PODCAST · society
The Nuance Diaries
by Alexa Juanita Jordan
What sensitive, deeply feeling people are thinking but don’t say. AKA the stuff you usually save for the group chat. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours. thenuancediaries.substack.com
Episodes
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The Subway Full of Women
Welcome back to The Nuance Diaries! Unfiltered alchemy from your unhinged group chat. What you're about to hear was originally written on June 6th, 2018, at 10:40pm on a subway ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan. You can follow along and read at https://thenuancediaries.substack.com You can also...
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I'd Like To Be Happy
Welcome back to The Nuance Diaries! Unfiltered alchemy from your most unhinged group chat. This is where I share my unfiltered take on my life and the world around me. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours. TW: direct reference to self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide. Take…
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Summer should be FUN
Welcome to The Nuance Diaries! Unfiltered alchemy from your most unhinged group chat. If this is your first time here, I’m Alexa. Writer, Coach, Human, Native New Yorker, Gilmore Girls Aficionado. My magic is creating something out of nothng — wildly compelling stories out of thin air. I love...
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5 Life Lessons From Practical Magic 2
Welcome to The Nuance Diaries! Unfiltered alchemy from your most unhinged group chat. If this is your first time here, I’m Alexa. Writer, Coach, Human, Native New Yorker, Gilmore Girls Aficionado. My magic is creating something out of nothng — wildly compelling stories out of thin air. I love...
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Hard Won Happiness
Welcome to The Nuance Diaries! Unfiltered alchemy from your most unhinged group chat. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours. If you’re new here, maybe check this out? If you’re an old timer, maybe this is the week you upgrade your subscription? Okay, let’s dive in! I’ve been…
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How to Make Your Own Luck on the 'Luckiest Day of The Year'
Welcome to The Nuance Diaries! Unfiltered alchemy from your most unhinged group chat. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours. For those who don’t know me yet — hi! I’m so glad you’re here. I’m a storyteller and alchemist. My magic is making something out of nothing as a coach,...
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How to Rewrite Your Story in Q3
Hi! I’m Alexa. Storyteller and Alchemist. I’m a coach, writer, and multimedia creator. My magic is making something out of nothing — wildly compelling stories out of thin air. I love helping people figure out who they truly are and what they actually want, so that they can take center stage in...
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How to Come Out After Your Therapist Decides That You're Not Gay
READ/LISTEN ON SUBSTACK (and subscribe while you're there!) "I bet your feelings for her will go away as soon as the play ends. You’re probably not actually gay." The first time I wondered if I might like women, I was playing Hermia opposite a girl playing Lysander (traditionally played by a man)...
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I know I’m working hard and sometimes I can see it
SUBSCRIBE Read The Start Of It All Read '5 Life Lessons From The Devil Wears Prada 2' Book a Coaching Session with Me! Welcome back to The Nuance Diaries! I’ve been playing around with how I describe what I write about here, and recently landed on this: “Unfiltered alchemy from your most unhinged...
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The Knicks, The Fans, and a $100K Lesson in Audacity
Read This on Substack (and subscribe!) Me all of last week, “The amount of think pieces we are about to see on LinkedIn about the Knicks… Fast forward to me, last night, writing this between Q2 and Halftime to avoid freaking out. As a Broadway Baby, I have often likened sports arenas to theater...
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I Don't Talk About My Book Enough
Less than 0.1% of the global population will ever write a book. Not publish — write. Someone told me that statistic recently, at an event where I talked about my book. Around 0.0086% are published authors. Over 50% of U.S. writers are women, which is major, major progress. And when we filter by...
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To The Class of 2026
This is less of a speech, more of a pep talk, and really — just some reflections from someone coming up on their 10-year college reunion who feels like graduation was just yesterday. Instead of picturing me on a podium in regalia, let’s pretend I’m sitting next to you on the floor of your dorm as...
