Welcome. If you’re new here, this is the best place to begin.
My name is Iris Derke. I’m a New York City concert producer, classical flutist, eight-time ultramarathon finisher, and as of the Fall of 2024, someone who put down the drink and picked up a pen. This blog is where I share the lessons, the stories, the tools, and the unfiltered dispatches from a life lived at full volume, with all the static finally gone.
The writing here falls into four areas. Find the one that speaks to you and dive in.
I. Sober-Minded Living
Not a recovery blog. A life blog that happens to include the year alcohol left the building, and everything that arrived in its place.
Start with the pillar piece: Sober-Minded Living: What I’ve Learned Since Alcohol Left the Building. The full story of white-knuckling, the tribe I almost didn’t find, the three pillars that rebuilt my daily life, and a note on the memoir in progress.
Then go deeper:
- From Dark Places to Joy: Embracing Change and Support. The motorcycle dream that showed me exactly what white-knuckling looks like, and the start button waiting at my fingertips the whole time.
- Saudade: The Power of Sober Clarity. My sober sisters and I went searching for a word that captures the bittersweet gift of feeling everything fully. We found it in Portuguese.
- Lost Insomnia. I miss my insomnia. The strange grief of losing the 4am hours that once belonged only to me.
- Running Against Demons: My NYC Marathon Experience. My eighth NYC Marathon, my one-year sobriety milestone, and a demon shirt I didn’t realize I was wearing until the photos came back.
- Mind Over Muscle: Finding Strength in Pilates and Sober Living. On jumping back in, the quiver of returning muscles, and why the sober mind and the body are on the same journey.
- Over the Wall: A Dive into Peace and Reflection. 185 feet down in the Bahamas on New Year’s Day 2025, and the one word that surfaced with me.
II. Running as Metaphor for Everything
155 miles through the Atacama Desert. The Arctic Circle of Finland. The Gobi. The NYC Marathon eight times over. Every race taught me the same thing in a different climate: forward motion is the answer.
The races:
- Atacama Girl. The 2018 Atacama Crossing. Day by day dispatches from 155 miles through the Chilean desert.
- Patagonia: A New Lesson in Badass. Where it all began. My first Racing the Planet ultra, 2017.
- The Gobi Desert Race, 2024. Start with the arrival and read through to the epilogue. Mongolia, wild horses, and a withdrawal that taught me more than finishing would have.
- The Eternal Knot: A Story About Beauty, Mongolia, and Finally Seeing Yourself. Two tattoos, two very different women, same body.
The wisdom from the back of the pack:
- Inspiring Marathon Tips for Every Runner. Everything I know after eight NYC Marathons, written for runners of all speeds.
- Back-of-the-Pack Wisdom: Celebrating Every Runner’s Journey. A love letter to the runners the crowd cheers longest.
- Running Against Demons. Finishing a race wearing a demon on your chest, grinning, is a particular kind of triumph.
- Where’s Fred? NYC Marathon Tribute and Inspiration. The statue, the man, the tradition every NYC Marathon runner should know.
III. New York City Stories
New York City pulled me in from a young age and I’m still astonished by it. These are the stories the city hands you when you’re paying attention.
- The Stage Before the Stage. Thirty years producing concerts at Lincoln Center, and a 16-year-old about to take the stage just stopped me in my tracks.
- Navigating Life Lessons on a NYC Subway. Mercury in retrograde, a Brooklyn 5K, and a stranger named Brendan on a subway platform who said exactly the right thing.
- The NYC Lockout Adventure: Grace, Humor & Feline. Locked out of my own apartment after a long day, with a cat watching from the other side of the door.
- Overcoming Life’s SNAGS: A Journey Through Obstacles. On the stubborn, immovable, take-up-the-whole-road kind of obstacle, and what to do when you meet one.
- The Magic of Broadway Crossing. A man, a phone, and the middle of a busy intersection. A meditation on presence.
- The Doorman Chronicles: A Tale of Pizza Shame. Our doorman Mike knows too much.
- Embracing Contradictions: Yoga and City Life. Finding stillness in a very hot room in a very loud city.
IV. Music, Arts & the Business of Showing Up
I have spent thirty years in the architecture of transcendence, producing concerts, standing in wings, watching artists pour themselves into music. These are the stories from that world.
- Crushed Velvet: Lenny’s Suit. 1997, Sotheby’s, a private room, Leonard Bernstein’s crushed velvet suit laid out on a table, and what happened when I stood alone with it.
- The Stage Before the Stage. A 16-year-old about to take the stage at Lincoln Center reminded me why I moved to New York in the first place.
More from this world is coming. The memoir, Camera Dark, is being written.
The Memoir
I’m writing a book. It’s called Camera Dark. It’s a life memoir built around three pillars: sober-minded living, the real business of showing up, and running as metaphor for everything. It is not a recovery memoir. It is the book I wish someone had handed me, written for the creative in all of us, that inner child who once burned with curiosity and passion for whatever it was that lit you up before the world talked you out of it.
For the person who holds it together in public and is quietly falling apart in private. For anyone who has ever wondered how they got here, and whether there’s still time to go somewhere else.
There is.
Subscribe and I’ll whisper it in your ear when it’s ready.
Iris
New York City
Iris DERKE 