The Real Santa Fe
Introducing The Real Santa Fe Podcast— (formerly I Love New Mexico) a fresh take focused on the stories, voices, and vibrant community of Santa Fe. Expect the same warmth, spirit, and deep appreciation for New Mexico, now told through the lens of the people who live, work, and create in The City Different. Hosted by Bunny Terry.
The Real Santa Fe
Listening Close, Living Well: Owen Lipstein on Stories, Santa Fe, and the Power of Paying Attention
Owen Lipstein has interviewed icons like Liz Gilbert and Cyndi Lauper. He’s run national magazines, launched Shakespeare festivals on the Hudson, and now he’s doing something just as ambitious—capturing the heart of Santa Fe one story at a time.
In this episode of The Real Santa Fe, Bunny reconnects with Owen, founder and publisher of Santa Fe Magazine, for a wide-ranging and soul-stirring conversation about what makes this city—and its people—so extraordinary. They talk about the art of listening, how stories create belonging, why Canyon Road is buzzing again thanks to Owen’s wife Maggie Fine, and what’s coming next: a Santa Fe Magazine live festival unlike anything the city’s seen before.
If you’ve ever felt a little magic in the air here, this episode will help you understand why—and remind you that sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is really listen.
Santa Fe Magazine: https://santafemagazine.co/
Original Music by: Kene Terry
Welcome everybody to the Real Santa Fe podcast. I get to interview a guest who has been on this show before, when it was, I love New Mexico, but now I get to do it. I hope as a friend, because Owen and I have now met each other several times, and he actually interviewed me. Owen, I'm excited to have you.
Owen:It's great to actually interview with someone I interviewed when I didn't know someone before I actually interviewed and now after the fact. Hopefully we'll have even additional clarity and insight now that we've gotten to know each other a little better.
Bunny:and I'm just gonna be really clear first of all to our listeners, Owen Lipstein is, one is the publisher editor, I don't know, what's the Santa Fe magazine? Founder, editor. What's the correct title? Owen,
Owen:founder, publisher, editor on the magazine.
Bunny:I. I'm just gonna be really transparent here. when we do these interviews I'm running a business and doing everything else I do. I'm operating by the seat of my pants. this time. I really took a deep dive into who Owen Lipstein is, I was like, wow. I'm intimidated. what are the things you haven't done yet? Who are the people you haven't interviewed? When I found out that I was interviewed by and now interviewing somebody who also interviewed people like Liz Gilbert and City Lauper. Annie Ovitz, what haven't you done, Owen?
Owen:Oh many things.
Bunny:Not all the fun stuff yet.
Owen:But not everyone.
Bunny:I can do a long list of your credentials.
Owen:Okay.
Bunny:So I. In addition to publishing everything from Mother Earth News to Psychology Today, to American Health, to inside out spy Magazine, if I get any of this wrong, let me know. You also created Shakespeare on the Hudson. So here's what happened. I'm talking to our great friend, Tanya Catan. Who I love. And she, I said, Owen came and interviewed me the other day and I'm gonna interview him next week. And she said, bunny, he is A, B, F, D. And I said I know. And she said no. You have no clue. So all I can say I'm gonna take a look
Owen:is a few things I fear but one of them is having an assessment from her. So I'm glad she said that and what is, what? She said What is A BFB?
Speaker:Is that I can't say it's okay
Owen:it will just remain unknown.
Speaker:a big deal.
Owen:Yeah. I always like to be reminded of things I've done because it's easy to forget. And I'm focused on the present that these things seem like mild memories in the past.
Bunny:So Owen Lipstein, who won a national magazine award, maybe more than one is our guest today. And the reason he's our guest is not just that he is the publisher of Santa Fe Magazine, but because I get this impression not just from knowing you and hearing you, but from reading the magazine that you really find Santa Fe to be. A fascinating and rich and interesting place to live.
