The Writing-Photography Connection: the Matt Berman Interview on MFA Payday

On this, episode one of MFA Payday, we interview Matt Berman who sees himself has half writer, half photographer. We love this deep dive with Matt into how his after-the-MFA journey has developed. 

Join us here and over at mfapayday.com. There, you can get your very own "Pitch Your Pants Off" FREE submission tracker when you sign up for our newsletter. 

Transcript

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Hey, gimme affairs, head over to MFA payday.com to get your very own customizable free picks your pants off tracker that's at MFA payday.com. You've spent countless hours and maybe thousands of dollars earning your MFA and creative writing. Now what? How do you build or reignite your writing career with intention? What are the tools and tricks to keep your creativity alive after you've turned in that last assignment? We're Dream a Drudge MFA and certified life coach and Barry Drudge mfa. Join us as we explore how to make your MFA pay on our new podcast MFA Payday. Through interviews with MFA graduates, publishing industry insiders and more, we will share the most up to date information on what to do with that degree in your hand. We're talking making money, publication literary citizenship, leaving a legacy and the latest tools and software to help you put that degree to good use. So join us for our very first, I welcome to MFA payday, where we talk with people about how they make their MFA pay. We're your host dream Drudge and Barry Drudge. Today our guest is Matt Berman for 17 years. Matt Berman moved every six months, mostly to a wide variety of national parks from the grand canyon to the grand Tetons, where he worked on seasonal trail crews. He received a BA in mass media communications from the university of New Hampshire and an MFA in writing. Creative nonfiction from our old LA mater Spalding university. He is the associate director of Jackson, a whole writers publications, and more can be found on Matt R berman.com. So welcome Matt. Yes. Welcome. And why don't you tell us about your MFA journey and in the midst of that, or in addition to that, tell us about your actual journey because that's fascinating all your travel. Yeah. Right. So they're kind of tied in together. You know, I, I wouldn't have. Been pushed so forcefully into the writing world. I think if I hadn't been working for the national parks and all this great material would constantly come up, you know, and I would just write and write and write just journaling at the end of each day, knowing that it would somehow someday lead to something, you know? So I'm really happy that I did that. That was sort of the beginning of my journey was I was just journaling. Every single day, because I was working at the grand canyon or working in the Tetons and working with, really interesting characters and on really interesting projects. And in these settings that are always in national parks and beautiful places. And so that's where my,, Real drive for writing and desire to perfect my craft to really learn, to hone in on story, to get those journals, to filter them down into actual, stories that can be published that have a beginning, middle, and an end that tie in together. So ended up with this whole series of nonfiction memoir stories. Kind of link from one, go from one park to another park, to another park, different stories. The park service throws you into like wild land firefighting. Oh. Even if you don't want to do that sort of thing, I signed up for a trail crew. Well, the last story I published, a short story that is part of my bigger collection is called the accidental firefighter. And it's all about my. Time as a wild land firefighter. And I signed up for a trail crew. I was a volunteer at that point. This was 2003. I didn't have any experience in that world. and they agreed to take me on, give me housing, paid me a daily stipend, at the time I didn't have bills or family or anything like that. So it was needy thing for me to do. And I got there and one of the first things they said is you're going to school to be a wild land firefighter. And I was like, no, no, no, that's not what I need. That's not who I am. I'm not that type of person, you know, I don't seek out life threatening activities. Right. You know, as most of us don't, it's like surely like a 1% thing that people who are wild land firefighters, or it's probably a small percentage of 1%. And they said, oh, well, you're in the government now. You know, you work for the forest service. We train all of our people for wild land fire. This is your first season though. You're just a volunteer. The chances that you'll go on a fire are very slim. Well, it turned out that was a big fire year and around July, they got the call and they said, you're going on a fire kid and here's your uniform. And you're going to Mesa Verde national park in July to fight a wildfire. And I went there and this whole adventure ensued and sure enough, it became a big, full blown. Wildfire where it's a hundred degrees every day, where it's July, where the whole forest is burning and you're international park. We're flying us around at helicopters with chainsaws and all this crazy stuff where six months before that I had been a server in a restaurant I've never done anything like that whatsoever. And it kind of became a whole career. The trail crew thing backed up with the, I started doing the wild land fire thing every week. And that kind of. More and more stuff to write about obviously. And was furiously taking notes because there's no way this is gonna last. I'm not doing this forever. And, I'm glad I did. That pushed me into writing. When I got to the point where I wanted to start publishing