Episode 3 - Into the Headwaters with Sean Hill

Guest: Sean HillHosts: Erin Sharkey & Michael Kleber-DiggsRecorded at Bemidji State UniversityThe Negroes Send Their Love: Poems, Perspectives, and Possible Futures, by Sean Hill (Milkweed Editions 2026)Dangerous Goods, by Sean Hill (Milkweed Editions 2014)Blood Ties & Brown Liquor, by Sean Hill (University of Georgia Press 2008)Aster of Ceremonies, by JJJJJerome Ellis (Milkweed Editions 2023)A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, edited by Erin Sharkey (Milkweed Editions 2023)Into a Darker Wilderness podcastProducer: Davi GraySound Editor: Claire BarnesGuest bioBorn and raised in Milledgeville, Georgia, Sean Hill is the author of the collection of poems, essays, and stories, The Negroes Send Their Love: Poems, Perspectives, and Possible Futures (Milkweed Editions, 2026), and two poetry collections, Dangerous Goods, awarded the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, (Milkweed Editions, 2014) and Blood Ties & Brown Liquor, named one of the Ten Books All Georgians Should Read in 2015 by the Georgia Center for the Book, (UGA Press, 2008).Hill has received numerous awards including fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Region 2 Arts Council, the Bush Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, The Jerome Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, the University of Wisconsin, a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.Hill’s poems and essays have appeared in Callaloo, Harvard Review, New England Review, Orion, Oxford American, Poetry, Tin House, and numerous other journals, and in nearly three dozen anthologies including Black Nature and Villanelles. His poems have also been featured as part of the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series and on The Slowdown podcast when hosted by former U.S. Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith. And a volume of poems selected from Blood Ties & Brown Liquor and Dangerous Goods has been translated and published in Korean.Hill has served as the director of the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference at Bemidji State University since 2012. He is a consulting editor at Broadsided Press, a monthly broadside publisher. He has taught at several universities, including at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks and Georgia Southern University as an Assistant Professor. Hill lives with his family in southwest Montana and is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Montana.Topics mentioned:Bemidji State UniversityItasca State ParkMinnesota Northwoods Writers ConferenceIndigo GirlsUniversity of MontanaALCAN HighwayAustin DabneyLand GrantsOak trees (Quercus spp.)Paper birch (Betula papyrifera)Pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia)Identifying treesBlue jay (Cyanocitta cristata)Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)Identifying birds