Dear 2020: We are never, ever, ever, getting back together.
Hi! It’s me! Michael! I’m so excited that you’re here!
You’ve probably read by now that B**K It! began in March 2020 in partnership with the Blue Manatee Literacy Project (BMLP) as our sponsor. Throughout the year, we’ve been lucky to interview so many interesting authors and connect with one another on our favorite hobby and career choice: books. But it hasn’t exactly been easy or what we expected.
Spoiler alert: this year has been a hellhole dumpster-fire shit storm. All of that. Before the pandemic, Jill and I managed to record the first two episodes of the podcast together in the same room. Whispers of the coronavirus had found us, but it would be weeks before we felt the full truth of it in Ohio, and the basic safety suggestions at that time were…wash your hands. That was it. We knew so little.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sang happy birthday to myself at the sink,” I said during our second episode recording.
Jill was flying to New York the next day for a meeting with the American Library Association. “I don’t know what to expect,” she said.
“My girlfriend and I recently flew,” our producer chimed in. “We brought masks but nobody else was wearing them, so we didn’t know if we should.”
The conversation around it was still so abstract. Something we had every reason to believe was coming, but no concept of how badly. Then we sat down, recorded our second episode about adaptations, and planned for our upcoming interview with three debut novelists who were coming to town the next week for a publishing event in town. We were excited and optimistic, and went home feeling proud.
The next day, the event was cancelled. The day after that, the city shut down and we started quarantine. Jill and I, like many people, became unemployed. The next several weeks were spent on the phone, teary eyed and afraid, numb and confused.
It was in these following weeks that Jill reached out to me and said “I need to do this. I need the podcast.” So we recorded an episode about comfort reads in the quarantine. And then we never stopped. In quarantine, we recorded 20 more episodes, with the help of BMLP as our continued sponsor, including interviews with Renée Watson, Jacqueline Woodson, Connie Schultz, Blair Imani and more. We talked about vacation reads and memoirs, debut books and guilty pleasures. For one hour every week, Jill and I would Facetime, chat about books, and everything else would disappear.
Recording the podcast together, being in conversation with some of our favorite authors, connecting with our listener…these are things that have been a shining light in 2020, and what we hope to continue to bring you in the future.
Our goal at B**K It! has always been to make reading less intimidating. That no matter how voracious or casual a reader you are, you can listen and feel welcome. We don’t believe in more is better. Whatever your reading habits are, be proud of them, and join us in conversation about them!
You can binge all of season one now. Here at B**K It! we hope to grow beyond just podcast episodes, but also as a resource for book lovers with blogs, book reviews, booklists, our quarterly book club, and spotlights on indie bookstores across the country. We believe the best is yet to come, so stay tuned!