Good day, good people.
If you’re a listener, you’ve probably noticed that we haven’t put out a new episode in a few weeks. In fact, we’ve gone dark on most of our platforms.
I’ve been struggling to write this post since early January because I didn’t want to just disappear on the listeners, readers, and authors who have made this show so much fun. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get the words down. If you know anything about anxiety and depression, you know that the longer it took to write this post, the harder it was to do.
But we’re here now, and if you’ll give me a little grace and time, I’ll let you know what’s going on.
The Jam is going on hiatus until July.
I won’t be producing any new episodes of the Jam or the video podcast in the next few months. And, the round table discussion Chevy Stevens and I had planned is on hold as well.
This is a cold, hard break.
There are a few reasons why I need to take some time away, but I wanted to talk with you about two.
The first—and most important—is that my father was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer in late January. The news hit our family like a slap: unexpected, disorienting, and terrifying. And as this type of cancer is wont to do, it’s fast-moving and unrelenting.
If you listen to the program, you know that I have a very small immediate family, one that has some interesting branches. But, you also know that my family is like countless other country families who set aside any differences in times of strife. That is what we are doing: rallying to mom and dad.
The idea of trying to produce a literary podcast during this time was just a bridge too far for me. This is a solo operation in the Bunker, and I couldn’t justify taking the ten to fifteen hours a week I need to make this show happen while shuttling between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.
The second reason is less immediate but equally important for my own mental health.
I’ve been doing a version of this version of the show since 2014. For several years, I produced ten to fifteen shows a year as part of The Geeky Press, a writing collective I founded and ran with four amazing partners, including our amazing Solid Listen producer Nicole!
Then the pandemic hit two years ago. I made the decision to go full-in, recording two shows a week for more than a year before transitioning to one full-length program and two short-form video interviews. In that time, I’ve produced about one-hundred fifty programs, something I’ve done on my own while also handling my Editorial Director duties at Carnegie Mellon University’s ETC Press, where I am the only employee.
When we were locked down, the Jam was a welcome distraction from the four walls of my apartment. It was a lifeline between authors, the audience, and me. I loved every interview, every book I read, and every interaction I had online.
However, the emotional toll of the non-stop production of work in the pandemic finally hit me late last year.
Since then, I’ve been thinking about taking a break. But the guilt was overwhelming. I love writers. I love talking with them. And, I love helping people find books that will interest them. We are certainly not a huge podcast in terms of audience, but I’ve always taken my role as a literary citizen very seriously. So, the idea of just—taking a break—felt selfish.
This has been a pattern in my life: pushing beyond my own mental and emotional limits until something breaks.
And good people, things were about to break.
Here’s where good therapy comes into play, though. For the last five years, I’ve been working with an amazing therapist who is helping me reshape my own mental and emotional health. The most difficult work has been recognizing when the patterns are starting to recur and doing the work to make sure that they don’t.
In that sense, I feel okay about taking a break from the podcast.
Don’t get me wrong: It’s taken several months to not only give myself permission to step away from this, but also give myself the grace to do so without guilt. Intellectually, I know the literary world will rumble forward as it always does. It won’t miss The Jam or me. And at the end of the day, authors and readers will continue to find each other. But that’s not really how my brain works. Or, that’s not how it worked before therapy.
So, what’s next?
For the immediate future, I’ll be spending as much time with my family back in Cincinnati as I can. And, I’ll be doing that while leaning on a mantra that I’ve had for many years: Today is the Best Day.
There will be sadness in the near future, a sadness I can’t fathom. But, that is for another time and place. Now, I am living in the Best Day.
As for the podcast, my plan is to get back to it in July. I will be scaling things back: one show a week and no more regular video podcasts. The Jam became too much like a job and not enough like a celebration of joy and literature. I’m going to get back to that. I’m also going to work on getting more written reviews on the site as well as some Instagram Live videos @TheWritersJam that are more ephemeral and less produced.
And, I’ll be getting back to Literary Twitter @TheWritersJam during the hiatus. Feel free to give us a follow and let me know what you’re reading (or point me to the latest literary fights online, which always give me life).
Writing and editing is more than a job to me. They both literally saved my life, pulling me from the edge of the void more times than I can count. And The Jam has always been a way for me to give back to that literary community that has been with me since the first time I picked up a book.
I’m looking forward to the break, but I’m looking forward to rejoining you on the other side of all of this.
And until we’re back in July: I will see you around the Internet.