started to really wanted to start honing those down I. Realized I needed to get an MFA for just my own personal journey, whether or not I ever made money off of it I tried to put that out of my mind. It was just an artistic endeavor. I wanted to go further down the path. Of writing and it worked. I started getting published after I got my MFA or actually while I was still in Spalding. But in the years after that, I started to publish some of my chapters, which I had all pushed through Spalding. Pretty much every chapter in the book was read and edited and. I chatted with folks, my mentors and the other students during workshops and especially that, firefighter piece was definitely edited at Spalding. So it was a successful journey for me and that I started publishing some of my chapters. So I published six of my chapters and I've got the book all assembled and all prepared, and I've got the book proposal I've sent out to several people and. One of these days, I'll get an actual, I will get my agent and I will get the book fully published, looking forward. That's awesome. Yeah, that'll happen. Yeah. That was the one that grabbed me when stuff was popping up online, when I was looking up, your website was, the accidental firefighter. That was really. Really enjoyed it. Yeah, definitely. It drove, like I say, it gave me ideas to write about whether I wanted them or not. They were just thrown in front of me, like the new person that knows nothing about wildland fire and all of a sudden you'd look up and you're in a helicopter, all dressed like a firefighter. It's like, well, gonna have to write about this, I guess, but that's perfect. And that title is fabulous. That is a grabber oh yeah. Yes. It's the accident. What was the. Book I was playing off of, um, accidental tourist or Al yeah, I think that's the one. Yeah. And Tyler has one called the accidental tourist yeah. Yeah. Right. That's it. That's the title that was like in my head that I was trying to play off of So what, do you do for a day job right now? You said something about publishing Yeah, I'm the assistant director of Jackson hole writers, which is a really fun group. they have done a writer's conference every year for the last 30 years. Oh. So I've only been with the group since 2020, And I would never have gotten that position without my MFA from Spalding. So it's really funny because like I said, I never expected this, the MFA or I. Try to set myself up thinking like, oh, this is it. I'm definitely gonna score a job with, with my, you know, cause it's such a tough field, but that kind of fell in my lap. I was looking at nonprofit jobs in the area where I live and assistant director Jackson hole writers came up and I said, well, whatever that is, that's certainly made for me, you know? And it's been an awesome experience. So we do that writer's conference. It's kind of like a Spalding conference. It's a little shorter, it's like three days, but we bring in published authors from all around the country and they deliver keynote speeches and we have workshops and we bring in agents and editors from New York city, mostly in Los Angeles. I went to one class this June at our writer's conference and it was, the book proposal, the query letter mm-hmm oh, so we, people brought their query letters to class and we had a working, agent in the industry and she's been to our conference year after year. And,we read all of the, query letters. We discussed them what could be better, what could be different. That was really inspirational. And she wanted me to send her my query letter once. Made all the modifications we talked about in class and stuff. And so I sent that off to her. And so it's an exciting part of my journey, even if that doesn't necessarily lead to anything. I'm excited about my overall work and what we decided in that class was I had kind of split my book into three different books in first, middle and last, a kind of a trilogy and everyone in class, including the agent was just combining into one, a hundred thousand words. Isn't too much for a single book and all these things. Once I was able to combine those all into one. It became the story of those entire 17 years of seasonal work. So every chapter kind of takes place in a different national park and, it's a lot more organized in my head. Now it's making a lot more sense when it ends. It's truly an end point in my life. It's the end of my seasonal journey because now I'm not doing that anymore. I live here full time. So it's pretty exciting. The Jackson hole writer's thing has really been inspirational to me and it's kept me in the fold, kept me talking to published authors and kept me in the industry in a funny way. So now I'm in touch with all these folks who write for a living in one way or another, or who are very interested in that. Art and science and, it's been really interesting. We do a kids writing conference, and it's free for kiddos nine to 14, and we bring, young adult authors in from all over the country that these kids have read in school and stuff. They get a huge kick out of it because they're just like blown away. Wait, you wrote that book. I've read that book. These are like fifth graders, sixth graders. And it's really influential and we've got this amazing, woman, Nancy Turner Stevenson, and she is a children's author as well. And she manages the kids portion of the writing conference, but I do a bunch of that too. It's been really cool. And I'm making money with my MFA, which is amazing. Right. it's a part-time job. So it doesn't pay a ton, but still in just two years. Earned as much through them as I paid for my degree from scald. That's awesome. Yeah. In addition to my other normal full-time job, so it like completely actually paid for