Hello supporters of Talking Radical!
For many of us, the new year is a time when we reflect on the year just past and the changes that lie ahead. In that spirit, I want to share with you some big news about what is coming up for me and for the Talking Radical project.
As of the end of February 2023, Talking Radical Radio will have been running for ten years. Over that time, I have done more than 500 interviews with people engaged in activism, organizing, and other kinds of change work, and I have brought at least 50 episodes per year to community radio stations across the country and to a range of online platforms. I have benefited immeasurably from getting to speak with so many people doing interesting and important work whom I would never otherwise have encountered, and I am constantly humbled by how generously people have shared their stories. Even a decade in, it is satisfying work and it feels like a politically useful way to employ my time and my skills.
However, after extensive reflection and lots of conversations over the last six months, I have decided that once Talking Radical Radio reaches the 10-year mark at the end of February, it will be ending its weekly run. There are lots of reasons for this, and I may go into more detail in a future email/post, but a lot of it boils down to the fact that the show takes by far the biggest chunk of my work time each week and each year, and I want to have that time to take on new challenges and to make other things.
For the next two months, the show will still reach you every week in whichever of the many ways you listen. As for what comes after – there are a few things I know for sure, and plenty more that I look forward to exploring, but I do not want to say much more than that just yet. Certainly, the Talking Radical project as a whole is not over. As a sort of container for my work grounded in the voices of activists, organizers, and other people engaged in collective struggle, it began long before the radio show, with the oral history project that resulted in the two books I published with Fernwood Publishing in 2012, and it will continue after the show. At the moment, I don’t know exactly what form that will take, or what other directions my work as a whole will go – a desire to reconnect with that sense of broad possibility is part of the point of this change – but it seems likely that struggles for collective liberation will remain a significant focus of what I do. It is even possible that Talking Radical Radio is not gone for good, as I am leaving open the possibility of returning to it as a podcast-only project with periodic, time-limited seasons – I’m not committing to that, but it is a possibility.
Thank-you so much for listening and for supporting the show over the years! And I look forward to continuing to share the work that I do in this area via the Talking Radical email list and via social media.
Solidarity and best wishes in the new year,
Scott 8)
