Backspace: Essays on Everything with Michelle Kennedy

Michelle Kennedy
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Backspace: Essays on Everything with Michelle Kennedy

Hi! I am Michelle Kennedy and I am an author, a mom of many, a lover of knits and a devoted reader and writer of the essay. The newly renamed Backspace features essays on life, love, parenting and more - a literary experience in the time it takes to wade through the pick up line at school - or get to the store. Join us every week for new essays and new discussions on great writing - and not so great writing. Read the essays at my website: mishkennedy.com Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

  1. 12/18/2024

    George Orwell's Why I Write

    Definitely tune into this one - have 20 minutes to kill waiting for a kid to come back from practice? Sitting in traffic? Driving to the store? This one is a bit longer - 20 minutes - but it's good. And the stories are fantastic - and hopefully I read it well enough for you to enjoy it. From the essay: George Orwell's Why I Write: "The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition – in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money." Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    22 min
  2. The Nature of the Fun by David Foster Wallace

    12/09/2024

    The Nature of the Fun by David Foster Wallace

    David Foster Wallace is one of those writers for me. He’s one I wanted to be like. There are others. But I have identified over the years with Wallace because he always seemed so sad. When I read that he had hung himself almost 20 years ago now, I remember feeling like I was sad, but not surprised.  Having struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts myself over the years, it doesn’t feel strange to me when someone does it. Sometimes, I’m jealous. Not often anymore, as I feel like I’ve gotten past that particular hump. The desire to be gone is more rare for me now - maybe with the knowledge that it’s coming closer to the time when it will end anyway. How many years might I have left? 20? 30? Do I want 40? Do I want to be 92?  That’s for another essay. David Foster Wallace was one of the more versatile writers and yet, I always feel like I’m on a front porch or cozy in a living room when I read his words. I feel like I’m being bestowed information I did not previously have.  After he died, D.T. Max wrote this about him in The New Yorker.  The Unfinished He was only forty-six when he killed himself, which helped explain the sense of loss readers and critics felt. There was also Wallace’s outsized passion for the printed word at a time when it looked like it needed champions. His novels were overstuffed with facts, humor, digressions, silence, and sadness. He conjured the world in two-hundred-word sentences that mixed formal diction and street slang, technicalese and plain speech; his prose slid forward with a controlled lack of control that mimed thought itself. “What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant,” he wrote in “Good Old Neon,” a story from 2001. Riffs that did not fit into his narrative he sent to footnotes and endnotes, which he liked, he once said, because they were “almost like having a second voice in your head.” The sadness over Wallace’s death was also connected to a feeling that, for all his outpouring of words, he died with his work incomplete. Wallace, at least, never felt that he had hit his target. His goal had been to show readers how to live a fulfilled, meaningful life. “Fiction’s about what it is to be a f*****g human being,” he once said. Good writing should help readers to “become less alone inside.”  I felt a lot less alone as a writer - as a person - and really, I laughed a lot because being the mother of eight children and the mother - I guess - of 17 books, I feel this essay so acutely.Please remember DFW with me and listen to The Nature of the Fun.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    17 min

  3. 10/18/2024

    On Keeping a Notebook, an essay by Joan Didion

    In this essay, Michelle reads Joan Didion's reflections on the nature of keeping a notebook, exploring the compulsive urge to document thoughts and experiences. She delves into the complexities of memory, the subjective nature of reality, and the personal significance of her notes.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    25 min
  4. Yes, They Are Still All Mine

