a podcast about writing, work, and friendship
We were on holiday last week, celebrating American Thanksgiving with our families, so we’re bringing you a quick mini-episode with check-ins from the week. We’ll be back to our regular schedule next week, when we kick off a month of self-care for writers. Listen here or subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever get your podcasts.
Have questions you’d like us to try to answer? Let us know in the comments, or send us an email.
“Have a seat.” Gareth turned away from the window and waved towards a chair in front of his desk.
I squeezed past the desk and settled between the chipped maple arms, onto the seat made of worn office-blue fabric with tiny pink dots. He pulled the tall leather chair back from his desk and sat, gazing patiently at me from a chair set at considerable height. I felt like I was visiting the principal’s office, seven years old, sulking in cheap mass-produced furniture.
“I made some calls.”
“What did they say? Will he live?”
Gareth shook his head, almost shrugged. “They still don’t know.”
We sat for a few seconds in empty quiet. I let the image of Igor, surrounded by doctors, sink in.
“But he’s in London?”
Gareth nodded, his eyes betraying a feint surprise – perhaps that I was still there.
“Getting the best care, at least.” My words felt flippant, revealing how much I wanted to pretend that everything was okay.
“Anna, I think you should go –” he glanced around the room, pausing deliberately “– on the business trip. That we planned.”
“We – um, did?”
“The meetings in London?” He nodded, eyebrows raised.
I frowned, shook my head, then belatedly noticed the way he’d left spaces between the phrases, like signs in the words, to lead me through the conversation.
“You have two days. After that, I can’t guarantee anything.” He pulled open the drawer, pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“It’s your ticket.”
I smiled at the ink-jet-printed page, with its black and white Russian airline logo. As if nothing on the internet was real unless it was transferred to paper.
Remember, this is really draft and we haven’t particularly edited it – we wanted to be genuine with you! This is a great way to realize that everything can be revised, that each comment isn’t a way to say you can’t write something, but just a suggestion for how to make it better in the next draft.
We’d love to hear your responses — send them to us and let us know if you’d like them to be featured on the show.
“Roz.” Margot beckoned from the doorway of her office. Her face was blank – for me, or for my coworkers’ benefit, I couldn’t tell. I unhooked from the network and stood.I waited in front of Margot’s desk while she closed the blinds on both the office-facing window and the one that overlooked the street outside. Margot shut the door.“There’s been a mistake,” she said. Then she disappeared.Just — gone. I ran over to her desk and looked behind it, frantic. I crawled on the floor — maybe she was hiding under the desk — but she wasn’t there. There was no sign of her, nothing left behind, except me.Sweat rolled down my sides from under my arms, and I sat back against the gray steel cabinet in the corner to think. No one could know. I had to get out, fast.The handle of the cabinet dug between my shoulder blades and I turned. The drawer wasn’t closed all the way. Something [[i don’t know what – I haven’t figured that out yet]] was wedged inside. I pulled it out and slipped it in my waistband.With one last look, I slipped out of the door. “Thanks, Margot,” I said as I closed it. “Yep, I’ll take care of that.”I couldn’t leave right away – I needed to know if Margot’s absence was discovered, and I couldn’t look suspicious. I needn’t have worried. The afternoon crawled by and by the time I left, I was a wreck. I hadn’t done a thing, unable to face connecting again in case someone was able to read what had happened, and I had no idea how I could find out about the [[[whatever thing]]] I had found without being tracked.As soon as I got home, I checked both rooms in my apartment, every cupboard, every corner.
But overall, we really enjoyed this process – although it was scary – and we look forward to hearing from you all.
Today we publish our first mini-episode, where we just talk a bit about what we were up to last week, with audio clips of our daily off-podcast voice memos (and the kittens!). We also share our first writing prompt exercise! Next week, we’ll have a quick critique session of our responses, and would love to have you share yours here, on Instagram, or by email. Send us a voice memo, and we will include it on the show!
Full show notes are here, but the prompt is:
Your boss calls you into their office and closes the door. What happens next?
Episode 3 is live, and this time it won’t take you two commutes to listen to it. We talk about inspiration, motivation, Anne Lamott … basically, whatever it takes to get us writing. Get all the deets here.
As always, get Marginally on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever get your podcasts. Do us a favor and rate and review — help us build our community!
Our second episode is up here! Turns out we had a lot to say about what we get out of our day jobs.
We would love to hear your thoughts on writing retreats, how you keep up your routine when you travel, and how you think about what you get from your job – and what you don’t like.
Plus, I (Olivia) adopted some kittens. I’m now trying to convince them that I’m trustworthy. This photo from my morning writing session represents huge progress – we are all sat at the same table:
For comparison, here’s a photo of when I found out that the grey one doesn’t like to be watched when she eats:
They don’t have names yet. My dad’s suggested Romy and Michele – a pretty solid suggestion, considering how great the film is (I think there’s a glitch in the IMDB star rating on the page I just linked to, ha).
Any literary or funny suggestions?
Our first full-length episode is posted — check it out here, along with show notes, or get Marginally on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever get your podcasts. In it, we talk about what we’re working on, what margins mean to us, what it means to be a Genius and create Art (with capital letters), and our rules.
Marginalization – we don’t want to ignore this aspect of the margins. Get in touch – we’d love to listen.
Structure — one full episode every other week, with mini episodes in between. Also, sometimes y’all might not get a full episode anyway. We have lives, and the last thing we need is for this podcast to take away from our writing, so you might get an extra mini episode. It happens.
Social media — we do Instagram (@marginallypodcast) because we understand it and like them, but no Twitter or Facebook. If you do, awesome — go ahead and share away and talk it up out there and do our social media marketing for us. We love you.
The website — we’ll post show notes and stuff here on the blog. There will be something at least weekly, maybe sometimes more. We hope you’ll join the conversation.
Newsletter — for now, it’ll be for show notes and news. Maybe there’ll be super-special secret extras later, who knows. Subscribe and find out!
Deep dive — this is the only time you’ll hear this phrase from us, ever. Meghan’s also trying to make the phrase “online radio show” replace “podcast”, but isn’t hopeful.
No snobbery — This is the most important. This is not the podcast to go to if you want to hear only about literary fiction, or how to write something that gets well reviewed in a literary journal. We are talking about writers’ struggles, and we talk about how to get work done that you’re proud of. But how you as a writer do that, and what you write down, is your business.
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, or send an email to podcast [at] marginallypodcast.com. Thanks for listening, and keep up the good work!
Our introductory podcast episode is now available! It’s a short rundown on Marginally and what you can expect. We hope you enjoy listening. Subscribe now so you don’t miss the first full-length episode, and share with a writer or artist you know.
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, or send an email to podcast [at] marginallypodcast.com. Thanks for listening, and keep up the good work!