Episodes
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On this Slog Notes episode, Sam and Stacy talk about what they learned from their conversation with Mike, Sam’s two writing wins, Stacy’s event in Moscow where she wrote poems on the fly for townspeople, and why writing an artistic statement made Sam have a giant meltdown. This episode was recorded in June, 2023.
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WorkWhile website
WorkWhile Instagram
WorkWhile Facebook
Stacy’s website
Sam’s website
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Michael McGriff, author of Eternal Sentences, which was selected as the winner of the Miller Williams Poetry Prize from University of Arkansas, talks to Sam and Stacy about his childhood in rural Oregon, finding inspiration in Pablo Neruda’s surreal imagery as a young poet, and why the language of logging is the language of his imagination. Mike serves as Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Idaho, where he was both Sam and Stacy’s mentor in the MFA program.
This is Part 1 of Sam and Stacy’s conversation with Mike. Part 2 will be released in two weeks.
You can learn more about Mike at his website, https://michaelmcgriff.com/. He is the author of the poetry collections Early Hour, Black Postcards, and Dismantling the Hills in additon to translating Tomas Traströmer’s The Sorrow Gondola. Mike is also the editor of a volume of David Wevill’s essential writing, To Build My Shadow a Fire, and alongside J.M. Tyree, the co-author of their linked short story collection Our Secret Life in the Movies, which was selected as one of NPR’s Best Books of 2014.
Mike has two poetry collections forthcoming, Angel Sharpening Its Beak from Carnegie Mellon University Poetry Press Series and Inquest, winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize.
You can order Eternal Sentences directly from the University of Arkansas Press: https://www.uapress.com/product/eternal-sentences/
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WorkWhile website
WorkWhile Instagram
WorkWhile Facebook
Stacy’s website
Sam’s website
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On this inaugural Slog Notes episode, Sam and Stacy talk about what they learned from their conversation with Oscar, how they’re currently balancing their sloggy activities with their corporate jobs, personal rejections, stealing poems from seven-year-olds, and why two bathrobes are always better than one. This episode was recorded in March, 2023.
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WorkWhile website
WorkWhile Instagram
WorkWhile Facebook
Stacy’s website
Sam’s website
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Oscar Oswald, author of Irredenta from Nightboat Books, talks to Sam and Stacy about experimental poetry, the pastoral, and how growing up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, informed how he writes about place. When he isn’t at work on his poetry or submission spreadsheets of doom, Oscar is employed as an instructor in the English Department at the University of Idaho.
Learn more about Oscar’s work at his website: https://oscaroswald.com/.
You can buy his book directly from Nightboat books: https://nightboat.org/book/irredenta/
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WorkWhile website
WorkWhile Instagram
WorkWhile Facebook
Stacy’s website
Sam’s website
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WorkWhile is a podcast run by us, Sam Burns and Stacy Boe Miller. The two of us have done all kinds of work in our lives--office jobs, parenting, raft guiding--while also trying to be writers. And we're not only trying to fit in writing, but as emerging writers, we're also submitting our writing to journals as well as trying to apply for opportunities that will help us move forward with our writing.
So we thought, all these conversations we're having--let's make a podcast about it! Let's talk to other writers who are also doing this kind of work and fitting it into all of the cracks of their lives and see what they have to say about the whole process.
Together, we interview writers who inspire us and ask them how they're fitting in writing with full-time employment. The week after, we have an episode where we talk about what we learned from our guest as well as go over our "notes from the slog." The "slog" represents the parts of writing that aren't writing--submission, rejections, acceptances, and all the ups and downs that the writing life entails.
If you are a person who is trying to fit in writing, whether for publication or just for fun, this might be the podcast for you.
