Latest / The Starfish Storytellers / Episode 6: Imagination and Rhythm in Poems and Fiction with Meg Smith

Transcript

Episode 6: Imagination and Rhythm in Poems and Fiction with Meg Smith · The Starfish Storytellers

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
• 0:07
  Today I would like to read to you a poem from one of my poetry collections called Dear Deepest Ghost.
• 0:15
  This came out in 2017.
• 0:18
  The poem that I would like to read is dedicated to my late husband, Lawrence Caradini, who was also a poet and a scientist.
• 0:27
  We lived an amazing journey together, and I hope for him there are some marvelous journeys continuing perhaps on a different plane.
• 0:36
  Larry, even when he was very ill, wanted to further his pursuit of science.
• 0:43
  Two years before he died, he completed his doctor of science in vertebrate zoology.
• 0:50
  So this poem is inspired by that, as well as his bravery and his grace, and the poem is called Doctorate Among the Living.
• 1:00
  Larry, whatever was that white fleeting under the power lines, under the horns of Mars?
• 1:09
  Black dove, what was that shadow on the Merrimack, whooping crane, or on the sidewalk?
• 1:17
  A cat molded from night that brooks no passage without first a poem.
• 1:24
  They do all conciliate. Larry, you were the one true vertebrate, walking upright in the great river of folkways.
• 1:34
  Standing, casting, gathering to yourself fish, and now I among them still cannot contain you.
• 1:43
  Transcending all ever backbone to my fine, finest ever silver cloud.
• 2:04
  Hello, my name is Liana Henry, and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
• 2:09
  I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a marcom and project management firm headquartered on the east coast of the US in quaint colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
• 2:18
  I'm your host and passionate about storytelling. I'm actually on a mission to raise up the next generation of storytellers.
• 2:26
  We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
• 2:30
  The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
• 2:34
  No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
• 2:39
  One step, one starfish, or one story at a time.
• 2:43
  Every episode, we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire and connect with you.
• 2:49
  Then we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their own stories.
• 2:53
  So thanks for tuning in. Now let's get started.
• 2:56
  Today's episode is about the art of writing and poetry, with storytelling through imaginative awareness and rhythm.
• 3:03
  With me today is award-winning writer, journalist, dancer, and events producer, and my friend Meg Smith.
• 3:10
  Meg is the author of five poetry books and a short fiction collection, The Plague Confessor.
• 3:16
  Her poetry and fiction have appeared in literary journals, magazines, poetry sections in newspapers, anthologies, and many more.
• 3:24
  Welcome to the show, Meg.
• 3:26
  Thank you so much, Liana. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me.
• 3:29
  It's also great to be back in Bedford, which is one of the many towns I've covered over the years as a journalist.
• 3:35
  That's awesome. I loved hearing your poem that you dedicated to your husband, your late husband.
• 3:43
  It was a beautiful, you know, I felt based on how you explained his career, you know, his love of animals and where he saw them.
• 3:56
  So I didn't know if you wanted to introduce yourself beyond your introduction or?
• 4:02
  Well, sure. My name is Meg Smith. I am a poet. I am a writer of fiction. I'm also a journalist by profession.
• 4:11
  So writing is very much a way of life as well as a way of living for me.
• 4:16
  And I have five poetry books, as well as a short fiction collection called The Plague Confessor.
• 4:23
  Writing, as I mentioned, is my lifelong passion.
• 4:28
  I also very much like being able to present things to people in a performance style.
• 4:36
  So that includes poetry readings, spoken words. I enjoy dance.
• 4:42
  I've been studying and practicing Middle Eastern dance for close to 30 years.
• 4:47
  And that includes some dance theater as well as exploring Middle Eastern dance or Oriental dance, what some folks in the West commonly call belly dance.
• 4:59
  It's generally called Oriental dance because it's considered the dance of the East.
• 5:04
  And I enjoy, so I enjoy certainly sitting home quietly and writing.
• 5:10
  But I also love the idea, to your point, Liana, that stories and storytelling and sharing a voice and uplifting other voices so that words can be heard.
• 5:24
  Mm hmm. Yep. I think we all have a story to tell.
• 5:29
  And if we can do it well, we have the power to inspire, motivate, make a difference, you know, make a difference.
