Welcome to SneezingCow.com

(This is a pinned post summarizing the SneezingCow basics…scroll down for newer posts.)

Mike’s latest book (Forty Acres Deep) (indie booksellers scroll down to lower left for wholesale info). All the other books (including Population 485) and CDs and DVDs and whatnots.

The Voice Mail page. (This is the weekly podcast — for free samples, click on the episodes without the miniature padlocks.)

Mike’s ability to spin his 20+ books and wide range of life experiences into humorous and heartfelt live presentations have put him in great demand as a public speaker. In addition to his one-man theater shows, Mike has delivered entertaining keynote addresses at conferences for software companies, hospitals and health care organizations, fire and EMS providers, farming and agricultural groups, national and regional utility cooperatives, business and economic development entities, governmental agencies, mental health organizations, dental hygienists, faith-based organizations, logging conventions, book festivals, MFA programs, libraries, and countless others. If you’re interested in retaining Mike for your event, please contact his booking agent here.

The mailing list signup (explained very specifically). We hope you’ll consider joining; it’s old-fashioned but way more loyal than social media. It’s also the best and most direct way to know when Mike’s got something new or is performing near you.

Upcoming live events.

Tony the merch manager getting it all in one trip!

If you’ve been to any of my hundreds of events over the past few years and bought a book or a T-shirt or even a Sneezing Cow can koozie, you’ve probably met Tony.

My whole deal is a weird little trip. Above all, I write. Hours and hours alone, writing. Books, mostly, essays, scripts, songs sometimes. But I’ve also developed this odd little public performer/speaker/rolling store niche that fits inside a 2002 Toyota Sienna but is nonetheless just a little too big for me to handle on my own.

And that’s where Tony comes in. He regularly does the driving so I can write on the move. He shows up when he says he’ll show up. He’s unfailingly polite and conscientious. He has a fascinating personal background and is thus a great conversation partner when the road gets long. He’s fine with a nice hotel room or a short-term couch. When we’re in some midwestern town all day and I have to hole up and write, he amuses himself.

Tony, folks. How fortunate I am to work with him.

P.S. He’s obsessed with keeping those book stacks all squared up, so don’t be putting things down off-kilter. 😂

New band photo!!!

Fresh off a recent recording session, which included three new songs, the Long Beds will be performing those songs, along with the classics, at The Pablo Center Saturday January 25th, 2025. Grab your tickets here.

When I walked outside to close things up last night the air was subzero still, the moon was bright even through clouds, this view the source of this scene:

Beneath the brightness of the moon, he followed them, wading until he hit the trough of their common tracks. The light was such that he could see the general shape of things, although in a color-blind way. The trail led through scrub and brush and into a pine copse so thick very little snow had fallen through to the understory, leaving instead a blanket of shed needles. He knew the deer had yarded here before. After a tough winter you could hardly see the needles for all the poop marbles. He knelt, and between the trunks he could see them all around him, silent and still save for the puffs of blued fog out their nostrils. Now and then one would flick an ear or stomp a forefoot, still spooked but loath to leave this sheltering space.

— From the novella Forty Acres Deep

Holed up at Pine Hollow for three days working on three new Long Beds songs and shining up some of the standards. If you wanna know when the new stuff is finished and out there, please sign up on the mailing list or Mike’s Voice Mail Substack. If you want to hear those new songs live, they’re on the set list for our show at the Pablo in Eau Claire January 25. We’d sure enjoy sharing the evening with you. Meanwhile, Mike is back in his little room above the garage, typing, typing, typing.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 245. In honor of the final week of the NFL football regular season, this one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. To listen, click here.

In this episode I explain how the very first time I attended a professional football game, I was on the field with the team. As has often been the case with my career, I got there by coming at things from an angle.

And thank you for listening.

Forward!
Mike

Still waiting to be drafted…