the degree in just a few years, which I'm super excited about. It's really cool. Oh yeah. Wow. That's what we're. Talking about with this, podcast is just the, concept of, okay, we've got the MFA now, what do we do with it? It obviously for you has unfolded like a blooming flower quickly. It really has it. You know, not super, super quickly. I don't want it to seem like this all happened the day I graduated, because that. 2013. So we're coming up on 10 years ago and I it's been, it had been eight years, from when I graduated to when I started that job with Jackson hole writers. But yeah, it all accumulates, it all snowballs and all of a sudden before, you know, it there's this thing that I'm a part of that is amazing. Beautiful. That really also encapsulates, this podcast, so we're helping people get used to what we're trying to do. Yeah. Definitely we wanna talk about the financial side, but also how it enriches and rewards your life, you, how it pays off in other ways. And I'm hearing from you perhaps, working with these children is something that was unexpected, but sounds like been a real joy to you. Definitely. The whole process of the group, I do, grant writing, for them we're sponsored, we're a nonprofit, so we get all of our money from different nonprofit organizations. The Wyoming arts council is one of them. The, cultural trust of Wyoming, the Wyoming cultural trust. They're all mostly Wyoming organizations because that's where we are. And so we've got like the community foundation of Jackson hole right here and they organize a big fundraiser. It's called the old bills fund run. And that raises. Millions of dollars every year for a whole variety of different nonprofits around the valley. Every service you can think of, there are probably close to 50 nonprofits involved in that. Wow. And the whole community is involved and there's a big walk run. 5k, that's really mellow. And it's just for the purposes of raising money for all these wonderful nonprofits that we have in the area. So I'm part of that. I'm using my writing skills, not just for my own stories and things like that, but I'm using them for grant writing, for writing the report after the grant, there's a lot of narrative involved with that. It is a lot. There's the technical part of it. And there are the spreadsheets and the budgets and all that, but then there are the narrative portions of that, which I'm actually, using my writing skills for that. And so it's not for me personally, it's for the group, but you can write a grant and they can give you$10,000 for the writer's conference or something, which we need because it costs us. 50$60,000 to run the writer's conference, you know, each year. So it's really neat to use my skills in that endeavor and also in advertising, in social media, in all of these outreach functions, I'm using my writing skills throughout for the job itself, which is really. Awesome. What device do you. Want to give other NFA people. Keep an open mind, you know, I guess I didn't know about the nonprofit sphere as much as I do now, having worked for them for a nonprofit in this community. And so it's like Jackson hole writers is. Surprisingly exactly what I needed. As a writer, as someone with an MFA, that's the ideal job that makes the most sense. But even if I worked for one of these organizations that we write grants. To who fund us, the community foundation of, or the community foundation of Jackson hole or the Wyoming cultural trust fund or the Wyoming arts council, just as examples. And these organizations exist wherever you live. If you're in New York, they have equivalent organizations that do a ton of work with writing. If you're a writer, And you can write grants, or if you were reading the grants and, and deciding which grants get approved and which do not get approved, or which get half approval, they'll give you sometimes they'll approve 80% of your funds that you're requesting or something like that. And so all of these organizations have jobs where they need writers and editors, and it's not necessarily directly tied. Into writing, it's not book publishing or anything like that. It it's not editing or,, but it is grant writing. I feel like is a valuable way to use your skills as a writer. It can be really, really interesting and, and rewarding. And yeah, it's a great way to use your M. Yeah. Sounds like for sure. I actually know a few people who do grant writing and they say very same things about nonprofits they work for. Yeah. Yeah. It's not as boring as you might think. It's actually exciting. it sounds really boring. Nice. So we're gonna dive into your tool bag, your best tip for writers in general. Do you have something you would wanna share? I think brevity is really important. And I know some of my mentors from Spalding would agree with me there. As far as when you're installing, you're producing these like 50 page packets of material and we. Don't really put bounds on, as far as you could write a piece that is 20,000 words long, you know, I had a few of these when I was at Spalding where one of my chapters kind of got outta control and was like really, really long. You write these 15 page stories that you bring to the workshops and stuff like that. Well, a lot of times I found trying to get published is people want 3000 words. You know, 2000 words, that's like a handful of pages. I think everything I've published has actually been well under 10 pages. As far as publishing in a magazine, goes like a literary magazine that's run by. Most of'em are run by universities and that's pretty much where I've published. Magazines written by small universities. I just published one in that accidental firefighter piece is in a publication called smokey courts. And they're out