Owen:I came here I guess nine years ago with my wife Maggie. I actually like to describe myself as the man who accompanied Maggie back to her hometown. when I got here, I was happily and uniquely unemployed, and I wandered around meeting any number of people and coming back with such radical enthusiasm almost euphoric that I was laughingly called blue Sky Owen. And it was not a compliment. It was like This guy is enthusiastic about every single thing he sees. Or defying convention and family reaction. I started a magazine with John Miller to talk to the people who live here. And in the process I hoped I would be able to tell a story of the city and in some sense narrate it Try to make some sense of it. And so I've lived in many places but I feel like I've. Come home. Even though I'm native to New York and Manhattan and the Hudson Valley I feel like this is the first time as the DiUS would say, I've come to dry land. After all those times away, I find the city endlessly interesting endlessly surprising and strangely important. In relationship to what it, not even, it's always been that way, but especially now in this time of arguably some darkness. I think that the city can be both a city of light. It already is. and a place to be protected in some sense. I think at different times and different places, there have been cities, of course, we're all thinking of Athens that end up having intersections of culture, art, politics law, power thinking craft. And I think Santa Fe has always been that, but I think it will be. Perhaps more like that now. Just given all the things that are happening outside. So I'm enthralled and delighted to live in the city. Remember when we, I can do what?
Bunny:I just remember when we talked the first time. in my first interview which I think was in January of 2024 you said that you would walk to the coffee shop in the morning, maybe every morning and sit down and it seemed without fail that you. Met somebody, talked to somebody, you're so endlessly curious and friendly, which I like to think of myself in the same way, but you take it to a new level. am I remembering correctly, is that sort of where this passion for the Santa Fe magazine came from?
Owen:Yeah. I just, I would get all these new best friends and, people would always ask me who my favorite interview was, and it usually and inevitably is, oh, my last interview. I just find the diversity in the uniqueness, in the sort of combined. I just find the people very interesting And I feel that way almost more than I did from the moment I arrived and had those shall we say, very enthusiastic conversations with just about everybody. I would run into, there's something about plate that is quite
Speaker:go
Owen:No, there's something about this place that people often have trouble describing. I often ask at the end of the interviews what's so special and everybody has something to say, but they tend to say, I don't know, at the end. I don't know what it is. I can't figure it out, but it doesn't matter.
Bunny:And this was Maggie's hometown.
Owen:Yes.
Bunny:Did you have a different notion of what it was like before you arrived? Were you, did you think you were coming like to a smaller Aspen or what?
Owen:when we got married and Maggie said, I want to have our baby on the lay line of Santa Fe. And we wanna move, I wanna move there. There wasn't a lot of choice. It seemed like a prudent idea to say yes. And of course I did. So to some extent it was my usual dumb luck that the hometown of my wife turned out to be the place I've always wanted to go. But I think I had all the poster card cartoon versions of Santa Fe that had to do with, a variety of stones, cowboys native events land, and, and general spirituality, but it seemed like a lot of fun. I always knew it was a cool place and I used to ski, so I used to, be around in the area frequently in my vulnerable youth. But to say I had any deeper understanding would not be true. It is always good to come to a place with an open book and unwavering curiosity and willingness to be surprised. And I had all those things.
Bunny:I think it's also pretty, I'm married to somebody who grew up here too. I think there's a little bit of, it's pretty cool to get to experience a place like this.
Owen:Yeah I think I had to, I may well be an asshole but it would, I would've had to be a real big one to be thrown out given the fact that I was Maggie fine's husband. and the fact that we had our kid here wasn't leg up. So there's lots of ways not to get to know the city. But I definitely had shall we say, an arguable, immense. Advantage. And I'm proud to have had it and delighted to have had it, but it's a voyage.
Bunny:What I'd like to hear your description.
Owen:The it at heart. It uses the process of an interview to get to know a person I work with the premise that and I should say this, we're not interested in news. We're not interested in ranking, we're not trying to get the best of, or the worst of the most annoying. Criteria for whether someone appears in the magazine is if they are interesting whether they have curiosity, whether they have, whether they're doing something new and that, that ends up being, I. What I do, I, as I said, it's not hard for me to find interesting people. So there's a wide variety of people we talk to. We of course have some we talk to the mighty and the families. We talk to people you've never heard of. We talk to artists, we talk to healers, we talked to guitar players, we talked to photographers. We talked to, builders. We talked to entrepreneurs we talked to drivers, we talked to carpenters. what's interesting and we don't judge, what they do informs who they are as people. Of course we're gonna talk to the Governor, Michel. But I was interested in what made her. Almost the before, before she was governor. what were the things that influenced her, because of course we know what these people do now, but how did they get there? How did, z of dark winds become the actor he is. What were the influences? What was he before We've heard of him. And then there of course, the people who we've never heard of who actually have a story. Sometimes you can help them with their narrative. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes the things that they think are important may not be as interesting to other people. But what's important is that they have a story and it's not hard to find people like that. people ask me if I ever run out of people to talk to, and I say when that happens, I should be fired. if I find a poverty of people to talk to it is my fault and not the fault of the city. I expect to be fired.