• 5:37
  So, you know, in in your I introduced you as a journalist and I know that you have written for a number of different papers and magazines.
• 5:49
  And I think you're writing for one now. Yes, I am.
• 5:52
  Currently, I am the content editor of Worcester magazine, which is a weekly alternative, what's sometimes called an alt weekly.
• 6:03
  Some that might also be familiar to people would be like, say, in the style of the Boston Phoenix that we once had.
• 6:09
  So very similar to that. It's a partner of the Telegram Gazette, which is in Worcester and in turn is part of Gannett.
• 6:16
  Nice. Nice. So you and I met originally as journalists and writing for a local weekly newspaper in the area.
• 6:27
  How long were you writing for? How long have you been writing as a journalist?
• 6:33
  I would say to be very strict about it, I would say that started with my high school newspaper, which was at an all girls school.
• 6:44
  It was called Keith Hall in Lowell, Mass. So it was girl power to the max because we did everything.
• 6:51
  And from there in college, I was on the staff of some different college newspapers and started a literary supplement for one of them,
• 7:05
  like a quarter literary supplement, which would go into the weekly college newspaper.
• 7:09
  And then I went to become the editor at the connector, which is the UMass Lowell student newspaper.
• 7:17
  And from there, before I graduated, sometime before I graduated and I was looking at what I wanted to do to take my career to the next level.
• 7:28
  Eventually, I was put in contact with someone at the Lowell Sun, the daily newspaper in Lowell, Mass, where I lived.
• 7:35
  And I just made an appointment and I brought my clips and had a nice talk with a very supportive editor.
• 7:42
  I want to give a shout out. He's one of many people who've mentioned me. His name was Mark Brown.
• 7:47
  And then really right from there, I became a freelancer for the Sun.
• 7:52
  I covered many different communities, including many suburban communities.
• 7:58
  And then I was the staff writer for the Sentinel and Enterprise, which is in Fitchburg.
• 8:03
  And I began to cultivate with my colleagues sort of deeper coverage and deeper coverage partnership with issues about community, neighborhoods, race, ethnicity, immigration, different religious groups,
• 8:21
  public health topics that were affecting people in many ways, such as the AIDS crisis.
• 8:28
  And I did a lot of arts and entertainment writing there as well, where I really developed a passion for that, as well as a passion for covering science.
• 8:39
  So eventually I went on to the company that has operated in different names, but in effect has the group of weekly newspapers, which is where we met and worked.
• 8:52
  And that it was fantastic to bring all that previous experience to that. And I found that indeed many of those same issues that people cared about in their urban communities were in fact much the same as the ones in the suburban communities, even if they sort of manifested a little differently.
• 9:09
  Right.
• 9:10
  And one thing that always stayed with me and continues to stay with me, and this is a humbling thing for journalists as well as something that makes you proud, is people are trusting you with their story.
• 9:24
  In effect, you are telling a story.
• 9:28
  But it's the story of people who are living a life, living in issues in their community, problems that they're trying to solve.
• 9:37
  They may even have gone through some terrible tragedies. So they place that trust in your hands.
• 9:43
  And that is something that to me and I think you'll agree all of us that professional journalists is a very sacred trust.
• 9:51
  And to also feel that you are in this way, uplifting voices and doing in a way that's objective where all sides of an issue can be explored is something that continuously gives me strength, even in the most challenges, all professions have their challenges, but that is something that continues to give me strength.
• 10:12
  It's something that I strive to bring to every day where I'm currently in the Worcester magazine. So kind of come back to my urban roots. And I think it's also a very good profession for someone who wants to be a lifelong learner, because there will always be something new to discover or to see with new eyes.
• 10:32
  For sure.
• 10:33
  I remember, you know, my, my favorite stories to cover were always human interest stories. However, I think my least favorite stories were the were the fire engine chasing ones I didn't particularly care for those.
• 10:46
  But I also found that yes, I there was a long period of time, especially when I started as a correspondent and then went on to be an editor and then a publisher, that people really do trust you with their story and, you know, they they really see your
• 11:02
  position as a position to be able to bring their story to life and share it out in the world and in the, and in the public, you know, in a way that they probably couldn't do it on their own.
• 11:17
  And, you know, I remember a number of times when, you know, sometimes you have to cover difficult topics, and it's not always going to shine favorably on everybody and, you know, it was as much as I got along with all of my sources.