    10/01/2024

    Yes, They Are Still All Mine

    Yes - they’re all mine. “Are they all yours??” I used to get this incredulous question often in the old days - or at least - my old days…you know…back in the 1990’s. I always wanted to answer something like, “No. This one I found by the side of the road and this one won’t leave us alone.” But I think that stuff is probably funnier in my head.  My old days had me up at 3:30 am nursing whichever baby I had going then. I have been actively mothering for 32 years now. I have 8 kids and while I have never had all eight living under my roof at one time - Matt, the oldest, was 21 by the time Ani, the youngest, was born - I know what it is to corral four or five littles at a time into a fair, a store, any event anywhere actually. I know what it is to live with a teenager or two or three at a time while simultaneously changing diapers and wearing kids on my back.  A woman I don’t know recently wrote an article in The New Yorker, I think, about women who are well-educated and who have a lot of kids. Basically, it was why would you do that. I haven’t gotten to read it yet, as it’s behind a paywall, but I found myself - sadly - lingering in the comments section on Facebook. Ugh. I know. But…well, I couldn’t help myself. And there it was. Breeders. Can’t believe people would do this to children. Do what, exactly? I wonder and always  I had one or two or three and it was too much for me. So many people, so negative about having a lot of kids. Accusing us of having older kids parent the youngers. For what purpose, I’m not exactly sure.  The Duggars did not do large families any service.  Listen in... Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    20 min
  5. The Marginal World by Rachel Carson as read by Michelle Kennedy

    09/28/2024

    The Marginal World by Rachel Carson as read by Michelle Kennedy

    "I have seen hundreds of ghost crabs in other settings, but suddenly I was filled with the odd sensation that for the first time I knew the creature in its own world.”  Rachel Carson brings us to the edge of the ocean and the space in between in this marvelous essay. It reminded me of my own times at the beach, in particular, my introduction to the ocean when I was very young.  If you would like to contribute an essay, contribute a suggestion or a thought or whatever - please visit http://mishkennedy.com or email writermisha1313@gmail.com Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    24 min

  6. 09/26/2024

    Death of a Moth by Virginia Woolf

    I am back! Whether you like it or not. Back to the essay - an essay a day, every day - well, most of the time. One of my favorite writers is Virginia Woolf. Today we read her essay, Death of a Moth. I also ramble a bit in the beginning about some of the goings on around here this summer. Enjoy! -Mish Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    18 min
  7. Robert Benchley Gives Us Humor in the Garden - as a Spectator Sport.

    06/21/2024

    Robert Benchley Gives Us Humor in the Garden - as a Spectator Sport.

    Robert Benchley, James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, E.B. White. All names I associate with old school writing - but also breakthrough humor. I don't know that ascerbic wit was ever more prevalent than in NYC in the 1920's.  Please enjoy, on this rainy Friday in Vermont, this essay by Robert Benchley. My recent outing to the Algonquin Hotel in New York made me feel right at home and I've been having a wonderful start to summer going through essays from that time. Here is one of my favorites. I've been spending a lot of time in the garden lately and I feel a lot like the guy who is doing the work in this particular scenario - but I aspire to be the guy over the fence! There are pics from our night at the Algonquin at mishkennedy.com. There is also a new section for the podcast - and we will be doing an episode by episode guide very soon.  If you are interested in learning more about Robert Benchley, check out the Robert Benchley society at https://www.robertbenchley.org/sob/ If you'd like to contribute a piece to Real Quick, please email it to us at writermisha1313@gmail.com. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    11 min

  8. 06/20/2024

    Mothers Who Sell - My life selling credit cards back to people who gave them up

    A little humor for a Thursday evening...Episode 15 is out!  "I was God. I fixed it all. I rearranged payments. I moved around due dates. I promised to put notations in their file saying "don't call at 5 p.m." I didn't, but I promised I would.I racked up the most numbers sold on the hardest lists. I got three promotions in three months and a raise with each. I could strut with pride in my former bar as I ordered drinks and bragged about my newfound wealth and profession." Here is the link to the original published essay. The graphic is from 2001 and is kind of disturbing. Be warned!  https://www.salon.com/2002/10/01/sales1/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

    13 min
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Hi! I am Michelle Kennedy and I am an author, a mom of many, a lover of knits and a devoted reader and writer of the essay. The newly renamed Backspace features essays on life, love, parenting and more - a literary experience in the time it takes to wade through the pick up line at school - or get to the store. Join us every week for new essays and new discussions on great writing - and not so great writing. Read the essays at my website: mishkennedy.com Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/backspace-essays-on-everything-with-michelle-kennedy--6186916/support.

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