In today’s episode, we talk through the statement below, and also give an update on a longer-than usual summer. Our long silence has coincided with the pandemic and the amazing activism of the Black Lives Matter movement, and … so much else. A lot has also been going on in our lives.

Part of this silence was our regular break, which we usually do over the summer, as long-time listeners will know. But part of this was because, behind the scenes, we have been in conversations about institutional racism just like so many other white people have been. In particular, we have been talking a lot – and posting sometimes on our Instagram – about our responsibilities in addressing institutional racism and injustice, both in our personal lives, but also in the communities we form, on the platform that we have on this podcast and in our writing. We haven’t just been thinking, but also acting where we can: contacting our political leaders, supporting those who have been harmed and calling for accountability from our politicians, from institutions that we intersect with, and in our communities.

One of our original purposes in starting this podcast was to find a community. There are so many writer spaces out there, but we couldn’t find one that purposefully talked about what we wanted to talk about – keeping your day job, writing alongside everything else, and letting all of those things be part of your writer identity. The community we formed around that has been the most rewarding part of this podcast (besides getting to talk to our best friend every week or so).

That’s evolved, as these things do, and while we still are interested in people’s day jobs, we’ve become interested more broadly in the ways writing intersects with the rest of our lives, and the ways our capitalist culture shapes the pursuit of art (precarity, hustle, gatekeeping). We’ve become more and more interested in the ways artists have historically and currently form communities, especially those formed outside of the various power structures we exist inside – racist, capitalist, sexist, etc.

When we started, we made a commitment to make space for other voices. It turns out, we failed. Our earlier seasons are more diverse, but especially with the money season, as we were drawn to bringing expert voices, we fell into the trap of gatekeeper culture, talking to people whom the publishing world said were the experts. Which meant we talked to a lot of white people. The folks we talked to are very lovely people, and most of them have also been reevaluating how they take up space and who they choose to amplify. We’re grateful we got to talk to them, but we’re also ashamed we didn’t do more work to look farther. To approach more of those we identified outside of white spaces.

We are still on our summer break, and we are going to take a bit more time with this to consider where questions of accountability and justice intersect with our work and in how we build our community. We are also taking all of these questions into our eventual Season 4, in which we’ll be looking at historical collectives, as well as modern established and emerging ones. The shape of the season will be a little different, too, with the bulk of the interview episodes being released in the spring. This fall, we’ll still have episodes, a mix of updates and a handful of interviews related more generally to our original theme of work, writing, and friendship.

We’re newcomers to this space, so please, we welcome all feedback. We’ll make mistakes, and we want to know when we do. Also, while we have a good list to start from, we’re always on the lookout for more potential guests, so if you or someone you know is involved in creating a space for creative work, let us know!

You can listen right here on this page, or get Marginally on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever get your podcasts.

As always, we’d love for you to take a minute to rate and review us in your podcast app, as this helps other listeners find the show. 

Find us on Instagram @marginallypodcast. Meghan’s occasionally on Twitter @meghanembee, and Olivia’s @roamingolivia

Theme music is “It’s Time” by Scaricá Ricascá. 

Have a question you’d like us to try to answer, or a topic you’d love to have us cover? Interested in being a guest? Contact us here.  Thanks for listening, and get to work!