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You do not have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyoncé
Subscribe to The Nuance Diaries on Substack Buy my book Book a session + Check out client testimonials I’m going to list out some different kinds of people. I’ll tell you what they all have in common in a second— but you can guess first for fun if you want. * People with chronic illness * People...
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How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 4 of 4
Have you read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3? If not, I recommend doing so! So, what does a girl do after the worst panic attack of her life leads to a broken mug, a surprising amount of clarity, and a new song? She stays up all night so that she won’t miss her early morning flight, and then takes…
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The horrors persist, and so do the emails.
A week or so ago, a new subscriber told me that the following piece really resonated with them. The sentiment behind that piece has never felt truer, and these reflections came from the same chamber of my heart as that piece did. I saw the Wild Party on Sunday night. It was indeed a wild, wild...
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How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 3 of 4
Have you listened to Part 1 and Part 2 yet? If not, start there! Broken things have long been romanticized in humanity’s search for renewal and redemption. The Japanese art of kintsugi is probably my favorite example. ""KINSUGI" literary means gold (金 KIN) stitching (つぎ TSUGI) in Japanese. It is…
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How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 2 of 4
If you haven’t listened Part 1 yet, go ahead and do that first, HERE. ______________________________ While my memories from the night of the panic attack are sparse, the ones from the following morning are vividly clear. I woke up thinking I had Covid. I felt like I had been hit by a truck ten...
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How I Found My Broken Hallelujah pt. 1 of 4
On the eve of the lunar new year, three days before my birthday, I finally threw out the jagged glass pieces of a mug that I had broken six months ago. I never thought it would take me six months to throw out a reminder of one of the worst nights of my life, but here I was. I held it in my hands...
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What in God's (Wild "Wicked" Wanting) Name
Happy Pisces Season. Happy New Year. Happy Ramadan. Happy Lent. Happy Lunar Eclipse. And happy “my birthday is in two days!” I wrote this song (which can also be read as a poem) almost exactly a year ago 2/26/25, around 2 AM. I had just turned 30. Here I am, about to be 31. I could ramble on…
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Life is rarely one thing and neither am I
“Cause not everything means something honey/ so say the unsayable/ say the most human of things.” Transcript at https://thenuancediaries.substack.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...
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How Light Emerges Even from the Darkest of the Darkness
**Part 2 available at https://thenuancediaries.substack.com - embedded in this post. Hi. I did something I’ve only done twice before. I hit record and start talking. And then I hit publish. You can listen to Part 1 above, and Part 2 below (embedded.) And then you can go listen to this song from a...
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If ICE takes me
I want to tell you a story. It is 2018, and I am a recent college graduate. I’m 23 years old. My high school best friend and I decide to take a little trip to Montreal. We’ve never been. It seems like a really fun idea. She knows French. It felt like a cool thing to do. And we’re in New York…
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I have something completely new to share
I’m so ‘scited*. I’m ‘scited to share this new thing I made. *Scared and excited, as Glennon Doyle would say. More excited than scared, though. When I thought about posting on Instagram, threads, and even TikTok, I felt more scared than excited. And so, I’ve decided to share this with you, and…
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what if the wind was a knife?
What if the wind was a knife? Swooshing around Slicing invisible cuts Inside you, right through you Everyday What appears to be a breeze to everyone else is lethal for you Thousands of invisible cuts Countless invisible cuts No one can understand They ask, “What’s the matter?” Because they can’t...
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An Excursion of Truth
Click to Subscribe + Read The Full Post Here Hi everybody. Happy New Year. I can tell 2026 is going to be the best year ever because nothing objectively horrible and unimaginably awful has happened yet. It’s all been sunshine and rainbows everywhere. I, for one, am bringing a squeaky clean slate...
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An Ode to Autumn on The Winter Solstice
Check out this post inside the https://thenuancediaries.substack.com for further reading and listening! The days are getting shorter The nights are growing long. The birds will be migrating Taking with them all their songs The air is crisp and chilly We’re trading shorts for scarves ‘Tis autumn,...
