It’s Words by Winter Wednesday! This week’s episode, My Beloved Penpal, is about my friend Garvin Wong, who many years ago sent me a letter, typed on an ancient manual typewriter, in response to a story of mine he’d heard read aloud on a late night talk radio show. Thus began eighteen years of letters, calls, visits, and many a shared dinner in Chinatown. In the five years since we lost him, I have thought about my friend every day. 

Each week, we (and by “we” I mean “I”) release a new episode of Words by Winter, the podcast featuring conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Each brief episode includes a story or conversation, along with a poem. All the Words by Winter episodes can be found anywhere you listen to your podcasts. If you like them, please subscribe and tell a friend.

Click here for Words by Winter on Apple Podcasts.

Click here for Words by Winter on Google Podcasts.

Click here for Words by Winter on Spotify.

I’d love to hear from listeners what you’re going through, what uncertainties or troubles you’re dealing with, maybe in the silence of your own mind and heart. Let me know, and I’ll go in search of a poem to help you through, one that might help all of us through, in the way that poems have been helping me get through life ever since I was a little girl. Sometimes life feels too hard, too intense, just too much, and if that’s where you are right now, reach out. 

Whoever you are, whatever age, whatever place in life, you can send a voice memo via email to wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com, or write me at the same address.