Podcasts about Little House

We want to believe our lives can be changed by the ideas contained in a book. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: When Alexa was seven, she started going through her grandfather's books. Her grandfather was a playwright and teacher, and through the books—and especially through his notes in the margins—she entered the world of 1930's American theater. And she found a book that changed her life: writer Moss Hart's autobiography Act One. (5 minutes)Act One: More of Alexa Junge and how Moss Hart's autobiography changed her life. She followed his path, learned specific lessons, and had a vision of him that was absolutely clear—until she met his widow. (10 minutes)Act Two: A book that changed a family's life—temporarily, and not for the better. David Sedaris on what happened when he found a dirty book in the woods and passed it along to his sisters. (9 minutes)Act Three: Reporter Jeremy Goldstein tells the story of a man who had many books change his life, even though he'd never read them. (14 minutes)Act Four: Writer Meghan Daum travels to De Smet, South Dakota—where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and set most of her Little House books. What surprises her is how much it matches what she'd imagined. The people there seem to be genuinely living by the values Laura wrote about. (15 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

We catch up with Wendy Guerrero to break down what makes Bentonville Film Festival 2026 feel big, buzzy, and still welcoming. We share the biggest premieres, the new experiences beyond screenings, and the simplest way to plan your first trip to Festival Village at the Momentary. • how Bentonville Film Festival stands out through programming, conversations, networking, and community events • how the festival mission elevates underrepresented voices and authentic storytelling • what festival week feels like in Bentonville, including red carpets, outdoor screenings, and family activations • highlights from the 2026 lineup, including Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick plus Netflix's Little House on the Prairie premiere • why world premieres matter for filmmakers, press, and distribution momentum • what to watch for in documentaries and audience favorites like Cookie Queens • new programming focused on the creator economy, Coffee Talk, microdramas, and STEAM sessions on AI and technology • how tickets, passes, and free Impact Day programming fit different budgets and schedules • first-timer tips for planning, picking must-see events, and using Festival Village as your hub So go to our website www.bentonvillefilm.org, and you can find the lineup. Check the show notes for links to our website, social channels, and our newsletter.A New American Town is here to help you plan your trip to Bentonville, Arkansas. From guides, events, and restaurant highlights. Find all this and more at visitbentonville.com and subscribe to our newsletter. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn.  You can listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, CastBox, Podcast Casts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Podcast Addict.  

We're still reeling from last week's episode, "The Older Brothers" -- so we needed a Prairie palette cleanser! This week's episode, "I Remember, I Remember," did just that. Get ready for flashback realness! Because Caroline shares the story of how she first met Charles and fell in love. Through sweet, funny, and bittersweet memories, we see young Caroline trying to catch the eye of a charming young Charles Ingalls long before Walnut Grove ever existed.This beloved episode also marks the premiere appearance of Matthew Labyorteaux, years before he officially joined the series as Albert Ingalls. Playing young Charles, Matthew perfectly captures Michael Landon's mannerisms, warmth, and mischievous charm in a performance that feels remarkably natural for such a young actor.Equally wonderful is Katy Kurtzman as young Caroline, delivering a heartfelt and emotionally intelligent performance filled with determination, vulnerability, and prairie-era sass. Their performances, along with this storyline, feel completely believable and deeply touching.Is it historically accurate? Maybe not. But in our TV Prairie world, it's all about what serves the plot! And we're here for it! (Have we recovered from "The Older Brothers" yet?Then, join us on Patreon, where the trio shares their favorite anniversary stories that will make you swoon -- and laugh a little.  Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Aimee returns to the show to help me revisit Castoffs! “An eccentric old woman who has set up her “house” in the center of town and a stray dog who hitches a ride to Plum Creek from Mankato in Charles Ingalls’ wagon both, in their own way, help Laura through the loss of an old friend and teach her and the rest of Walnut Grove, lessons in love and acceptance.” Castoffs originally aired on September 12, 1977 The opening song “Albert” is written and performed by the amazing Norwegian band, Project Brundlefly and is used with permission. Check them out at: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBrundlefly Become a Patron! The post Revisiting Castoffs first appeared on The Little House on the Prairie Podcast: Walnut GroveCast.