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The “Wise Beyond Her Years” to “You’re Amazing” Pipeline
“I’m tired of being amazing. I don’t want to be amazing anymore.” The single sentence becomes the crux of the show and of modern motherhood. Jenny Kaminski (Dakota Fanning), a hardworking publishing executive, meets Marissa when they’re hiding out in the bathroom at a school event. The two forge…
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Kind Eyes on the Lower East Side
I saw a stranger with really kind eyes a few months ago on the Lower East Side. This man with kind eyes looked like he was in love with this girl. I thought to myself, Will anyone like that ever fall in love with me? Would they love me if they knew who I was? What I’d been through? The dark shit...
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Why I'm Not Putting Up My Gigantic Christmas Tree
The basic answer? I don’t want to. If someone wheeled a beautifully decorated tree into my house, I wouldn’t turn them away. If I woke up to a perfectly decorated Hallmark movie-style house in Vermont, I’d be delighted (and also a little terrified that I’d been robbed/kidnapped.) But because life...
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My Inner Critic is An Angry Sports Fan
Important housekeeping update over here about paid vs. free subscriptions! I sometimes look in the mirror and think, “Weren’t you supposed to make something of your life by now?” It might sound mean — but it’s one of my tamer negative thoughts. I try to think of all the things I’ve accomplished…
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Why do I love this place that’s never loved me?
I thought I was going to wrap up the “The Best Showgirls are a Wicked Kind of Wonderful” series this week, but after seeing Wicked For Good last night —- that’s not where I am mentally; I want to reflect on this iconic film in a different way. (I will finish that series soon though, don’t worry!)...
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How Did We Forget That Famous People Are Human?
I hate this part of internet culture where something happens and we all immediately want to comment on it and give our hot takes. And I especially hate how quick society is to make light of something very scary and serious just because it happened to a celebrity. I also hate how righteous people...
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What Mamdani's Victory Means to This Native New Yorker
Welcome back to The Nuance Diaries! I write what sensitive, deeply feeling people are thinking but don’t say. AKA the stuff you usually save for the group chat. Free subscribers receive occasional free posts, and paid subscribers ($7/month) receive at least 1-2 essays a week + access to The...
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The Waves are Calling
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com I wrote this song before and after one of the worst anxiety attacks of my life. The first verse or so came to me on the F train, coming home from Gowanus, Brooklyn. And then the rest came to me very…
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The Least Problematic Woman In The World Inspired My Newsletter’s New Name
Dylan Mulvaney didn’t change her name when she transitioned — but her one-woman show inspired me to change mine. The name of my newsletter, that is. Dylan briefly discusses nuance at the end of her iconic one-woman show, The Least Problematic Woman in the World. Something about hearing that word,...
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Salt Air
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com If you’re new here, welcome! Here inside the nuance diaries (formerly Wild Cozy Free), I write the things that highly observant, deeply feeling people are thinking, but rarely say aloud. Writing is how I...
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The Best Showgirls are a Wicked Kind of Wonderful pt. 1
If you’re new here, welcome! Here inside the nuance diaries (formerly Wild Cozy Free), I write the things that highly observant, deeply feeling people are thinking, but rarely say aloud. Writing is how I attempt to make sense of this sharp, messy, imperfect, wild world. Paid subscribers…
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The Surprising Reason I Love Bushwhacking
People are often taken aback when I talk about my time at The Mountain School. I don’t really blame them; if I met me, I would probably be surprised that I’d spent four months on a farm in Vermont when I was 16, too. But I did. And I loved it. I loved seeing the stars at night. I loved the...
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Taylor Swift Isn't Going to Save the World
The swiftie in me kind of died writing that. But it’s true. She can’t. To be clear, Taylor has saved my world many times over. I vividly remember hearing ‘Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind’ in my childhood/teenage bedroom, and being forever changed. And yet, as…
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Storybook Undone: Behind the Lyrics
I wrote the song Storybook Undone almost exactly two years ago after signing a copy of the Best Women’s Stage Monologues of 2022, an anthology in which I’m featured. Here in this book you will find 70 very diverse monologues written for women. These pieces present great acting challenges, and...
