It’s our first podcast episode of 2024! And we’re greeting the new year with a discussion with writer Jeff Bogle about holidays, death, serendipity, literature, and cats. It’s a difficult episode to encapsulate in one blurb, so let’s try three:
Late last year, Jeff randomly tweeted an idea for a book and walked away a month later with a literary agent and a deal for “Street Cats and Where to Find Them.” The manuscript is due in July.
Christmas has always been a huge holiday for Jeff’s extended family, and they’re still trying to find the new rhythm after his father and brother died.
At 48, Jeff discovered an unexpected passion when he started his Stanchion literary zine, which for its latest issue received 1,800 submissions in 24 hours.
In order to travel the world to make this book come together, all while publishing Stanchion and being the primary parental contact for his teenage daughter, he’s going to need a lot of help from his mom, his ex-wife, and his wife-wife. He might not be 50 years old yet, but he’s living through a lot of a 50-year-old’s reality.
We also talk about mocktails and sober entertaining, having your widowed mom as your downstairs neighbor, and being weirdly passionate enough to drive 20 roundtrip hours for a hockey game.
Other links:
Episode 29: "We'll remember the ones we've lost, but we're forging new ground."