Bunny:I imagine that happening, but, so I went back and looked at the interview that you and John Miller who is also. Amazing. That you did after a year and you said here's the thing about the stories. The more you get to know someone, the more you realize how much in common you have with them. It's the namaste thing. like saying, Hey, I recognize that light in you and I, you've done that really well. For your readers as well. The more I read the interviews, the more I think, wow, I have a lot in common with these people. We're all just, we all have the same light, we all have the same curiosity. I think Z and I could be best friends.
Owen:Why don't you call 'em up and ask him?
Bunny:I think I will. The director Chris lives next door to me. So he's sure to show up at some point.
Owen:Yes. Look, we all live in this world regardless of who we are. We tend to live in a vertical life. We talk to the people we work with, we hang out with our families, our, our direct friends. But there's what I believe, I believe what we're starting to do is help connect this community. Take diverse people who don't have a normal way to talk to each other or get to know each other or see each other as they are and put them together. And when you do that, if you're being honest in your recording and honest in your questions, and especially honest in your listening and listening is a principle. Curiosity, listening are the principle tools that I think you need here. If you put all those pieces together, you see an immense commonality and something that's inarguable. All the people that I talk at any rate are following something that's important to them, and they have the trials and tribulations and the history and the stuff that made them, and the stuff that they're becoming and stuff that they aspire to. And whatever you do, as long as it is something that you care about and something that has some value outside yourself there's immense commonality. And of course, one of the, if we have equity in this magazine and obviously this brazen publisher thinks we do is that people have come to trust us. So the filter that we appropriately have sometimes when we begin to tell our story, I think to some extent, people let that go because they have seen, observed, and felt, I think that we have the authority and the track record of being good listeners and and are curious and open. To the otherness, the newness of everybody. I was very, I learned a lot when I talked to you. I, of course, I knew your bio, and of course I know what you've written and I've met you informally, but I came way with the interview quite shocked not in a good way. And I, with respect to you, with respect to the magazine, I frequently have that. Oh my God. I didn't know that. And I always learn something. I get a little bit smarter after each interview.
Bunny:I found the same thing. Sometimes I would go into a podcast because I've now been podcasting since 20, 21. Different topics, but I found the same thing when I was podcasting. In fact, sometimes Johanna would schedule people and I'd be like, oh what, how what this is. it felt a little bit of a, like a slog. And the moment. I took a second and started listening. I thought what? it does seem like one of the most important things we can do is listen to one another and build a community around that. That's, that'd solve a lot of problems, wouldn't it?
Owen:What you ask for is the truth as they see it. What you ask is as much uncensored facts and experiences and feelings in people's lives. Some people, don't do that. And if you listen, you can say okay, yeah, that's your biography. Talk to me and I've had experiences where they won't or don't, or I feel there's falsity or propaganda or some promotion or some version of, this is my press release. This is what I want and I just don't run the interviews. So sometimes. I'm all excited about meeting someone. But I guess I do. And in terms of the magazine, but if I think I'm not getting Honesty we don't run it. And because people pick up on that, people pick up on bullshit, whether I wish more politicians would understand that. I think it's arguably contagious. And so You try to stay away from that. I just wanted to say that not all interviews are created equally and some just don't work. And just have to call it as such,
Bunny:wow. So bullshit is contagious.
Owen:You just, that's the truth. That's the truth. Yeah. You don't wanna be around it it it it changes the whole transaction you have. if you encounter falsity it just, it, instead of listening, you're judging. And when you start judging, you're not listening any rate. It sounds all complicated. It may be completely ridiculous, but that's my take on it at the moment.
Bunny:I don't think it's actually pretty simple, right?
Owen:It's simple.