• 11:33
  Sometimes you had to cover stuff that, you know, they didn't really want you to have to cover and but that's part of being an objective journalist is that, you know, I was taught early like, you know, two sources two sources on each side you know like minimum you want to be able to be able to paint the full well rounded picture.
• 11:53
  And, you know, unfortunately, in today's day and age you know journalism is under attack, and, you know, for so many of us that that want to be able to tell that balanced objective story.
• 12:08
  And, you know, I'll be honest I, it's bother it bothers me as I take offense when I hear all of these horrible things that people say about journalists and yes I know that there are journalists out there that are, you know, going to be more slanted based on whoever their employer is but, you know, I think that, you know, journalism at its core is objectivity, and that's how it should be so, you know, thank you for for talking about that.
• 12:34
  So, you basically said that there were pretty much a wide berth of things you just love to cover just because you love to write, but were there any types of stories that were harder for you to do.
• 12:44
  I think, like in any profession there's aspects of that profession that you really feel your power in and others you know are just things that you need to do as as part of the job, I would say that stories for me that are particularly challenging.
• 13:05
  I think are, I think some of my fellow journalists would would agree, but which I think is a very good challenge and good building block is when you are covering government at its most local level.
• 13:22
  There are inherent challenges because in many ways and this is not to take away from coverage of our national or world issues, but in terms of going to say a town meeting or covering a town election, or even covering it in city government say a city council for example,
• 13:43
  that there are not going to be as many easily recognized references. For example, when we talk about something in the national news.
• 13:54
  I think part of that is going to be kind of just in our general everyday conversation, whereas maybe issues that say, I will just give one example say if there's a proposed development that has caused some controversy, the issues around that debate about private property
• 14:13
  and the number of people to be able to make decisions about their own property. The impact that perhaps neighbors might see that development or possible environmental impacts and benefits or impacts for the tax base for example, that most of that information is going to take place within
• 14:35
  the forum within the meetings or within the documents and the people that you're talking to there. So, I would say that that is an experience, regardless of what beat journalists ultimately find that they want to do or like to do best that.
• 14:54
  I think the stories that challenge a journalist most in some ways are the best teachers, because you've really got to look at your strengths, and maybe areas that you feel you need to build up.
• 15:09
  And also, again, it comes back to the issue of trust, local communities really do want and need their local journalists to provide them with information that they honestly may not be able to get in a in a fully vetted and professionally managed and with an issue with a spirit of
• 15:33
  impartiality and objectivity. So I suppose I'm giving a shout out to all my local journalists and local journalists alumni that there are things quite simply you cannot get from your community Facebook group, although I think those are helpful tools, and it is a two way street that the newspaper
• 15:52
  news outlets supports the community, but really depends on the community for support as well. Yeah, everybody kind of relying on each other, leaning on each other for sure. And you're right, I think that it's through the community news that I mean, as involved as somebody may be in their community.
• 16:10
  They're not going to know every single thing that's happening. And so often, the community journalists is the one that's basically everywhere, you know, they're they're showing up at the Fincom meetings, they're showing up at town meeting, they're showing up at school school committee, they're
• 16:23
  showing up at sports events, they're showing up at, you know, school plays and, you know, they're there, there's a car accident on the main street so they really are, they really are the eyes and ears for the town.
• 16:37
  So I want to go on and talk a little bit about you and your poetry.
• 16:44
  You have published five poetry books, right. And I had read somewhere that poetry appeals to a reader's emotions and imagination through a variety of different techniques by using a combination of rhythm word choice sound structure, and it makes it suggestive.
• 17:02
  And it's centered, it's a unique and vivid observation but based on some of your covers that I looked at some of your books is that from your, your dancing. Do you use type of your sort of your, your, like, from your shows images from your shows as your covers and.
• 17:17
  Yeah, first of all, that's a really great question. And the answer is, yes, I have really worked to create a place where I can integrate my passion for dance and stage performance with poetry, and some of that is translated into, for example, producing events
• 17:38
  where I have asked some of my fellow dancers my friends in the dance community to join me in perhaps creating a dance that is inspired by a certain poem or story, I've done this many times with the Edgar Allen Poe show which is honoring the writer Edgar Allen Poe actually visited Lowell
• 17:58
  and made it made a significant impact there. So, that is just one example. The other is that when I began to think about what I would like for cover art for my professional book publications.
