Covid is a deep dark disaster, and one way I’ve begun to try and give structure to my writing work week with the new daily chaos of life, is making my family podcast with me. I love podcasts more than most other things in life, my favorites are mostly murder and crime related. But for my own, I focused on two things I’m especially passionate about: Working to eliminate the misogyny, rape culture and racism that currently guides most American public school English/Lit Curriculums AND the 1990’s television Drama/Comedy NORTHERN EXPOSURE!

So join me and my teenaged daughter for DAMNED SCRIBBLING WOMEN where we take apart her completely horrifying 9th grade Honors English curriculum (which consisted of a list of mediocre books all written long ago by dead white men. (The same poorly-written, rape-y, racist books I had to read in 9th grade thirty years ago I mean WTAF) Each episode we examine one of the white male authors and their worn-out books and then offer and discuss more appealing and worthy, theme-adjacent alternatives - novels written by more talented authors, all (mostly BIPOC) women; books that are intense and beautiful and award-winning and simply better than any of the books and authors from my daughter’s (and mine! Seriously WTF!?) 9th grade white male syllabus.

Then on THE VOICE OF THE LAST FRONTIER join me and my husband for a re-cap podcast of the show we bonded over when we started dating in the early 1990’s, NORTHERN EXPOSURE. We discuss the show’s merits and missteps, and if, in retrospect, it was a good idea that we allowed our love of a CBS TV show to influence many of our major life decisions.

Guys, times are not great. They’ve been not great for a long, long time. Let’s do everything we can every moment that we have the strength to do so. Podcasts and books always help me. I hope mine might be some solace to you. I love you guys.