of New Hampshire, Southern New Hampshire university. And I'm from New Hampshire. So they were looking for writing that is connected to New Hampshire authors. So that was sort of my connection in that story. I briefly mentioned how I had. Graduated from the university of New Hampshire a couple years ago and moved out west. Just that brief mention was enough to get my story into that magazine, even though I'm fighting fire in Colorado and, and all these things, I'm living out west. And so that kind of snuck me into that, but I had to edit that piece down dramatically. I probably. Cut the word count in half or something like that. and so that's one thing that I've found throughout my journey is that I take the pieces that I push through Spalding that my mentors read, that we tore up and edited and second draft, third draft, fourth draft, and then you have to take it down from 6,000 words to 3000 words. And it almost seems like. It would be destroying your creation, you know, but it, I, it actually makes it stronger every time. I mean, it, you get the same story across, your reader's actually gonna make it all the way through as opposed to. Getting tired halfway through and giving up on it or something. You don't really lose anything. It's incredible. You are hesitant sometimes to cut this paragraph or that paragraph. And then once you do it, sometimes I'll cut them and put them in a new document. And I'll label, it cuts from accidental firefighter because I'm so I'm really, don't want to get rid of these paragraphs that I've like worked on for years. You know, once I throw'em on that other page though, and I go back to my original document, I find that I almost never look back. Same. I never even go to the cuts page again, I store'em for some reason, and I'm just so happy with the way, that particular story, the way it came out. And just in general, when I cut. and as much as possible. I mean, I don't even think there's a limit. I think I could have made that a 1000 word story or a 100 word story and it would be just as awesome. Yeah. And it is so much easier to publish when it's trimmed down like that. It, um, a big lengthy piece, like I ended up with a ton of kind of a really tough to publish. in book length publishing, of course you have endless opportunity to expound but I still think even when I publish my 100,000 word memoir, it's only that long now, because that includes I don't know, 30 little chapters or something like that. and they're going to be five or 10 page chapters overall. I think that's a great thing to say for our podcast Cause I work really well under, limits. I, did some ghost writing and some things that were supposed to be little thoughts for 300 words each. Oh awesome. And initially I thought that same thing. It's like, oh dear God, how am I gonna do this? Because it's like, So limited, but it wasn't, it really boiled down to the essence. Cause I was writing for another person, their stories and getting'em cleaned up. Mm-hmm so I think that's a really good point for, all writers to think about. You actually gave us another secret tip in the middle of telling us about brevity. You mentioned that this particular journal was looking for work from people who had lived there or from the area previously. So it's all about relationship, but it's about, you know, sort of searching out those particular opportunities. So you gave us a tip within a tip. Yeah. We've talking about creation or creativity. How about the other end of it? Is there something you're reading now that's intriguing you, feeding your, creativity? I read a lot of news, to be honest with you. It kind of relates to how I sort of get a kick out of the grant writing process. And why I chose to be nonfiction at Spalding. I'm driven, by the nonfiction world. So a lot of what I read isn't necessarily directly like it isn't. Often the works I should be reading probably, which is like the stuff that's most similar to my work, but I have read some of those recently. This fella wrote one that's, really similar to what I write. Wild rescues by Kevin Grainge. And so wild rescues. You see the helicopter on the front and the national park. He worked in a variety of national parks, just like I did. And he was, an em. So there's the mountains where I live nearby and his ambulance there. And so he's got a variety of stories here. He worked in Yosemite and Yellowstone in the grand Tetons. And, this is similar in that it's short. Excerpts little stories and same thing. Like I was just saying about Brey. So this chapter goes from page one 17 to one 20, its his introduction to his Yosemite chapter. And it's all about these crazy adventures he got involved with that. He probably had no idea he was going to be involved in that sort of thing. it relates to the national parks and it's that short story? Nonfiction memoir format. I really like, so I kind of search out that sort of stuff in the pursuit of publishing my own work so that I can compare my work to that. And, my real comparison in the literary world is like Edward Abbey, where he wrote desert solitaire about his time as a park ranger. For arches national park or a river runs through it, which actually has a story. You know, that's a collection of short stories and the fly fishing, the river runs through it. Part is only one story in that book. And another story in that book talks about is time working for the forest service in the early 19 hundreds, he was on one of the first forest service trail crews, which is what I. so that's been really influential to me and I read and reread those all the time and the Barry Lopez and a bunch of the authors that are nonfiction that are related to the natural world in the national parks and stuff like that. So I eat that