• 18:14
  I thought about how, you know, back in the day we used to have albums and album covers, and some of the art was really conceptual and sometimes it would be that performer was able to become a character.
• 18:30
  In effect that was telling the story of what the listener could expect from that album, I would say, probably in my opinion one of the best examples of that would be Stevie Nicks or Kate Bush. And I kind of took a page from that I didn't want to duplicate something that someone else had done I wanted it to be my own but I thought well, let me look at some performance photos that seem to be working with what I'm trying to express in the book and in some cases those are also posed photos.
• 18:59
  Modeling shoots and so forth and so yeah I thought well this is another way to have a crossroads with these things so rather than having sort of disparate activities, a gathering place for all the things that you love.
• 19:18
  When you put together your books, how did you know, you know, how was that process? Did you do a lot of writing and then decide I'm going to put this into a book or did you have sort of a theme in mind and so all of your writing was thematic and then that ended up in a book or you just had a lot of collections and you said wow I think I'm going to just put this this in a book.
• 19:47
  And you know it'll make sense to go together. How did you, what was your process?
• 19:53
  Sure.
• 19:54
  Well I, I will say first going back a little ways in 1995 was when I put out my first poetry collection, it was called the first fire. It was fairly early on in my poetry career so it was a smaller volume.
• 20:07
  And it actually took several years for me to get to putting out another book. And so what I did, and what turned out to be a pretty good template for me is I gathered up poems that had been published in different magazines, different publications both digital and in print.
• 20:29
  And of course make making sure that I was fully in a place where the rights had reverted back, you know, to me to use them again. And I looked at all of the poems and said what these poems may be talking about all different things but do they in fact have a unifying theme.
• 20:47
  And on that I would base my decision of which poems I wanted to include in that particular book. So, the, for example, the book where I read the poem Doctor of Living from is called Dear Deepest Ghost.
• 21:02
  And the unifying theme there is that we have things, experiences, people, decisions that we make that may if you will haunt us or inhabit us in a way. They may in fact be external things that you can actually see and feel, or there may be things that dwell within us.
• 21:24
  And both are valid. So, based on that theme I collected poems that had been published really everywhere different literary journals that were in the 90s, a great wealth of Gothic and horror and independently published collections and it was a great time.
• 21:46
  So, I gathered those up and I sorted them into categories like poems about relationships, poems that were about having a kindred relationship to the animal world, poems about the universe within and without.
• 22:03
  And so that really basically became my process. And even though each book is very different, it's a process that works. It's a template, if you will, that works. And I find with each one you do, you do get better at it. You do get more authoritative at it.
• 22:23
  So, I'm hoping to bring all that to my very next book, which I'm working on now. So, you've got poetry books, but you also created a book of fiction short stories. Yes. Now, how long ago was that?
• 22:35
  So, The Plague Confessor came out in 2020. And I just want to mention that in spite of the title, we know that of course 2020 was really the depths of the terrible COVID pandemic. So, I had some sensitivity about that.
• 22:54
  The title The Plague Confessor actually comes from a short story that I'd written in 2018. So, the book was sort of in process really for about a year or so before the pandemic came upon us.
• 23:11
  Although, as when I was putting the book together, I definitely wanted to acknowledge that and the reality of the times. And perhaps the hope that many people found some strength, hope, comfort, as we know, in doing different things during that time, including writing and reading.
• 23:28
  So, that was also my hope that this book, the short fiction collection, could perhaps be one small part of that, as well as providing people with stories that are hopefully entertaining for them to read.
• 23:43
  I read on your website that it was journeys into darkness and into light.
• 23:50
  Can you talk a little bit about sort of that thread? I read the cover of what was in the book, but maybe you can talk a little bit about what different kinds of stories are there and where did you come up with that title, The Plague Confessor?
• 24:11
  Sure. So, The Plague Confessor, the title itself, comes from a short story which I wrote that is set during what is sometimes referred to as the Black Death of Medieval Europe, which was a communicable disease which is still being debated.
