Curated Questions: Conversations Celebrating the Power of Questions!

" Real curiosity, untethered, unsoftened, it's a pretty intense tool. And I think the kids haven't blunted the weapon by politeness or by fear of looking dumb or by the belief that there are certain things we should know. It's still sharp." - Lulu Miller Lulu Miller first found the power of questions on a subway train, listening to an early Radiolab episode about fireflies that blink in unison. That question opened a door she had been looking for since childhood: another world, inside this one. Today she co-hosts Radiolab with Latif Nasser, co-founded Invisibilia, and created Terrestrials, a nature podcast for kids and families. Her international bestseller, Why Fish Don't Exist, begins with a question many of us carry quietly: what is the point? Her answer reminds us that the categories we trust are often questions we stop asking. But the power scared her. She once fled journalism for a fiction MFA, convinced her questions could hurt people. Jad Abumrad's reframe brought her back: those worries are the sound of your moral compass. In this conversation, Lulu shares three ways to move a conversation past the rehearsed version: ask something tactile, ask the elephant-in-the-room question, and interrupt with care. Then the kids on Terrestrials take over, asking NASA scientists and the poet laureate the blunt, open questions adults soften away. Real curiosity, unsoftened, is still sharp. Who blunted ours? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning! Resources Mentioned Radiolab (https://radiolab.org/) Latif Nasser (https://latif-nasser.squarespace.com/about) NPR (https://www.npr.org/) Invisibilia (https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510307/invisibilia) Terrestrials Podcast (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab-kids) Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Why-Fish-Dont-Exist/Lulu-Miller/9781501160349) This American Life (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/) Radiolab, Fireflies "Emergence" episode (https://radiolab.org/podcast/91501-there-is-no-lord-of-the-fireflies) Olbers' paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox) Jad Abumrad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jad_Abumrad) Robert Krulwich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Krulwich) Jocelyn Ford (https://mediaeducationlab.com/about/jocelyn-ford) Nell Greenfieldboyce (https://www.nellgreenfieldboyce.com/) Gregory Warner (https://gregorywarner.substack.com/) Ellen Horne (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellen-horne-78a45a2) The Addams Family (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family) Radiolab parasites episode (https://radiolab.org/podcast/darkode) Hanna Rosin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Rosin) Alix Spiegel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alix_Spiegel) Zoopharmacognosy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoopharmacognosy) Terrestrials, "An Ocean in Space" episode (https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/an-ocean-in-space/id1504895463?i=1000702888723) Europa Clipper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper) Europa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)) Ada Limón (https://adalimon.com/) Voyager Golden Record (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record) Producer Ben Ford (https://www.producerbenford.com/) Beauty Pill (https://www.beautypill.com/)

"What do former members say about the organization?" - Ken Woodward Ten years ago today, I asked a question on my daily practice, IOTD365: what do former members say about an organization? I wrote it after my daughter gave up on an internship. One conversation in a hallway with a senior who'd done it was all it took. In 2016 I read that question as an insider asking leaders to listen. Today I read it as a former member who left federal service after thirty-two years without anyone asking what I knew. I also read it as a founder who can't hear what's said after I leave the room. In this episode, I reread the original post and question the man who wrote it. I look at where reputation really lives and the courage it takes to tell someone the truth. Then I borrow a habit from my years navigating submarines in and out of port. Taking a fix on an old question shows how far I've moved. What question did you answer years ago that deserves a second look? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

"Disagreement makes the map visible. Agreement lets it pass for the terrain." - Ken Woodward "Thank you for your service" arrives with a script already written. A World War II veteran taught Ken Woodward a better reply: "You were worth it." That exchange opens a solo episode about the worlds hidden inside the questions we answer. Ken starts with a single verb that put broken glass on a road where there was none, then turns to survey research showing how answer choices define normal, and to philosopher R.G. Collingwood's idea that every question stands on assumptions. From there he returns to the streets of Washington, D.C., sorting the questions strangers asked his "Black and Brown Lives Matter" sign by the maps they carried, including the ones pointing back at the sign itself. The hardest case comes last: a question Ken agreed with, never examined, and what his nod cost the conversation. Disagreement makes the map visible. Agreement lets it pass for the terrain. What world did you agree to before you answered? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