stuff up and then a whole bunch of other Different. I read a lot of Newsweek, news the magazine, the news format, the, weekly magazines. Does the, the writing, I feel like all writing is. All great writing is, can be influential. It doesn't have to be Steinbeck. You know, for me, it can be an article about, about wildfire or something. And, I'll read that like in nonfiction account of wildfire from last season in California and that relates to my story. And so it gives me inspiration even. It's not most people's first choice, but that's why we're all different, you know, that's true. I think I've got some things to add to my reading list now. Thank you. we're being very selfish of this podcast. We're like we're picking your brain, yeah, no, definitely. It's a great project yeah. So is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners that we haven't covered already? I don't know, I would say, yeah, keep an open mind. And, and when you get outta school and it's not just publishing books, that is the main goal. At least for me, I think that's definitely a goal of mine and it will happen eventually, but I've been impressed with how many jobs really use the skills that we learned in our MFA. There are many jobs that I've almost applied for that I've seen even recently that like, oh man, that. Man, my MFA fits in so well with so many of these opportunities and I just didn't really expect that it, it took me best surprise, to be honest with you, because like I said, I got the MFA thinking it's for my own personal journey. It's for my writing. It's for my book, God forbid that. Doesn't lead anywhere. I don't ever publish anything. I still am happy with my degree because it's, furthering my education. It's fun for me. It's if I'm gonna be writing all the time, I might as well be as good a writer as I possibly can't be. But. You know, for example, our local community radio station just, posted a job recently. And I, I interviewed for the job and discussed it with them extensively and hem and hot and decided it wasn't my best opportunity, but it was like assistant director of the community radio station and they needed someone. Who's a writer, who's an editor who can write grants, who can edit podcasts, who can create podcasts about the local community and like every single thing on the bulleted list. Exactly. Related to what we learn at Spalding and what we did with our MFAs. And for anyone that like, even if you were a poetry MFA student or screenwriting or anything like that. It, you're not that pigeonholed into a specific thing. You get out with that degree and it is a very valuable degree in this world. And especially how we all went online, how everything with COVID and I started, um, with Jackson hole writers in the fall of 2020. So the whole kind of world had changed and they were so excited to find someone with an MFA who can write, who can write grants, who can edit, who can create, advertisements and, knows about social media and all the stuff that we all do as writers. That comes relatively easy for us as writers. So yeah, that's my advice is. That you're doing the right thing. you did the right thing. You already have your MFA. You did the right, right. Yeah. So it's a quick question about these job postings that you were talking about. Like for instance, the one at the radio station, I'm guessing they didn't specifically ask for an MFA, but if you look at the job requirements, then you can see, okay. So people should keep an open mind, not just expect, they're gonna type in MFA job openings and here pops up this huge list and you will get some right. Sure. Seeing your track from even before the MFA, you already knew what interested you and where you were headed in some, areas in your writing and whatnot. but I see that as something that others can learn, that they don't have to pigeon hole into a specific, I guess it has to only be this and this you've opened up some really interesting doors Right. And different stuff than what you necessarily expect. Most people aren't getting an MFA because they think they're going to be the assistant director at a radio station. But that's fascinating different field. But as a writer, as an editor, they say they want good communication. They want someone with writing skills. Like, yeah, like you said, it doesn't necessarily say MFA on there, but it. Exactly what, and that, the MSA really qualifies you for and the people in the professional won't have, have a lot of respect for. People are, oh, you have an empathy in writing. Oh, that's like exactly what we need, which is funny because as a student, I feel like it's easy to get down on yourself. I heard people comment. I remember like during graduation week, one of the guys was like, well, I've got my poetry writing degree now. So I guess I'm set for life. Like just being sarcastic but You do though you have those skills. And, the way I found those jobs was not by searching necessarily, but I found this great Lister, this nonprofit list served in my community and all the nonprofits will post events that they're holding different fundraising, queries, all these different things, but also job postings. And these are jobs that aren't necessarily in the newspaper, or I don't know if they put them like online. Sources because we're this small community. We have this housing crisis. It's tough to get a foothold here. It's this whole. Story. I've been here long enough where I've got my, talents dug into this community and I have my kids to live and I'm holding on for dear life. It's getting all the time more expensive. It's a really popular place. We've got national parks and ski resorts So I'm here. And I, and I have a friend who worked for a great local nonprofit, uh, grand Teton