• 24:30
  I think generally speaking, it's thought that it was a bacterial infection that sometimes like bubonic plague is, I think, the somewhat informal term for it. But we know that had a devastating impact on families, on whole communities, and even on whole nations because there really wasn't very much useful insight as to how to stop the spread of a disease like that.
• 24:59
  And so, I've been doing a little research. It was an interesting time to kind of look at in terms of what sort of public policies were there at the time.
• 25:08
  And at that time in Europe, the Catholic Church was most certainly an entity that was involved not only in the spiritual lives of many people, but in fact governmental decisions and decisions about property ownership and such, sort of day-to-day secular decisions, if you will.
• 25:29
  And at one point, so many people were dying. There were so many priests in Catholicism, speaking as a Catholic, the ability to go to a person who is maybe in the stages of dying and give them that opportunity to, if there's anything that they feel that they want to reconcile in their life before they go,
• 25:54
  and some blessings and prayers from the clergy and their family. But what started to happen during the plague is, first of all, of course, many of the priests were themselves getting the illness and dying.
• 26:09
  Some simply became too afraid. Some still said, well, this is my duty, and they went on with it.
• 26:15
  But at some point, because there were simply not enough clergy to administer these rights, the Pope at the time sent out an edict through his heralds and messengers saying, if there isn't a priest available, somebody else, a lay person, can do these things.
• 26:36
  And if there really isn't anybody around, that person can be a woman.
• 26:43
  So I created a hypothetical case in a village in central Italy, where I sort of thought, well, what if the only woman left who's even able or willing to do this is a commercial sex worker?
• 26:59
  She's the only one.
• 27:01
  And so she is suddenly entrusted with this power over people's souls.
• 27:08
  And so the story is told from the standpoint of a legal clerk who's observing all of this and ultimately has to come to terms with his own shortcomings, his own failings.
• 27:21
  And I don't want to give it away too much for the people who are reading it.
• 27:24
  But I really wanted to put those things together, this terrible time in the history of humanity, and try to tell a story with humanity.
• 27:34
  Wow. Yeah. And I mean, I think what a thoughtful story.
• 27:43
  I think what a, it really makes the reader have to get in touch with their own belief systems and, you know, really understand we're all in this together.
• 27:59
  I mean, really, I think it sounds like at the end, it's almost the moral of the story is that we're all in this together.
• 28:05
  And so that's amazing.
• 28:10
  So I know that you gave some tips earlier for some writers.
• 28:17
  You know, you did talk about, you know, if you're going to start poetry, make sure you're writing it down when it comes up.
• 28:23
  But is there any other tips you might want to add to someone who is maybe interested in doing what you do?
• 28:33
  You know, putting together poetry to publish in a book or short stories or, you know, what should somebody be doing to get started?
• 28:44
  Sure. So I would say absolutely the first step, at least what worked for me,
• 28:52
  is fundamentally to have a belief in oneself, in yourself, that this is something that you want to do and this is something that you can do.
• 29:03
  Other people are not the guardians of those decisions, I feel.
• 29:09
  They may be people who can definitely be honest and give you insight with love and clarity, as I think we're all bound to do to the people we care about in our lives.
• 29:23
  But ultimately, if a person has a desire to tell stories and to tell them, say, in the written form and perhaps the spoken form as well,
• 29:32
  if that desire already exists within you, grasp that and embrace that.
• 29:37
  And immediately after that, be prepared to do the work.
• 29:43
  A poem is not, for example, simply prose arranged in lines.
• 29:50
  Stories can be told in poetry, but I think it's important to understand and be honest with oneself.
• 29:57
  Am I writing a poem or am I really writing a narrative that I've broken into lines?
• 30:02
  And if so, is that going to work as a poem?
• 30:05
  Read your own work out loud.
• 30:08
  Reading your work out loud, I find, keeps you honest.
• 30:13
  You're going to hear things that don't necessarily occur to you as you're reading a story back.
• 30:19
  For example, maybe if a sentence is too long or something that you sort of asked a certain character to do really isn't consistent with what that character would do,
• 30:28
  or at least in a way not that people can't be inconsistent in real life, but if you're going to have someone doing inconsistent things in a story,
• 30:35
  it still needs to have that ring of truth for the reader to say, oh, this makes sense.
• 30:43
  So I would say also read good writing and read a lot of different types of good writing.
