Reinvention

Tranquility du Jour

In this week’s edition of Tranquility du Jour, I chat with Latoya Peterson on:

• Embracing Midlife Reinvention Latoya shared how turning 40 brought an unexpected total life reset, including career transitions, personal loss, and major changes. Her story emphasizes the importance of viewing midlife as a time of renewal, possibility, and transformation rather than decline.

• The Power of Community and Friendship Latoya highlighted the value of investing in and leaning on friendships, particularly during challenging times. Her close-knit network of friends and community provided the emotional grounding she needed during periods of grief and change.

• Creativity as a Lifelong Journey Latoya’s evolving creative journey—from writing to television to video game storytelling—demonstrates that creativity is cyclical. She reminded listeners that life’s seasons, including challenges, fuel creativity and that there’s always time to rediscover and redefine one’s artistic voice.

• Finding Tranquility in Small Rituals In the midst of stress, Latoya found solace in simple rituals like making tea. She encouraged listeners to carve out small, meaningful moments in their daily lives to reconnect with themselves and restore a sense of balance.

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Grab your journal, a cuppa tea, and settle in for this week’s inspiration.

Our Guest: Latoya Peterson

Latoya Peterson lives at the intersection of emerging technology and culture. Named one of Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 rising stars in media, she is best known for the award winning blog Racialicious.com - the intersection of race and pop culture. She is currently an Expert Narrative Designer at Elsewhere Entertainment, an Activision studio working on a new IP.

Previously, she was a cofounder and CXO at Glow Up Games, a game studio who created a tie-in game for HBO’s Insecure and a unique play-and-watch experience for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival called Hella Iambic. She was the Deputy Editor, Digital Innovation for ESPN's The Undefeated, an Editor-at-Large at Fusion, and the Senior Digital Producer for The Stream, a social media driven news show on Al Jazeera America. In 2018, she soft launched AI in the Trap, a collaborative art project that explores the future of artificial intelligence and predictive policing through a hip-hop lens. In 2016, she produced a critically acclaimed YouTube series on Girl Gamers that was highlighted on Spotify.

Known for bringing a hip-hop feminist and racial justice framework to technological and cultural analysis, Latoya’s perspectives have been widely published in outlets like Wired, Teen Vogue, NPR, ESPN the Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence, Spin, Vibe, Marie Claire, Kotaku, The Atlantic, The American Prospect, and The Guardian. She was a contributor to Jezebel.com. Her essay, "The Not Rape Epidemic" was published in the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (Seal Press, 2008). She also contributed "The Feminist Existential Crisis (Dark Children Remix)" to the anthology Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism (CCPA, 2011).

She is currently on the advisory board of the Data & Society Institute and the board of visitors for The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships. She is a US-Japan Leadership Foundation Fellow and a USC Civic Media Senior Fellow. She served as a Harvard Berkman Center Affiliate, a Poynter Institute Sensemaking Fellow, and one of the inaugural Public Media Corps fellows.

She is also part of the selection committee for the Museum of Play’s World Video Game Hall of Fame.

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• Previous Podcast Episodes: #451: Racial Justice, Diversity + Inclusion

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