Across the Margin: The Podcast

This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Mattea Kramer, a writer who comprehensively explores weighty ideas about drugs, power and powerlessness, and the voice in your head. She's been published in The Guardian, The Nation, Mother Jones, Guernica, and The Washington Post, and she has appeared on MSNBC and on radio stations across the country. Her first novel, The Untended — the focus of this episode — will be published in May 2025. In The Untended, Casch Abbey is a waitress, single mom, and recreational boxer who falls in love twice: first with a veteran who secretly grows pot on a rich man’s land in Vermont’s Green Mountains, and then with a painkiller that eases her long-buried pain. After her foot is crushed under the wheel of a station wagon, Casch loses her waitressing gig and goes broke — and the meds for her foot are her only source of relief. But when the drug is recalled due to outcries of widespread addiction, Casch’s dependence imperils her already tenuous life, as cravings lead her into her small town’s simmering netherworld. Intimate and exhilarating, The Untended will upend your every assumption about who is a hero and who is worthy of love. In this episode host Michael Shields and Mattea Kramer explore the consequential themes present throughout The Unintended having to do with addiction, corporate greed, PTSD, generational trauma, and so much more.

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This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Erin Osmon, an award-winning, Los Angeles-based music journalist, critic, and author. She's written long-form album notes for archival releases on Blondie, Hüsker Dü, Townes Van Zandt, Sparklehorse, and many others. A veteran of Chicago newsrooms, her work appears in Rolling Stone, LA Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and other publications of record. She is part-time faculty at USC's Annenberg School of journalism. Her new book, about heartland rock in the 1980s, will be published by W.W. Norton in 2026. Her first book, Jason Molina: Riding with the Ghost — the focus of this episode — was published in 2017 and named a Best Music Book of the year by Pitchfork. Her book about John Prine’s landmark debut album was published by Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series. In Jason Molina: Riding with the Ghost, Erin presents a detailed, human account of the Rust Belt–born musician Jason Molina — a visionary, prolific, and at times cantankerous singer-songwriter with an autodidactic style that captivated his devoted fans. It details Molina’s personal trials and triumphs and reveals for the first time the true story of his last months and works. Offering unfettered access to the mind and artistry of Molina through exclusive interviews with family, friends, and collaborators, the book also explores the Midwest music underground and the development of Bloomington, Indiana–based label Secretly Canadian. As the first authorized and detailed account of this prolific songwriter and self-mythologizer, Riding with the Ghost provides readers with unparalleled insight into Molina’s tormented life and the fascinating Midwest musical underground that birthed him. In this episode host Michael Shields and Erin Osmon discuss how Molina’s deep ties and affinity to the state that birthed him (Ohio) shaped his life and influenced his career. They explore Molina’s surprising and varied musical influences, the comparison to singer-songwriter Will Oldham which shadowed Molina throughout his career, the birth of the timeless classic album that is Magnolia Electric Co., and so much more.

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This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Brooklyn-based musician and Garcia Peoples bassist/vocalist Andy Cush. Cush, under the moniker Domestic Drafts, has recently released his debut album entitled Only The Singer (Glamour Gowns Records) — the focus of this episode. Many years in the making, Only the Singer is an ambitious and dramatically engaging debut that spotlights the distinctive songwriting sensibility that Cush has leant to Garcia Peoples (as bassist, co-composer, and vocalist). It bursts with inspired ideas, with lyrics and arrangements ranging from the intimate to the windswept and cinematic. Its songs sketch richly personal, romantic narratives with a brainy sense of humor, demonstrating Cush's singular prowess as a storyteller, while the musical treatments take cues from country music, '90s indie-rock, outré folk, smooth '70s pop, progressive jazz, bossa nova, and more. In this episode hosts Michael Shields and Andy Cush discuss the bevy of talented musicians who helped Andy bring the album to life while exploring how many of the songs on Only The Singer have lived with Andy for some time, and others are freshly crafted, yet they uniquely co-exist harmoniously. They dig into the specifics of a few of the songs on the album, expounding how the title track was inspired by an interview with Leonard Cohen and how others are inspired by relatable life struggles and hardships, and so much more.

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This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with musician and bandleader Andy Frasco. Frasco, celebrated for his good time spirit, is a tireless and consummate showman who plays some 250 concert dates a year with his band, Andy Frasco & The U.N., and has been doing so since he was 19. His band's sound has been described as "blues-rock fueled by reckless abandonment and a disregard for the rules, with witty lyrics to back it all up.” This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast is dedicated to Frasco’s latest album, entitled Growing Pains. Produced by Frasco himself for the first time, Growing Pains acts as a tribute to his 15-year journey in music, and the group’s landmark 10th studio album showcases his growth as songwriter and frontman. Growing Pains features assists from brilliant musicians such as Billy Strings, Eric Krasno, and G. Love, and it’s a refreshingly introspective album full of self-flection and weighty, relatable themes, while still being a hell of a good time. In this episode hosts Michael Shields and Andy Frasco discuss the themes present in Growing Pains and what it meant to him to produce the album personally. They dig into Frasco’s growth as a musician and songwriter, why he decided to record songs for Growing Pains in Nashville, his excellent World Saving Podcast, and so much more.

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This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Lee Klinger, Ph.D., an Independent Scientist and Consultant in Big Sur, CA currently working with the Department of Natural Resources of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, and with the Mutsun Costanoan leaders at Indian Canyon Nation. Since 2005 he has served as the director of Sudden Oak Life, a movement aimed at applying fire mimicry practices to address the problems of forest decline and severe wildfires in California. He has more than forty years of experience in forestry, plant and soil ecology, atmospheric chemistry, earth system science, and nature photography, and has held scholarly appointments at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado, the University of Oxford, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Geological Society of London. His book — Forged By Fire : The Cultural Tending of Trees and Forests in Big Sur and Beyond — is the focus of this episode. Big Sur is home to many remarkable trees, including ancient groves of oddly shaped oaks and peculiar groupings and strange fire scars in old-growth redwoods, all dating from a time when the Esselen People were the sole human occupants of the region. Upon close inspection, these oddities are found to be the result of cultural burning and other tending practices by the Esselen. Now, however, too many of these living artifacts are dying and perishing in flames from the stresses imposed by our modern culture. By bringing together both Western science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge systems, the solutions to these problems become self-evident — either reintroduce cultural fire to the land or, if that is not possible, mimic its effects using materials and practices that emulate fire. In this episode hosts Michael Shields and Lee Kliger discuss the importance of using fire as a tool in landscape and forest management, the craft of fire mimicry, the benefits of marrying Western Science with Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and so much more.

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