Serendipity in light of the Hiver festival: In the first minute or so, this Wyoming-based book podcast namechecks where me* and Justin Vernon got started. Yesterday one of us got a Grammy nomination or four. *’cuz that’s how we talk, that’s why.

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 “Done with the dizzy days” can be seen online here.

Prepared for a week of collaborating with musicians and other artists by stacking one more heaping pickup’s worth of firewood with my younger daughter this morning. As with many intergenerational endeavors, it began in silence and wound up a jabberfest. You hope with every chunk of wood you’re stacking a foundation beneath the future. I’ll…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 “Motel inspires feeling of luxury” can be seen online here.

That moment on book tour when you’re on your way to a county jail to discuss reading, writing, and self-employment with a group of men behind bars and this sign is posted 300 yards from the front door. They had some questions… Thank you to the literacy volunteers, county staff, and law enforcement crew who…View post