foundation. And when I worked for the national park, they funded some of our projects with local donations and they're a great group and he worked for them. And again, I could totally work there with my MFA. I'm sure they would love to have me. And they do a ton of outreach and funding and all these cool things. And so I told him, Hey, you know, uh, keep me in mind. If something comes up in your organization, I'm curious, what's out there in the nonprofit sphere. And he said, well, you need to sign up for the list serve. And I was like, what is the list serve? You know, it's like an email blast and they send out one a day or five a day, depending on what's going on. And. So I signed up for this list serve the very first email that came across. This was a couple years ago was assistant director Jackson hole writers. it is the job that is tailored for me. And so I got that job and now I've been doing that and now I still am on that Lister. And I see these jobs come across constantly the nonprofit sphere has so much to. Wow. It's neat. Well, Matt, this has been great first off mm-hmm I'm just, I'm very enthusiastic. I'm easily enthused with people with energy and,you've got all that and, and more, where can we find you online? Where are you at? Yeah, so at my website, it's Matt R berman.com. Okay. Yeah. I. Take a lot of photos. I'm getting to the point where I'm printing them up and, and I'm going to be putting them up in coffee shops or going to the art fair and, and displaying them, trying to sell my work and stuff like that. And so I have some of that stuff on my website. So I do sort of the combination where I have like a photo essays page and you'll see the little photo you click on the photo. I might have more photos and also a story about that. And all my publications are on there. So, yeah, Matt R berman.com links to my social media and stuff like that. I was just working on it a little bit. So most of the links should work. I got it up and running for a while. You know, if you leave them alone for a year, you go back and it's just a little question mark, instead of your actual picture. And so you have to go back through, but it's good for me because it, then I update the site and get rid of old pictures that don't look that great and add new pictures and stuff like that. I know, we're winding down, but you've mentioned photography. So I have this theory about cross-training for writing, right. Would you say there's an interaction or some sort of interplay yeah. With your writing and your photography Yeah, for me there definitely is, you know, I consider myself an artist and I'm kind of like a. Like a lot of us do a lot of different sorts of art, and for me, they do connect and you'll see that if you go to the photo essays, part of my website or even my stories, and that's one thing I've had a challenge with is I, when I publish my book, I really want each chapter to include a photo of mine or to. That time. And a lot of people will say, no, no, no, that's not what happens. The author doesn't produce the photos because they're thinking I'm like 90% an author and 10% a photographer. But in my mind, I'm like 50, 50, I love both arts and I've done a really deep dive into photography recently. It was kind of funny after I left Spalding. Probably did a lot more photography than writing right off the bat. I feel like I've seen a few spading alum doing the same thing, and maybe you get so much writing in, in a couple years that you kind of have to take a step back and, and photography is a great way to do that because they are connected. And I would love to do photo books where a picture I took that I really like an influential picture of mine can become part of a story. So in my head, I always want to do yes. The combination of the two things I would love to produce photo books, even maybe even like coffee table style books, or maybe even more like a book book, but with quite a few pictures in it, like John KRA hour does a lot of that. Or if you read like into thin air, you know, there's a section of photos and. Yeah, for me, the two definitely work together. Well, we really appreciate your time, Matt and everybody wants get Matt R berman.com is where he can go to see some of his photography and some of his work, his written work. And, uh, we wanna just thank you so much for being a part of what we we're doing here and, and hope that that inspires others as much. I. Here we are the ones hosting this and we're just as inspired she's over here, furiously writing down notes and I'm like going. Yeah, no, that's awesome. Sure. I should mention too, uh, check out J writers.org. That's our website for Jackson hole writers and I. Fully manage that whole site. You've got our whole list of sponsors down at the bottom, which I kind of messed up the name of Wyoming cultural trust fund for one of our most important sponsors. So I wanna make sure I mention that not that anyone in the know would necessarily watch this, but in case they do. but that's been really fun for me too. So again, like the connections you make from an MFA that you don't necessarily expect to, I didn't think I'd be managing a. For another company necessarily, but I mean, it is all writing skills. It is all writing and editing and the way it looks on the page. And if you can. Finish and go all the way through an MFA at Spalding, you can certainly, you know, manage a website, even if you don't think you can. It's certainly in your toolbox. Well, thank you, miss so much has been wonderful. Talk a great way. Yeah. Thank you. Good luck with the project. I'm excited to. Future episodes. Thank you. Yeah, we're all excited. Well, this is Barry Drudge and dream of Drudge. I'm telling you to keep writing all those things. Transcribing...