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Please Stay, Please Stay, Please Stay
I am *not* a licensed mental health professional. RESOURCES available at AFSP and 988 and NAMI and one of my favorite resources for Black women and non-binary individuals, The Loveland Foundation. (These are also copied again at the end of the post.) Today is suicide prevention day. As I sit here...
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Once Upon a Time in a Wild Cozy Free Ocean
Hi there, A lot has changed since I wrote this post back in August ‘25. As I sit here writing this update, it’s November 30th, ‘25. The first change, the name of this newsletter! It’s now The Nuance Diaries! The second thing, a post I never thought I’d publish, went viral. The third thing, and...
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"I guess it's no fun to have a heart when we are living through these days"
Quick announcement - I’ve decided to throw out my strict posting schedule. I’m still going to limit myself to emailing you once a week because I refuse to clutter your inbox. BUT in the meantime, over on Substack, I will be posting as much as I want, whenever I want. What does this actually mean,...
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can't see where my life is heading, but I can see the bottom of my sink
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thenuancediaries.substack.com I wrote this song about a year ago, and it’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. The phrase “I know I’m working hard, and sometimes I can see it” came from one of my best friends during a...
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Swimming Like Hell
Hi friends. It’s been a minute. Many minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months since I last published anything here. I have been doing a lot of writing and stopping and starting and stopping and rewriting and musing on what my first post back would be. I haven’t published anything personal that...
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The Black Becky Bloomwood
LINKS MENTIONED https://www.sophiekinsella.co.uk Alexa's FB Marketplace Authenticity and Money Conversation w/Melissa Mitt Essay I Wrote About Selling My Coffeetable Read the full essay/transcript at wildcozyfree.substack.com. Excerpt below! “OK don't panic.” Books 1-6 in Sophie Kinsella’s...
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An Ode to Sammy Rae and the Friends & The Girl Who Just Bought My Coffee Table
I am in my own lane I will not let myself down I am in my own place, I am my own house I’m sitting on my living room floor on a chilly January Sunday. I just sold a coffee table I’ve never really liked, to a recent college graduate who loves it. She’s furnishing her first New York City apartment....
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Why I’m writing to you at 2 AM on Christmas Eve
You might be wondering what the hell I have to say to you that’s important enough that I’d post something on Christmas Eve. CHRISTMAS EVE!! A day often, rightfully reserved for last-minute shopping, cooking, seven fishes dinners, holiday movies, and maybe some semi-peaceful (or at least…
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WHY WAIT TIL BLACK FRIDAY when everyone else is having a sale?!
Hello friends, We’re a week away from Thanksgiving. Which likely means you’ll be asking Jesus to take the wheel any day now. While I do not have Jesus’ direct extension line, I do have something else that can help. MY HOLIDAY SURVIVAL KIT PARTY! I want to share these tools, resources, and…
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How I'm Feeling Post U.S. Presidential Election
Transcript at wildcozyfree.substack.com The Holiday Survival Kit Party (Both on demand course access and live workshop tickets) is ON SALE until midnight PST. For SIXTY PERCENT off. I created the Holiday Survival Kit Party series because I wanted to give people the tools and resources that I’ve...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
What sensitive, deeply feeling people are thinking but don’t say. AKA the stuff you usually save for the group chat. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours.
thenuancediaries.substack.com
HOSTED BY
Alexa Juanita Jordan
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Nuance Diaries have?
The Nuance Diaries currently has 66 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Nuance Diaries about?
What sensitive, deeply feeling people are thinking but don’t say. AKA the stuff you usually save for the group chat. Consider my vulnerability a permission slip for yours. thenuancediaries.substack.com
How often does The Nuance Diaries release new episodes?
The Nuance Diaries has 66 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Nuance Diaries?
You can listen to The Nuance Diaries on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Nuance Diaries?
The Nuance Diaries is created and hosted by Alexa Juanita Jordan.
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