Thresholds Returns!
Some new horizons
Hi friends,
Thresholds began airing in early 2020, right before the world shut down. It was only supposed to be a six-episode capsule podcast, featuring conversations about the “threshold” moments behind the work of a few wonderful writers: Alexander Chee, Wendy Walters, Mira Jacob, Suleika Jaouad, Tara Westover, and Carmen Maria Machado. But those conversations took on a life of their own. People liked listening to them, and we liked making them! It felt good to talk to writers and artists about some of their most profound life experiences, the kind that change them irrevocably and drive their work but rarely get a mention in formal interviews. It felt good to make a space to talk in a messy, honest way about how craft interacts with an artist’s private life. So we kept doing it.
Now, three years and 100+ conversations later, we’re still at it. If you’re a longtime listener, you’ll have noticed that we’ve been on a hiatus since late last spring. That’s because we’ve had some logistics to work out (it’s a chaotic time for podcasting!) and we wanted to make sure we moved forward with Thresholds sustainably. But our hiatus is coming to a close: Very soon, we’ll be dropping a new, six-episode season of the podcast. In the meantime, you can listen to our archive and learn more at our website.
We’re starting this newsletter so we can connect more directly with the people who listen to Thresholds and to expand the project beyond the podcast. We have so much material in our archives, so much unaired tape and ephemera, creative advice and pops of wisdom collected from our alums over the years. And we have a bunch of new ideas we want to try out.
If you subscribe you’ll receive a note from us every time we drop a new episode. You’ll also get periodic announcement and updates, transcripts of past interviews, recommendations, unreleased audio, and more.
More soon! If you have any questions or want to reach the Thresholds team, you can respond to this email. Until next time, we’ll offer you the prompt that starts all our interviews: Tell me about a threshold in your life that has changed your work. (Pop your answers below in the comments section.)
Thanks for reading and listening!
— Jordan + the Thresholds team