#50: The Grateful Dead, with Richard Polt

The Cru are joined this week by typewriter insurgent Richard Polt, author of The Typewriter Revolution and one of the editors of the Loose Dog Press series of anthologies.   Discussion revolves around typewriters (Editor's Note: the superior prose producers) and the influence of analogue technology on the creative process.  Stories feature a cornucopia of Grateful Dead references; an O'Connoresque rumination on what we owe to each other; a writer who achieves his dreams; a conversation with the Greater; and a dream within a reality within a dream.  From The Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, 1949 ed. grateful dead:the motif of a very widespread group of folktales, which typically begin with the hero, as he starts on a journey, coming upon a group of people ill-treating or refusing to bury the corpse of a dead man who had died before paying his debts.  The hero gives his last penny, either to pay the man's debts or to give him a decent burial, and goes on his way.  Within a few hours a traveling companion joins him (occasionally in the form of a horse or other animal, but usually in human form), who aids him in some impossible task (or a series of tasks and adventures), gets him a fortune, saves his life, marries him to a princess, etc.  Sometimes the companion helps the hero on the condition that they divide all winnings.  Sometimes this proves to be half the princess, or a first-born child.  But he relents and relinquishes his half when the other is about to fulfil the promise.  The story ends with the companion's disclosing himself as the man whose corpse the other had befriended. Stories begin around the 22:30 mark.Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!  Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do. Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.