Photo credit: David Belusic
MEGHAN DAUM
Meghan Daum founded The Unspeakeasy in 2022. Her weekly interview podcast, launched in 2020, has featured guests ranging from Sam Harris to Andrew Sullivan, and Maria Bamford to Moon Unit Zappa. The recent winner of the Tom Wolfe Prize for reportage, Meghan is the author of seven books, including The Catastrophe Hour, The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects Of Discussion, and My Misspent Youth.
Meghan has written for numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Vogue, and was a Los Angeles Times opinion columnist for more than 12 years. She is the recipient of a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts grant and has been on the adjunct faculty of the Writing Division at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She also teaches private workshops in personal essay, memoir, and op-ed. You can also visit her author page at meghandaum.com.
FOUNDER
Jen Aldrich
Jen Aldrich worked in publishing in the early 1990s, rode the dot-com wave through Y2K, and spent the 2010s spinning plates as a full-time homemaker. She emerged, in 2020, to a world she did not recognize - a modern Tower of Babel. The Unspeakable podcast was a balm through the pandemic, and attending a retreat confirmed that, yes, other free thinkers were out there. Jen joined the Unspeakeasy team in 2026 to help Meghan streamline operations and strategize about the future.
Todd Sabel
Todd spent more than two decades working in regional theater as a performer, director and producer. In 2012, he began to notice how cultural and political shifts in the arts were stifling conversation and hindering creativity. After decamping to rural Maine during the pandemic, he read Jonathan Haidt’s Coddling of the American Mind and suddenly all the nonsense made sense. He found the good faith camaraderie that had been run out of the arts still existed in the podcast and independent media sphere. In 2022, he moved to New York and became involved in the heterodox community, including coordinating events for The Unspeakeasy and helping with overall strategy.
HOW IT BEGAN
In the spring of 2022, the writer, podcaster and teacher Meghan Daum led a group of ten women into the California high desert for three days of brainstorming about an exciting new project. In a series of candid, intense, deeply informed, and often emotional discussions, they wrestled with some of the most vexing and complicated issues of our times: the chaos of COVID policies, the new gender ideology, the state of the #MeToo movement, gun rights, reproductive rights, the ideological capture of fine arts and culture, and much more. These women, who were of different ages and came from a variety of backgrounds and regions, couldn’t believe how much they’d been craving honest conversation. It was a life-changing experience.
It was also the start of The Unspeakeasy.
The Unspeakeasy, sometimes called a “shelter for the politically homeless,” is a community for free-thinkers who crave honest conversations about subjects that don’t come with easy solutions. Designed in the spirit of a Prohibition-era speakeasy, it's an underground world full of intellectual curiosity, good-faith debate and real humor.
In recent years, Meghan has heard from countless people who tell her they feel like they’re going crazy. They say that ideological polarization makes them feel like they can no longer be themselves around friends and family members with whom they once felt perfectly aligned. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Meghan noticed that the effects of this alienation were especially pronounced for women, who are often more sensitive to the social penalties that come from speaking up. As a result, they often stay silent. From there ensues loneliness, self-doubt, and a disconnection from the authentic self.
WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY?
The Unspeakeasy was originally envisioned as a community for women because women don’t speak up often enough. Now, we have our signature offerings of women’s-only retreats, along with coed retreats and writing courses.
The Unspeakeasy’s flagship offering is the so-called “sanity spa retreat.” Since the fall of 2022, retreats have taken place in Vermont, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Minneapolis, Seattle, Denver, Louisville, Chicago, Washington’s Cascade Mountains, Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, New York City, Cape Cod, and more.
Our Values
What is The Unspeakeasy all about? Will I fit in?
It’s natural to have these questions when you’re considering going on a retreat.
We are a diverse group of women, and there is no particular “type of person” who joins the community. But we all share values that encourage open dialogue, intellectual honesty, nuance and mutual respect. These values guide how we interact with each other and shape the discussions that make our community unique.
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NUANCE
Things are rarely ever black and white, and we love to explore all the gray areas in The Unspeakeasy.
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GOOD FAITH
We always strive to engage in good faith. This means that we assume people are making their arguments with good intentions and we respond with good intentions ourselves.
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CURIOSITY & OPEN INQUIRY
What makes The Unspeakeasy great is that it is filled with women who value critical thinking and know that almost nothing is as simple as "good versus bad." We know that many things can be true at once. Above all, our members like to ask questions — especially when no one else is.
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AGREEING TO DISAGREE
Not everyone in The Unspeakeasy agrees on everything, and that's what makes it great. When we disagree, we can view it as a disagreement without viewing the other person as a monster.
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HUMILITY
In our community, there is no shame in admitting you might be wrong or don't have all the answers. We encourage our members to engage in discussions with a willingness to change their minds. We also honor personal experiences and make room for emotional responses while trying our best to separate emotion from fact. (And recognizing that this is not always possible.)
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH
We're committed to protecting our members' freedom of speech to articulate their ideas, opinions, and sincerely held beliefs without fear of retaliation or censorship. At times, community members will say things that others disagree with — and may even find distasteful — but we believe this freedom of speech helps us develop a better synthesis of ideas.
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PRIVACY
What happens in the community, stays in the community. Many of the women in this group find themselves here because they want to be open and vulnerable with their ideas. We respect each other's privacy, don't share personally identifying details with anyone outside the community, and under no circumstances share screenshots or recordings of in-house events. Any member who violates this policy is subject to immediate removal.
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MUTUAL RESPECT
Not everyone will agree on everything in The Unspeakeasy, but we choose to respect everyone regardless of their life experiences, political or religious beliefs, opinions, race, age, profession, education, who they vote for or what media they consume.
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WILLINGNESS TO CHANGE YOUR MIND
It happens to the best of us.
THE UNSPEAKEASY IN THE MEDIA
Meghan talked about The Unspekeasy in an interview with Michael Callahan on his podcast Where We Go Next.
The Unspeakeasy was featured in this 2023 Spectator article about rise of the underground free speech groups.