Bunny:Yeah. We should talk about one of your favorite things to talk about because you were relentless about it when you interviewed me, which is the community building piece of what Maggie's and her group are doing on Canyon Road. Can you tell people about that? Because we do this podcast so that somebody who's never been here is gonna think, wow, I should go there. Because what they're doing is I can't miss it, and I think that's a thing you can't miss.
Owen:No you can't be. One full disclosure. I'm in love with my wife and so one and my wife is Maggie Fine of Santa Fe, New Mexico. So to the extent I seem at all hyper positive beyond reason, it isn't really. But I have made the disclosure. Maggie was titled magazine is called RO Editor, and she was doing a piece on Canyon Road. And we were at the El roll, and she had the genuine insight that, and feeling that the Canyon Road of her youth was a little bit better. Be a little, a lot less. A lot more populated, a lot more free than the Canyon Road, at least she was reporting on at the moment. So she had the idea of starting something called Canyon Road Walks, which is a Wednesday night, every other Wednesday in the summer, or actually monthly on the summer. And sometimes frequent more frequently than that. A walk. A walk that has become a kind of pilgrimage. Stores are open. Traffic is closed down. There are places to eat, places to see there's a play that's going on next this July which is a cabaret, it's where people not only are meeting unique people from all over, but they have actually something to say to each other. Not only because the street is not just about one thing. It's about a whole lot of things. I feel like having live interaction in some sense it's as if the people in the magazine were meeting each other and encountering each other, and you're seeing friends from former lives or past lives, not past life, but somebody who knew when, or somebody just met. Or someone you wanna meet or someone you actually meet by accident or by meditation. You meet them on the street and you have so many activities. The whole set of all those things, if you go there is something I might call life. Life, there's intense life that happens on those streets and those events. If a group of guys if a man had started and assembled a group of guys, they probably would've not even managed to do an event last year. But Maggie and basically a bunch of young moms now, she has other staff. Just decided they were gonna do it instead of fighting with each other or fighting a role or hierarchy or whatever dumb shit men are quite capable of doing. These women just went and did it and before our eyes it became an event. There you go. it was a good idea. Like most of good ideas you want to see if it test. We were stunned and shocked and pleased. So many people came and I think it's the same thing that's. Motivating the magazine, which is people want to meet, they want to interact, they want to go into places they have not been and learn they want to do something. That's vital. And I think we have all those things plus a lot of fun. If you're not having fun when you have the events, if you're not having fun, when you, do a magazine like that. But Maggie's next event is in July 4th. I think. That's, or fifth. I think that's the right date. And everyone should go.
Bunny:so it's not on a Wednesday night
Owen:Yeah, it's on a Wednesday night.
Bunny:that's the second.
Owen:Yeah.
Bunny:and looked at the calendar
Owen:Okay. I'm gonna get killed if that Listen,
Bunny:we'll correct it. We'll in the notes. And we'll let everybody know. And Johanna and I now are, doing a video like maybe once a week. we just start talking about stuff that's going on. And so we talked about it last time and then we had this crazy rain.
Owen:Yeah. that happened in the first walk. how often is it that there's two hours in the month of June where it rains nonstop? So all I can say is shit does happen. all these extraordinary plans this group had made were literally rained on. in spite of that, a lot of people showed up. the diversity incitement of the place was manifest. But you'd have to work to find two hours in June where it rains.
Bunny:i, it's really I suspect that people who are listening will think I Canyon Road, that's those, stuffy art hangout. But this is a family of, this is a boisterous, fun, family friendly event. In fact, when we had the young woman who runs Santa Fe fam and I apologize for not knowing her name off the top of my head, but when we talked to her I'm sorry, Megan.
Owen:Yeah, that's right.
Bunny:She said, I'm so excited about the Canyon Road walks this year. I can't stand it. She's got babies.
Owen:Yeah. It's an assault on assault is the wrong word, but a challenge to the banal banalities, the cliches, the sagging belief that, that canyon road is all those things. And when you challenge them and actually show those cliches are worth nothing when you actually are out there. Forces people, gives people the opportunity to go there, and when they do, they can throw all their past thoughts false beliefs, cliches, and old ideas of what Canyon Road is at least a negative part away. And that's the inarguable. Accomplishment of what they're doing. And this summer's gonna be awesome filming. No, I can't, no acts of nature.
Bunny:I can't wait to go to the one in July. Santa Fe Magazine will come out in August, but what's next for Owen?
