Welcome to SneezingCow.com

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

Mike’s two most recent books: Improbable Mentors & Happy Tangents and 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 T-shirts and can koozies 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.

Last week we shared what was supposed to be a free episode of Voice Mail because we wanted to bring attention to Meaghan Garvey’s excellent book Midwestern Death Trip as well as the upcoming Eaux Claires music and literary festival. Today we discovered we had forgotten to take the paywall down. Derp. Please try it again, right here.

Note from Mike: I enjoyed doing this voiceover for the promo reel announcing the “Writers in Residence” program at the upcoming Eau Claires festival. Details and video below.

This year’s Eaux Claires Festival features an inaugural “Writers In Residence” program, bringing a range of literary figures (from DC/Marvel comics illustrators to National Book Award finalists to Wisconsin’s poet laureate) to Eau Claire, Wisconsin for readings, discussions, and exclusive collaborations alongside the festival’s music acts throughout the weekend.

The festival takes place on July 24–25, 2026 at Carson Park (100 Carson Park Dr, Eau Claire, WI 54703).

For further details, schedules, and ticket information, you can visit the official Eaux Claires homepage for more info here: https://eauxclaires.com/.

The lineup for the 2026 Writers In Residence program features Hala Alyan, Nickolas Butler, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Sean Thor Conroe, Brenda Cárdenas, Safia Elhillo, Avery Gregurich, Nicholas Gulig, Sheila Heti, Patrycja Humienik, Nishant Jain, Donika Kelly, Jon Mueller, Mustafa, Mike Nagel, Michael Perry, Amanda Petrusich, Harold Rogers, Brent Schoonover, Kyle Seibel, Katie Ka Vang, and Adam Voith.

Wedding usher, 1982-ish. Had two jobs: Seat guests, decorate car. Did OK with guests. Decorated wrong car.

Michael Perry’s Voice Mail

A note from Mike:

Unless I slip and fall and break my larynx, I’m about to record the 300th episode of Michael Perry’s Voice Mail. We fired the first episode into the atmosphere on July 31, 2020, and have been putting one out pretty much once a week ever since. What is it, exactly? A mini-podcast? An email? A photo album? An audio essay? I know when I first conceived of it, I named it Voice Mail because I wanted it to come through like a call a friend left on your answering machine (the pioneer version of voice mail). Informal and relatively brief (10-15 minutes, give or take some either way), yet still worth your time. I wanted some of it to be polished, and I wanted some of it to be off the cuff. I wanted to include some behind-the-scenes stuff that gets at the day-to-day of what life as a self-employed writer/yapper/whatever-this-might-be is like. And I also wanted it–for lack of a more artful term–to be “value-added.” That is, sharing material that doesn’t appear in my books or on our other social media platforms. Sometimes that’s a peek at early drafts of a book or an essay in progress. Sometimes that’s a phone recording of a new song that’s still in the “figuring it out” stage. Sometimes it’s me digging into a box in the pole barn and revisiting a poem or a magazine piece or a pizza commercial I wrote back when I was still “Michael Ryan.” Over time we’ve also added what I call the “Marginalia” section, where we drop annotated excerpts from books I’m reading, or photos related to the audio or the essay, or just random moments of goofiness or peace.

At the end of the day, I’m a writer. No matter what form it takes, none of it happens if I don’t sit down alone and practice that craft. The Voice Mail project grows from that, and I hope serves to both uplift and expand the experience of the folks who subscribe and listen. Each week when I sit down to the microphone I imagine we’re at the kitchen table or cafe counter together, visiting.

Links to all the free episodes below, but first an example of recent Marginalia:

“Michael Perry’s Voice Mail” is subscription-based but once a month or so there is a free episode. For ease of access we have collected all the free episodes to date in one spot. Please click on any or all of the links below to listen to any and all of the free episodes. If you enjoy the episodes and would like to listen to the paid episodes for a month free on us, please send an email to [email protected].

EPISODES

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Thank You for Subscribing

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Forward

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Don’t fear grandpa the Halloween clown! We made this episode of Michael Perry’s Voice Mail free because Mike wanted to tell folks about the Meaghan Garvey book Midwestern Death Trip. His favorite essay in there is “Yoop Dreams.” Also he wanted to let folks know there will be writers at the Eaux Claires festival.