Words by Winter

Send us Fan Mail A listener from Arizona named Russ writes in about his fear that in the unending awfulness of 2020 he's turning toward animals as a defense against humans. That he's always been a "defender of humans" and doesn't want to turn into one of those people who only loves dogs. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Be...

Send us Fan Mail Technology and its gadgets bring the seen and unseen worlds closer, begin to dissolve the boundaries we live by, have believed in. But is it possible that the boundaries were never there to begin with? Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for ou...

Send us Fan Mail In the beginning of the pandemic, we did an episode about a listener from the Czech Republic, who had gone two months without touch. . . and now here we are, eight months in. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese,...

Send us Fan Mail What's your definition of a "small luxury"? That morning cup of coffee? Chocolate? Time?  Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork b...

Send us Fan Mail How does someone survive a childhood spent with a sociopathic parent? My friend Sarah, who was the inspiration behind the character of Sesame in my new novel, not only survived but emerged triumphant, and she agreed to be interviewed for the podcast. Featuring the beautiful poetry of Danusha Lameris. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of lif...

Send us Fan Mail All around my kayak and me and the birds and wildlife, Minneapolis was bubbling and churning with city life. But you wouldn’t know it from where I sat in my orange and yellow and red kayak, in the middle of the lake. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original the...

Send us Fan Mail It was a strange job at a strange and broken period of life. But I did have one thing going for me, which was all the books piled in the backseat of the car. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music...

Send us Fan Mail When I first noticed Walking Man, I was in my twenties and he probably wasn’t much older. The difference between us was that he never stopped walking. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music compose...

Send us Fan Mail How do people let their lives be taken over? How does a charismatic person slowly, and inexorably, draw others into his orbit? Why are so many so afraid to stand up to people like that? Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show is by Dyl...

Send us Fan Mail The thing about trust is that it's not always instinctive. Sometimes it takes effort, and intention, to train your mind on goodness instead of fear. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode is about a listener named Janet, whose mother is at one end of life, whose new grandson is on the other, and where is she? Held in the the vast in-between of loss and love. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show i...

Send us Fan Mail Wide-open streets, the snow-capped Rockies, skinny-dipping in Flathead Lake. We were free, free, free. Now I know you can hold a moment of freedom in your heart your whole life long. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music composed and performed by...

Send us Fan Mail What wearies you? What renews you? Who brings you joy? Who exhausts you? When you think of safety and comfort and happiness, what place or person comes to mind? The answers to these questions are already known to you. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Today'...

Send us Fan Mail We're always children, aren't we? We always look for, and depend on in the deepest part of our beings, our parents. We want them to take care of us, to see us, to soothe us, to recognize our accomplishments and our graces. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other throu...

Send us Fan Mail A listener in Germany writes in with this question: "Are you haunted by moments when something really bad could have happened, an accident, for example, but then things went well?" Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music composed and perf...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever carried a secret inside of you, something crucial that no one in the entire world knows about? Has the psychic weight of it felt like a threat to your existence? Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese....

Send us Fan Mail Not all revolutions are loud and violent. Take the poetry revolution, for example. The poetry revolution will not be televised. The poetry revolution is a kind of hand to hand non-combat, silent offerings from a future, kinder world. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other thro...

Send us Fan Mail My daughter and I were reminiscing yesterday about a time, a few years ago, when we went through a phase where the answer to every question was “Sure.” I don’t say Sure all the time anymore, but the influence of doing so has stayed with me. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each oth...

Send us Fan Mail Remember when no one wore seatbelts? Remember when every bar and public place and airplane was filled with cigarette smoke? Remember when your gay friends couldn’t get married? Change comes tiny step by tiny step and then, all at once. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other th...

Send us Fan Mail You know the way it feels when you’re fired, or when you find out a bunch of friends were all at a celebration you weren’t invited to, or when someone you love breaks up with you?  Like, wait, I mattered that little to you? I'm nothing to you? Even, or especially, when you tried so hard. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Becau...

Send us Fan Mail The older I get, the softer I want to be. The judgment I carried around when I was young was mostly internal, but it was harsh. And what good did it do anyone? What good did it do me? Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Original theme music composed and performed b...

Send us Fan Mail Why is it that so many memories of freedom, of wildness, are from long ago? Does the world tell us to rein ourselves in, and do we listen, and learn, and obey? Thinking about this, I posed this question to listeners: “Tell me something you love, something you see as beautiful, or magical, or miraculous, about your own physical body, will you?” Words by Winter : Conversations, refl...

Send us Fan Mail One of my most precious friendships began with a single letter and turned into eighteen years of letters. Five years after Garvin's death, I still think about him every day.  Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.  "My Father, Long Dead," by poet Eileen...

Send us Fan Mail The high school graduations of my children were a strange mix for me of pride and love and loss. Listeners wrote in about their feelings surrounding their own children's graduations, and their heartfelt responses make me feel less alone in the bittersweetness of the memories. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s roug...

Send us Fan Mail What does it mean to write for children in a collapsing world? Writer Marion Dane Bauer explores this question, and the roots of her own wonderment and awe, in a conversation with Alison. Words by Winter : Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through. Poet Sean Thomas Dougherty’s poem Why Bot...