Now that all of the Ivory Tower Boiler Room team are back in our respective homes, we’re going to continue the extended birthday celebrations with a look back at where it all began.
You may have noticed, if you’ve stuck with us this far, that there’s a lot going on in the Ivory Tower Boiler Room. We just had our first in-person event (with the promise of more to come), we’ve introduced a whole-ass website that’s on its fourth month, complete with Mary’s weekly column True Crime in Academia, guest writers, the weekly Big Think series, and much more (did someone say “book club with actual authors sitting for interviews and answering reader-submitted questions, sponsored by our home-base, Words Matter Bookstore?”) We’ve reached beyond the podcast and writing group, beyond the Facebook and Twitter feed. We launched our website and blog in May, and in the next few months you’ll have a chance to check out the works of our featured writers in a new creative writing section, you’ll see a newly re-designed homepage, and more.
But before we do all of that, we’re taking this month to reflect on the journey that brought us to this point. Looking back, we have so much to be proud of. We’ve been able to bring you some incredible podcasts to listen to. Our mental health episodes, and our continued focus on mental health, our work with Dr Helana Darwin, our interview with Lev Raphael are just a few stand out moments from the past year. Adam and Erika have already weighed in with their respective Big Thinks on how they’ve grown and changed in the past year. The next two Mondays will feature Andrew and Mary and their personal reflections.
But it’s useful to remember that before any of these grand plans, the Ivory Tower Boiler Room was mostly a way for Andrew and Adam to get over their Covid-induced writer’s block. So we thought we (that is, Andrew, Erika, Mary, and Adam) would revisit that very first episode, that first-cold-press of the Eeyore-and-Tigger vibes that have since been the fuel for all of our growth and accomplishment over the past year. We’ll even check in with Andrew to see if he is still simmering with Whitmanic energy. The Boiler Room has gotten a little more crowded since that day (and it’s wheelchair accessible now, too) and the view is a little different one year later. Mary and Erika have added their own flourishes to the place and we hope the Boiler Room is better for it.
So put in your ear-buds, wash those thistles down with a bit of Extract of Malt, and join us for a longing backward-glance at the episode that started it all.
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