"  I ate of that apple. It tasted like safety." - Ken Woodward Once a submarine goes under, nobody aboard knows exactly where they are. The boat runs on an estimate that drifts, and being off course feels exactly like being on course. The only remedy is to come up and take a fix. In this solo episode, Ken asks whether certainty is what keeps us safe, or whether safety comes from our ability to keep checking our position against the world. He draws on his time as a Navy Radioman plotting fixes, Arie Kruglanski's research on the need for closure, a Listerine ad campaign that manufactured a fear to sell a cure, and John Keats's idea of negative capability. He also tells the story of a political and religious certainty that once absolved him of responsibility, and what 2,085 miles of D.C. streets taught him about fear. The episode closes with a question to take with you: Is my need for certainty making me safer? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

"The biggest reason somebody will avoid answering a question is because they don't trust you with the answer." - Debbie Millman Debbie Millman has spent 21 years asking questions on Design Matters, the show she started in 2005 before podcasting had rules. In episode 100 of Curated Questions, she takes the receiving chair. Debbie traces her craft from a survey-style list she asked everyone, work she now calls terrible, to a method she describes as storytelling through questions, where each question carries the context a guest needs to respond to a fully realized moment in their life. She explains why she avoids false wisdom language, multiple-choice framing, and interpretation the guest hasn't offered yet, and makes the case that people withhold answers when they don't trust you with them. The conversation ranges across branding, her clients, the questions she brings to any redesign, the rebuild of The Rumpus with Roxane Gay, and what AI costs students who skip the difficulty. She closes with the question consuming her at 65: how to live this last third. This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning! Resources Mentioned Debbie Millman (https://www.debbiemillman.com) Design Matters (https://www.designmattersmedia.com) Sterling Brands (https://www.sterlingbrands.com) AIGA (https://www.aiga.org) SVA Masters in Branding (https://branding.sva.edu) Roxane Gay (https://audacity.substack.com) The Rumpus (https://therumpus.net) Lambda Legal (https://lambdalegal.org) NASA (https://www.nasa.gov) U.S. Department of Justice (https://www.justice.gov) Paula Scher (https://www.pentagram.com/about/paula-scher) Dr. Dan Formosa (https://sva.edu/faculty/dan-formosa) Kevin Kelly (https://kk.org) "If You're Over 40, You're Ready to Use A.I." — Debbie Millman, NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/opinion/teaching-kabbalah-ai.html) The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com) Kottke.org (https://kottke.org) Craig Mod (https://craigmod.com) The Marginalian (https://www.themarginalian.org) The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com) The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com) Los Angeles Times (https://www.latimes.com) Maria Popova (https://www.themarginalian.org) Jason Kottke (https://kottke.org/about) TED Talks (https://www.ted.com/talks) Tim Ferriss (https://tim.blog) Dax Shepard, Armchair Expert (https://armchairexpertpod.com) Krista Tippett, On Being (https://onbeing.org) NPR (https://www.npr.org) Glennon Doyle (https://glennondoyle.com) Andrew Caulk (https://www.curatedquestions.com/podcast) Barbra Streisand (https://www.barbrastreisand.com) Terry Gross, Fresh Air (https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air) Sam Fragoso, Talk Easy (https://talkeasypod.com) Adam Grant (https://www.adamgrant.net) Brené Brown (https://brenebrown.com) Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, Fixable (https://www.ted.com/podcasts/fixable) Figuring, by Maria Popova (https://www.themarginalian.org/figuring) Natascha McElhone (https://www.audible.com/pd/Figuring-Audiobook/198484475X) Traversal, by Maria Popova (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374616410/traversal) Arcosanti (https://www.arcosanti.org) Santiago Carrasquilla (http://www.santiagocarrasquilla.com) Art Camp (https://madeatartcamp.com) Ruth Ann Harnisch / The Harnisch Foundation (https://thehf.org) Sukey Novogratz (https://justsit.com) Producer Ben Ford (https://www.producerbenford.com/) Beauty Pill (https://www.beautypill.com/)