Into a Darker Wilderness

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

It's coming! Season 1, Episode 3: Into the Headwaters with Sean Hill is scheduled to be released on Thursday, June 25.

Episode Two is a deep dive into the other host of Into a Darker Wilderness, Michael Kleber-Diggs, author of the poetry collection Worldly Things.Guest bioMichael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) (he / him / his) is the author of Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), which won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, the 2022 Balcones Poetry Prize, the 2021 Poetry Center Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. His essay, “On the Complex Flavors of Black Joy,” is included in the anthology There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis, edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman (Penguin Random House 2021). Another essay, “There Was a Tremendous Softness,” appears in A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, edited by Erin Sharkey (Milkweed Editions, 2023). His poems and essays often explore themes of intimacy, community, empathy, and grace, practices he believes are distinct and interdependent. Among other places, Michael’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Poem-a-Day, Orion Magazine, Literary Hub, Sierra Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Alaska Quarterly Review, Great River Review, Water~Stone Review, the Under Review, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Potomac Review, Spillway, and several other journals and anthologies. Michael is a past Fellow with the Givens Foundation for African American Literature, a past-winner of the Loft Mentor Series in Poetry, a Minnesota AARP 50 over 50 Honoree, and a Poets & Writers Five Over 50 honoree. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. He also teaches Creative Writing at Augsburg University and Hamline University where he works with both undergraduate and graduate students. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times and Best of the Net once and has been supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Michael is married to Karen Kleber-Diggs, a tropical horticulturist and orchid specialist. Karen and Michael have a daughter, Elinor, who lives in New York City and works as a professional dancer.Selected references from this episode:The Givens FoundationPrestidigitationCatfishSwimmingLap swimming in the Twin Cities (Yelp) (new V3 Sports facility on the Northside)Minnesota lakesCreatures in lakesWichita, KansasOld tackle boxesSwimming while BlackMilkweed EditionsFollow Into a Darker Wilderness wherever you get your social media (⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠), subscribe to our newsletter, and become a member supporter at our website, ⁠IntoADarkerWilderness.com⁠ (and maybe ⁠pick up some merch⁠ while you're there 😉).

Episode One of Into a Darker Wilderness introduces the podcast and its inimitable hosts, Erin Sharkey and Michael Kleber-Diggs.Each episode brings a guest to the show, and for this inaugural talk we've got Erin Sharkey herself, the editor of A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars (Milkweed Editions), the anthology that provided the seeds for this new podcast.Guest bioErin Sharkey (she/they) is a writer, arts and abolition organizer, a cultural worker and a film producer based in Minneapolis. She is the co-founder with Junauda Petrus of an experimental arts collective called Free Black Dirt, and is the producer of film projects, including “Sweetness of Wild,” an episodic web film project, and “Small Business Revolution,” which explored challenges and opportunities for black-owned businesses in the Twin Cities in the summer of 2021. Sharkey has received fellowships and residencies from the Loft Mentor Series, Vona Voices, the Givens Foundation, Coffee House Press, the Bell Museum of Natural History and the Jerome Foundation. Sharkey was awarded the Black Seed Fellowship from Black Visions and the Headwaters Foundation. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University and taught for many years with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. Erin is a cooperative member of The Fields at Rootsprings retreat. Rootsprings is a land-based cooperative caretaking space for healing and development of black, indigenous and people of color artists, activists, healers, and community centering lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer folks in central Minnesota.Selected references from this episodeFederal Works AgencyNatasha TretheweySaidiya HartmanThe Fields at RootspringsEuell GibbonsBenjamin Banneker - his 1793 Almanack and EphemerisDogon peopleLiberia (fka Banka)Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo wingsNiagara FallsFollow Into a Darker Wilderness wherever you get your social media (Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube), subscribe to our newsletter, and become a member supporter at our website, IntoADarkerWilderness.com (and maybe pick up some merch while you're there 😉).Prompt from the EpisodeNote that the prompts from our show can be used as writing prompts but are also opportunities for life prompts - something you might meditate on over a few days or use to put a practice into place in your own life.ERIN'S PROMPTJournal about nature every day for a week — reflect on it at different times and locations — see if you can hunt it out and find it in surprising ways.Can you find nature in your living room?Can you find nature in your car? Can you use your senses to locate it?Think about your own archive.What would you collect that would illustrate the important eras of your life?What would your 20s archive look like?What would the archive of the summer that you backpacked through Europe, or what would the archive of your time as a first-year teacher look like?What are the important pieces of ephemera, the little objects that could illustrate those things?What have you not collected that you wish you had collected?What are the objects that you can just remember? And how can you create evidence of that remembering in your own archive?

Welcome to Into a Darker Wilderness! The podcast is launching on May 27th, 2026; here's a small teaser to whet your appetite. Bon appetit!