there. So, I'm really proud that that's such a big part of the city, is Forest Park.

Jessica: My husband and I actually went to Portland and then we went all over Oregon, and we definitely went to that park. I feel like...Are there redwoods?

Faith: Yeah, there is a couple of redwoods in there as well. And then in southern Oregon, we have quite a few redwoods too.

Jessica: We went down there. My husband is…I obviously think he's like the cutest man, but he was born and raised in Florida and has this obsession with tall trees. And then when we went on this trip, I made sure that we drove…We actually drove down into the state park, just south of Oregon, so he could…I have pictures. I make him hug the trees, [laughs] and then take pictures of him.

Faith: I make the kids hug trees, too. [laughs] 

Jessica: So, what is next for you? Are you working on something new that you can tell us about?

Faith: Well, we actually have the fourth installment of Who Is a Runner coming out. It’s about Erin McGrady and her wife, Caroline Whatley. They are a queer couple in Asheville, North Carolina, and they are like photographers and travelers and writers, and they also create these queer-friendly travel guides in different cities, which for me was like this other kind of realization that that is still necessarily work, to be able to travel and go on vacation and feel welcome. So, to have some places where you know someone else has been and has felt welcome and has said, like, this is a great place to get coffee, or this is a cool spot that you can find some folks like you when you go to these cities. And they do a lot of that in the southeast. So, their story is incredible. It was another one where we were just so, so proud of that. And Erin is actually someone I met in 2016, and we hadn't seen each other since. We’ve talked online and everything else for years, but to be able to come back six years later and work on a project together was really exciting.

Jessica: That's great. Where can our listeners find you and your work out there on the internet?

Faith: Yeah, I'm on Instagram @faithevebee. My website is faithebriggs.com, and you can find us on The Trail Ahead at @trailahead_podcast. 

Jessica: Awesome. Thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down, Faith. Thanks for all your work.

Faith: Thank you! Thank you for having me. 

Jessica: That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com, where you'll also find a link to our merch at our Bonfire store. And thank you to our patrons. Your support means the world. If you want to become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. As always, burn on and not out.