Twenty-five years ago, four local writers, led by Ken Smith and Louise Collins, pitched the idea of a local personal essay slot for WVPE. At that time, National Public Radio listeners regularly enjoyed the gravelly Southern wit of Bailey White, and the acerbic political insights of Romanian writer Andrei Codrescu. Personal essays were clearly having a moment, and we wanted to build on that energy, locally.
Like many of you who have shared listener commentaries on this station, the original Michiana Chroniclers tried out the genre before committing to a regular series. My first essay was on falling in love with composting — the scientific magic of decay that turns this year’s spent plant matter into next year’s soft garden soil. From there, I’ve written around 240 essays, many of which captured aspects of raising our young daughters, like: Navigating the friendship weirdness that can pop up on a grade-school Valentine’s Day; serving as a Girl Scout leader during a surreal sleepover event in the least girl-centered location in town, the College Football Hall of Fame; learning to shampoo one daughter’s tiny pet mouse, Dashiell, when he developed an expensive skin condition. To name a few.
Some essays are tied to the moment, as when I considered where Hurricane Katrina’s waters carried so many of us, both those on the flooded ground and those in our area who offered to shelter refugees. I’ve written about local responses to U.S. wars and legal decisions, and celebrated candlelight vigils, protests, and community-building efforts to cross our country’s widening political divides.
Some essays are more evergreen, exploring seasons of life, like mourning the loss of our beloveds, falling in love with hobbies, and the foibles and joys of aging (including rebranding “going gray” as “going platinum,” a phrase I learned from another Chronicler, Elizabeth Van Jacob.). As a gardener, I’ve written pieces about the delicious moulder of autumn, the consistent surprise of springtime’s ecstatic froth, and the pleasure of plants as our teachers.
With every piece, I learn something by writing it down. A 600-word essay about personal experiences gives a person a chance to hammer inchoate feelings into grammar, and ideas into a shape that can be shared. So now, I appeal to you, dear listener, to consider sharing your experiences and insights in this radio format.
The ideal personal essay — one that works well for radio — uses rich specific details that maybe only the writer knows, to evoke cinematic scenes in the listener’s mind. Perhaps paradoxically, it’s the very specificity of one person’s experience that can prompt listeners to reflect on their own experiences — and, of course, that’s the power of storytelling. When a listener says about an essay, “I’ve never thought of it that way,” the “it” might be something profound, like the weight of ongoing grief, or something that might seem insignificant, but gets at a shared human truth. In the late 1500s, the originator of the essay form, Michel de Montaigne, wrote about everything from the pain of kidney stones to the ways a smell — good or bad — would linger in his mustache.
Radio – to state the obvious – is an auditory format, so it’s good to make the most of sound. I recorded one of my Chronicles inside a chicken coop, with the wonderful — and much-missed — fellow Chronicler David James pushing Swiss chard leaves through the gaps in the chicken wire to keep those hens fired up and clucking. For an essay on improving on silence, I featured local sounds like the deep bass wind chimes at Wellfield Gardens and the interactive singing benches along the Jefferson Boulevard Bridge.
My guess is that, like the many writers for Michiana Chronicles over the last quarter century, you have stories, experiences, memories, and insights worth sharing. Emailing a written version to WVPE Operations Manager Olivia Sipocz is the first step to having your essay considered for broadcast.
So, I’m not so much dropping the Michiana Chronicles mic as I am handing it over to you. I look forward to listening to more voices here, more rich diversity of experiences, more truth-telling. That’s an exciting path forward.
I’ll be over on Substack, posting my writing, book reviews, and research. Please know it’s been an honor to share a quarter century of essaying — trying to make sense of our world — with all of you.
