An Evening with Joe (and Josh)

Tell the Story Again

I went to graduate school in Moscow, Idaho. Likely, Moscow’s most famous native son (definitely its dreamiest) is Josh Ritter, the celebrated singer-songwriter. While I was there at the university, Ritter scheduled a solo homecoming show; his album The Animal Years had just come out, and it felt like all of us aspiring poets were listening to it pretty much all the time. A friend of mine, the writer Sean Prentiss, organized a pre-concert party at his place (a ramshackle grad student hovel affectionately known as the Bunny Slums.) He even made formal invitations that read across the top: “An Evening with Sean (and Josh).” The party was fun, Ritter’s solo show was fantastic, and a couple of friends said they saw Ritter at the grocery co-op in town the next day.

That’s my first Josh Ritter story.

My second happened a number of years later. Ritter had continued to churn out great albums and had just published his first novel as well. He was slated to be on a panel at AWP, the big annual conference for writers, with John Wesley Harding, another musician/novelist. I was on a panel at the conference too, and I think my first book of poetry had come out by then, but Ritter and Harding were absolutely going to be the highlight of the week for me. I showed up early and slipped into the big conference center ballroom through a side door. I grabbed a seat and risked another look: and, yes, the smiling, dreamy guy I’d just passed on my way in, standing at that very side door, was indeed Josh Ritter.

I got up. I was going to go say hello, say something about how much I liked his music.

No, that would be dumb. Right? I sat back down.

But really, I should. Shouldn’t I?

I got back up—and as I did the guy sitting behind me noticed Ritter as well. That guy didn’t hesitate. He went right over and introduced himself. The two talked a moment, and then Josh Ritter gave the guy a hug. He gave him a hug!

Okay, now I had to go say hello. I screwed up my courage and just as I stood up again, a young woman came through the ballroom door and noticed Ritter and stopped to talk with him—and she got a hug too!

This went on for good fifteen minutes: me worrying and dithering while maybe six or eight folks walked right up to critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter Josh Ritter and said hello and got a hug. Then the panel started. And it was great—lots of laughter and wisdom and songs—but I missed my chance.

I tell my kids this story all the time. I think the moral has to do with taking chances and being okay looking a little silly. It has to do, too, with how music and the arts can light us up so much we want nothing more than to say hello to a stranger, to hug someone we really don’t know outside of a song.

And now I’m headed to Boise, Idaho, in a couple of weeks for the Treefort Music Festival. They’ve got an Artfort and an Alefort and a Comedyfort, and I’ll be at the Storyfort, where I’ll give a reading and sit on a panel about writing from the interior—and Josh Ritter will be there too!

The whole family is coming with me. Though the kids’ music tastes have changed over the years, “Lantern” and “Homecoming” are still great favorites in our house.

I probably won’t have a chance to get that hug. But on the way there, I’ll surely tell the story again!

---

Awards, Publications, Interviews, Classes, Etc.

Some good news over this way: The Entire Sky has won the 2024 Montana Book Award. This award has gone to so many of my literary heroes and friends, folks like Debra Magpie Earling, Deidre McNamer, Larry Watson, Emily Danforth, Jamie Ford, Chris La Tray, Timothy Egan, Smith Henderson, and Charles Finn, just to name a few. What a rich tradition of Montana storytelling. I'm humbled and pleased to be a part of it.

I’ve also got a new poem up over at Traverse, and you can find recent interviews at The Idaho Review and Nancy Reddy’s wonderful newsletter, Write More, Be Less Careful.

I’m teaching The Hardest Parts: Writing Beginnings and Endings for the Center For Fiction later this month, and this summer I’ll be teaching with Orion and Fishtrap.

---

For Paid Subscribers!

A big thank you to those of you who’ve signed up to support my writing and work as paid subscribers. If you want to sign up, it’s easy, and so, so appreciated—and some of the extras include signed books, signed broadsides, and a subscribers-only virtual happy hour chat!

Paid subscribers, keep reading for more…

Where this finds you, you’ve got crocuses up or on the way!