Young family member calmly removes smoking pan from stove, carries it outside to porch…story really kinda tells itself.

The amount of correspondence I receive precludes my responding to each email, letter, Facebook comment, etc., and so on, with the detail each deserves. But I still read’em all, and I am always grateful (and in the case of an unusual book like Montaigne in Barn Boots, especially grateful) when a reader takes time to share…View post

Currently reading Thick, by Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom. I champion Dr. McMillan Cottom’s work because she is that rare writer who accessibly, powerfully, and unapologetically bridges the silly, pernicious, and ridiculously self-inflicted (on both sides) divide between academia and the street…or in my case, the rural road. Writing the “Roughneck Intersectionality” chapter of Montaigne in Barn…View post

Every week the Wisconsin State Journal runs “Roughneck Grace,” a weekly column written by Mike (many of the columns will be adapted from Mike’s Tent Show Radio monologues). This week’s column, titled, “Practicing horticulture as hope” can be seen online here.

Grateful to report I’ve signed the paperwork and begun work on a book about fathers and daughters, due out in 2020. I’m just digging into this (and yes, still working on The Scavengers sequel), and come to the project with deepest humility. I have a lot to learn, and many questions to ask. Fathers, if…View post