The Things Not Named

Sap is running in the sugar bush, the ground is loosening with rain and warmth, and I’m soaking my first round of garden seeds. I have observed the rites of spring planting for most of my life, and I know of no more hopeful ceremony.  There is always some dreaming involved, a little picture making about the patterns I’ll create with Black Magic, Winterbor, and Redbor kale. How I’ll train the Sashi...

I was driving back from Maryland to Pennsylvania on Black Friday when I tuned in to Steve Levitt’s Freakonomics podcast. Typically I don’t associate my mood or the setting with podcasts the way I do with music. But that changed as I listened to Levitt and his guest, Michael D. Smith. Smith is the author of The Abundant University , a smart-sounding book about how to save higher ed that turns out t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joshuadolezal.substack.com Friends, I’m wading back into fully produced podcast episodes with today’s interview. The full episode is available to paying members, and free subscribers can listen to the first 18 minutes. To support more conversations like this and unlock more interviews, original essays, and craft resources, please consid...

If you haven’t read last week’s interview by with the novelist Lore Segal, head over to Inner Life , where david roberts will also share new work later today. A Conversation with James Richardson Joshua Doležal: Welcome back to my interview series with former academics who have pivoted to careers in industry and entrepreneurship. I’m Joshua Doležal, and my guest today is James Richardson. James Ri...

A Conversation with Dr. Leslie Castro-Woodhouse Joshua Doležal: Welcome back to my interview series with academics who have transitioned to careers in industry or entrepreneurship. I’m Joshua Doležal, and my guest today is Dr. Leslie Castro-Woodhouse , founder and principal of Origami Editorial , where she offers developmental editing and academic book coaching services. Leslie left a corporate ro...

Pitching horseshoes at twilight, gnats whirling out of the shaggy grass, the rusted stake fades each time I turn, and it seems all of these tosses should amount to more than a few leaners skipping off the irons. Red clover lies trampled near the pit, where I have planted my foot, rocking back for the slow underhand, blinking away the mosquitoes and flies. I keep at it because there is now a disc o...

While packing boxes for another move, I’ve gone through a familiar cycle of deciding what to keep and what to throw away. Old photographs always make the cut, but I puzzle over some of them. I can’t believe that the boy flexing in neon Spandex and a shredded tank top could ever have been me. But maybe I’m fooling myself by imagining that I’ve left him behind.  I was thinking of these things the ot...

She reveled in the bumps on the runs, the burn of snow against her wrists. Each time I saw her fall, cheeks glowing in the wind, she lifted the whitewashed cap from her eyes, grinning at the spectacle of scattered skis and poles as I crisscrossed the hill, gathering the gear. Once I reached her, she would steady herself on my shoulder to fit her boot to the binding, stamping her heel into the lock...

Today’s essay is part of a new series on recovery that includes me, Latham Turner , Bowen Dwelle , Michael Mohr , Dee Rambeau , and Lyle McKeany . Each of us will wrestle this week with what recovery means to us and how our life experiences shape that definition.  — I used to teach in an Iowa town that Bill Bryson said was “as tranquil as a double dose of Valium.” That was close to the mark. Prett...

Dear Friends, This post is a conversation between Alison Acheson and me. Alison and I both taught writing for many years as college professors. Now we are forging a path for ourselves as teachers and writers outside academe. If you are not already a reader of Alison’s Unschool for Writers , I hope you’ll explore her rich series. In this exchange we reflect on how the traditional classroom has chan...

We are sober folk. Our starting place is the fall, when the sun is not half as strong as the warmth of our own underarms, the dead earnest of cold what we have always known best, touching our ears to our shoulders, our upper lips to our noses— rebuilding ourselves beneath annihilated trees, bending our heads as we pass, pressing on. Subscribe to The Recovering Academic Essays, poems, interviews, a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joshuadolezal.substack.com Episode 6 Transcript Joshua Doležal: I’m Joshua Doležal, and this is Catchment, the podcast for The Recovering Academic Substack series. My guest today is Dr. Ginger Lockhart .  Ginger and I connected through LinkedIn, where I’m finding more recovering academics than I expected. And the idea of recovery is mor...

Episode 5 Transcript Joshua Doležal I’m Joshua Doležal, and this is Catchment, the podcast for The Recovering Academic Substack series. My guest today is Dr. Gertrude Nonterah – or, as she asked me to call her, Gee.  Gee completed her doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology in 2015, but after funding ran out for her postdoc she turned to freelance writing. And she has now worked full-time as a me...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joshuadolezal.substack.com Episode 4 Transcript Joshua Doležal I’m Joshua Doležal, and this is Catchment, the podcast for The Recovering Academic Substack series. My guest today is Dr. Liz Haswell.  Liz is the first scientist that I’ve interviewed, and she is also the first guest on this program who is preparing, right now, to leave aca...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit joshuadolezal.substack.com If you haven’t visited Inner Life yet, there are new posts every Tuesday and Friday. Check out my essay on the reality show “Alone” and Carol Roh Spaulding ’s post “ When Will Passing Become Passé? ” from last week. Episode 3 Transcript Joshua Doležal  I’m Joshua Doležal, and this is Catchment, the podcast for...