Interlude 1: Taking a Week Off

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, good morning, it's Kyle. After 17 weeks of dropping a new episode of Bad Ideas about Writing every Friday, it felt weird not to, so I wanted to pop in, say hi, and say, "See you next week." At Rockford University, where I teach, it's finals week, so there's a lot to do and not a lot of time to record and edit a full episode. Sorry/not sorry.

But since I'm here, let me quickly say a couple things:

1) I'm motivated to read and release these episodes almost entirely because of your enthusiasm. This podcast started as a wild "what if" idea in an email I sent to Cheryl and Drew, the book's editors, and they were so excited that I practically had to keep going. That's a secret about me, if you didn't know: words of affirmation and encouragement mean a lot to me, giving me energy to do things I couldn't otherwise manage. So thanks for your support--it really does mean a lot.

2) If you're wondering, this podcast is purposefully low-engagement, because your encouragement can only give me SO MUCH energy and time. By low-engagement, I mean that there's no social media or email accounts connected to the podcast; there's no website other than the built-in hosting site at anchor.fm; I don't ask for engagement or emails or responses on the show; and there's no merch. That's partly because I'm busy, but partly because all that stuff is kind of beyond the point; my hope here is that teachers and students will listen to these recordings and share them for a long time in whatever contexts they need them--it's a long-term resource / audiobook, not a flashy, "markets itself in a modern way" podcast. That doesn't mean you can't get in touch; I'm on Twitter @kstedman and you can find my email address if you google me. To me, it's nice to keep this thing simple, you know?

3) If you haven't yet, you should really check out the actual free book Bad Ideas about Writing--just google it. If you're teaching writing or considering teaching writing, skim the table of contents and read ahead. I mean, for goodness sake, chapter  62, the next to last chapter, features online writing instruction expert Beth Hewett dismantling the bad idea, "Anyone Can Teach an Online Writing Course." These days, as we drown in this pandemic, we need advice and resources from experts like her more than ever--yet I'm not scheduled to read and share it until well into the second half of 2021. And there's more: tons of other chapters are just as crucial and needed today. So don't wait for me to hand you recordings on a sonic, podcast plate--go read them yourselves.

Okay, I'm gonna get back to reading my students' rad work. I'm Kyle Stedman and I live in Rockford, Illinois, where every morning this week I've looked out at the small pond in my backyard, where a small pump is still shooting a mini-waterfall through the sheen of ice floating on the top of the pond, and every morning I think about going out there and taking a video of it and trying to figure out what kind of metaphor the water and the ice is suggesting to me, but it also looks really cold so I just stay inside. Thanks for listening.