Owen:We'll be planning next summer, and I think it will be in June, something called the Santa Fe Magazine Festival. And we will be five years old. Five years is very young for an adult. And it's pretty old for a dog. That's a goddamn miracle for a magazine. Especially those that are, in industry that is known mainly for the extinction events. And so I think it's taken five years to feel confident enough about our brand and to get our voice together so that we can have a, we feel we're. Able to have a festival of and the festival would be an interaction of the people that we've interviewed across all subjects. to have music and visuals and movies and an opportunity not for our readers and our interviewees. To not only meet each other, to meet each other's, the other people that are in the magazine in effect is the magazine live. And some of the sessions are intended to be substantial. Some of them are intended to be funny. the heart of the magazine, the voice of the magazine will be in evidence. And it will be live. And we're just putting it together. We're inspired by some of the success of some of the festivals that have come here. And notably the literary festival we're all also inspired by what the New Yorker Festival does and what the Atlantic Monthly is. But at heart we want it to be fun. We want it to be vital. We want it to be nothing that has quite happened before, at least from a magazine franchise. And that's what I'm putting my energy into these days. 'cause I wanna make it as good as we can.
Speaker:Wow.
Owen:Three day event. And I'm really stoked.
Bunny:I think that's a great place, Forza and I to finally figure out that we could be friends.
Owen:Yeah. This is really, I want this to be a setting for you and Zan to meet and in many ways that's why I'm doing this Bunny for you.
Bunny:happy, Owen. This is so much fun.
Owen:waited this time to tell you all It's really about Bunny getting out there all.
Bunny:E. E, everything else is superfluous. And I know that Zan, when he reads my interview, he's gonna say I think we could be great friends.
Owen:have confidence in that.
Bunny:I want folks to know that Hopefully if my interview makes the cut, I might be In the August edition.
Owen:You're in the current issue, so we'll just, okay. You'll have the current and you'll be able to show 'em And this could be the very, the beginning of a long relationship and a big career for him
Bunny:knowing in the fact that not only do you. Publish magazines and entertain the masses. You also take amazing photos. I hope 'cause you took a lot of me that day. So
Owen:I, I just one note about this that I for, I've obviously, I've been in the magazines business for a while and I've been to a number of photo shoots. And I, when I got here, I, and I haven't been the photographer. So being the auto didact that I I am, and being like so many men, I justify so much of what I do in order to justify buying equipment. So the magazine was just a pretense. I wanted to buy a really good camera. But I, and so I have a. what I learned is that when after people talk to you, really talk to you they're not gussied up, they're vulnerable, they're open, and most importantly, they trust you. So I, when I learned from these fancy photographers, a, they had a lot of. They had the best equipment. We've already gone over that point. But two, they take a lot of pictures. They take so many pictures that the person's being photographed is about ready to would you please leave? And so I take a lot of photographs. And you don't know what you have until you see it, until you put it on. But thank you for saying that it's very meaningful. When I announced that I was gonna be taking a lot of the photographs, at least some of the photographs I, I got the Oh yeah, you're gonna do that too. And I said, yes, I'm gonna do that too. But having said that we wanna make the magazine. A home for some of the best photographers around, and we do that. Increasingly and respectfully we're assigning some of our star, the star photographers that we know of and some that we don't to take the pictures and I think it's opening up the magazine and I'm learning a lot. And I think we're seeing people's faces and portraits through the lens if you will, of a variety of really talented photographers that we're lucky to have.
Bunny:And there's so much talent here, isn't there?
Owen:Yeah. Shocking.
Bunny:It's always fun to talk to you, Owen. I could talk, we could do this for a long time, but we promise our listeners we'll do this for about 30 minutes.
Owen:it was great to.
Bunny:Let's do it before the festival.
Owen:take very seriously what I said about you and Zan.
Bunny:I'm so glad you're gonna make this.
Owen:No
Bunny:bullshit.
Owen:And and please get all your listeners as if they're not to come to the Canyon Road, walk in July. And
Bunny:to subscribe to the magazine.
Owen:That's understood. Please subscribe. Yes. Vote with your checking book and let us know because we we live in part by by what our readers say and the contributions they make. Thank you and have a great day.
Bunny:Thank you, Owen.