• 30:52
  And I know as with everything, there's debate about there about what that exactly means.
• 30:57
  I have been a lifelong reader.
• 31:00
  I really like to read all different kinds of stories from all different kinds of perspectives.
• 31:07
  They don't all have to be stories about people who look like me, work where I do, live where I do, have the same religious and ethnic background that I do.
• 31:18
  I definitely embrace stories like that that would resonate with me in that way.
• 31:24
  So for example, stories about Irish people or the Irish American community or the Catholic community.
• 31:31
  But if I were to stop there, I would really be limiting myself into a first of all, a gateway of understanding of people's different experiences and a great wealth of really good writing.
• 31:46
  So being a good writer is also about being a good reader.
• 31:49
  You have to be a good consumer and you may sometimes even decide I'm going to I'm going to set aside this little bit of money and I'm going to make that purchase and support that author and enrich myself and my family.
• 32:03
  So and I would say thirdly is that writing is really like any other endeavor.
• 32:08
  There's going to be days we feel really great about what you're doing.
• 32:12
  Where say to use a modern example that you post online, oh my poem just got accepted to this magazine and lots of your friends and colleagues may put likes or loves or clapping hands emojis.
• 32:27
  And there's you're going to go to say a reading and a lot of people will will honor your work by buying copies of your book.
• 32:36
  And there are going to be times when say an editor doesn't get to your submission for a long time.
• 32:44
  And then when they do, they say we appreciate your patience.
• 32:50
  But unfortunately, this isn't a good fit for us.
• 32:53
  There's a lot of no's in writing as there are in other professions.
• 33:01
  And the no's are not failures and they're not setbacks.
• 33:06
  Even Stephen King gets rejection letters.
• 33:10
  He famously one time told us a story of being rejected by Omni magazine because the science in the story made no sense.
• 33:17
  So even Stephen King, even writers of that sort of cosmic magnitude in terms of name recognition are going to hear no.
• 33:28
  And that is maybe disappointing sometimes, but it really is just part of the experience.
• 33:36
  And I think if a writer learns to see the no's and the rejections or the calls for rewrites or they just they and the editor just can't see eye to eye.
• 33:47
  And they and you have to part ways.
• 33:50
  Honestly, I think anybody in any profession who's dedicated to that profession will be able to say the same thing.
• 33:59
  There's every job out there, no matter how much we love that job, has those days when people are telling us no.
• 34:08
  And that's just a step on the long path.
• 34:13
  That's all really great advice.
• 34:14
  I know I think critical to being a writer is being having the thick skin to be able to be edited.
• 34:21
  And really, it's it's never, you know, an affront.
• 34:26
  It's it's really, you know, when you're edited and edited well and it just makes your work better.
• 34:32
  And but yes, I think obviously for any profession, but I definitely for writers being having a thick skin is very, very important to your success.
• 34:41
  Yeah, I think.
• 34:42
  Yeah, I think you it's important not to let you know the days where you don't quite get the results that you were looking for.
• 34:51
  And I think you you can own your feeling if it if it makes you sad or is difficult.
• 34:56
  I think I think it's OK to own that feeling.
• 34:59
  But I think you have to step back and say, well, I have to look at what's next.
• 35:04
  Well, that's all the time we have for today.
• 35:07
  I really want to say thank you for coming and being our guest and sharing your story with us.
• 35:13
  And, you know, I I love talking shop about journalism, but I loved hearing about your process around how you wrote your poems and how you put them published those.
• 35:25
  And I thank you so much for sharing the plague confessor.
• 35:29
  It's a great story.
• 35:31
  You know, you really like you said, it's just like honoring honoring someone's work and just saying I'm going to be enriched here and I'm going to check this out.
• 35:39
  So, you know, I would encourage people to do that.
• 35:42
  So so thanks.
• 35:44
  Thank you very much.
• 35:46
  Thank you so much for having me here today.
• 35:48
  It's been a pleasure to talk about so many wonderful things that are part of my life.
• 35:54
  And thanks for having me.
• 35:55
  And thanks, everybody, for listening.
• 35:58
  And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts, or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple podcasts or Amazon Prime.
• 36:09
  Thanks for listening.
• 36:10
  We hope you enjoyed this episode, and we'll see you next time.
• 36:14
  Happy storytelling.