Lindsey Dunn and Steve Barnes go deep into discussions about the original Little House On The Prairie book and TV series, in preparation for the new Netflix Little House reboot! We revisit the Ingalls and Walnut Grove, deep diving into their lived history, the book series, and especially the original show- we watched and discuss The Pilot, Ma's Holiday, The Richest Man In Walnut Grove, The Spring Dance, The Music Box, Bunny, and Harriet's Happenings. We talk about why we love the show and books, what brings us back, and who is the hottest citizen of The Grove.Check out our main website for all info, videos, and episodes:https://www.sweetchildoftime.comPlease support the show athttps://patreon.com/mlmpod.comJoin us at our Marsh Land Media Discord channel:https://discord.gg/aRdKmv9YbcOur podcast is brought to you by Zencastr! Use "sweetchildoftime" as your promo code for 30% off if you join:https://zen.ai/34YswfAyb8Tg_68Rugun28BAv0U3EeXAvPbnN9FTzpOU9gDo6uemPt2NxY_ET4N0

This week we take on one of the most random late-era episodes of Little House on the Prairie: “The Older Brothers” from Season 9, Episode 14… and almost immediately abandon discussing the actual plot because, frankly, we just couldn't do it.In this rare “non-recap recap,” we spend less time talking about what happened in the episode and more time asking the real questions: What happened to Season 9? How did one of television's most beloved family dramas lose its way? Did the departure of Michael Landon as a central presence affect the soul of the show? Why did Walnut Grove suddenly feel like a completely different universe? And what was going on behind the scenes that may have contributed to the series coming to an end?And yes — we do attempt to discuss “The Older Brothers,” which somehow feels like a bizarre mashup of Blazing Saddles and Laurel and Hardy… just without any of the actual laughs. (Sorry, Michael Landon!).Despite the episode itself being… a challenge… the conversation turned into one of our most fascinating discussions yet about the legacy, decline, and strange final chapter of Little House on the Prairie.Sometimes the best recaps come from episodes that completely derail the train. This is one of those times.Then join us on Patreon, where we take a much deeper dive into the behind-the-scenes complications of Season 9, Victor French's difficult position within the series, and Alison wrestles with the ultimate late-era Prairie question: “Should I have left… or should I have stayed on the show?”Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer at PodXperience.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Cori returns to the show to help me discuss Founder’s Day! “Founder’s Day festivities promise fun and friendly competition for all except ageing logger Jim Tyler, who fears losing the log chopping contest to a younger Charles Ingalls.” Founder’s Day originally aired on May 7, 1975 The opening song “Albert” is written and performed by the amazing Norwegian band, Project Brundlefly and is used with permission. Check them out at: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBrundlefly Become a Patron! The post Revisiting Founder's Day first appeared on The Little House on the Prairie Podcast: Walnut GroveCast.

Charlotte Mason Inspired Mini-Series: Imparting Morals to Our Children with Liz Cottrill, Special Patreon Release   Proverbs 9:10 (NIV)  "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."   *Transcription Below*   Questions and Topics We Discuss: What are the benefits of reading and reading aloud and how can we prioritize making this a frequent rhythm in our homes? What do the Gospels teach us about God's view of children? As parents, if we focused on nothing else, what is your highest recommendation for cultivating a moral and righteous character in our children?   Liz Cottrill is mother of six and grandmother of fifteen who homeschooled for 35 years. For 17 years, Liz has worked with her daughter, Emily,  in their family-owned Living Books Library serving local homeschool families in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia. For the past 25 years, Liz has been discovering and teaching about the beauty and purpose of a Charlotte Mason method of education. This led to the development of A Delectable Education podcast. In addition, she does personal consultations with homeschool families around the world. Her greatest passion outside of family and teaching about Charlotte Mason is developing and teaching women's Bible studies. Liz is a reading maniac and delights in spending time with her family and walking and biking with her husband.   Books Liz Mentioned: The Chronicles of Narnia Heidi Little House on the Prairie Series The Yearling Little Britches Series The Secret Garden Where the Red Fern Grows Little Women The Singing Tree The Little White Horse Books by Beverly Cleary and Carolyn Haywood   A Delectable Education Website   Living Books Library   Thank You to Our Sponsors: Chick-fil-A East Peoria and The Savvy Sauce Charities (and donate online here)   Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website   Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!   Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”   Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”   Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”   Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”   Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”   Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”   John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”   Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”   Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”   Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession- to the praise of his glory.”   Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”   Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“   Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“   Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”   *Transcription*   Music: (0:00 – 0:08)   Laura Dugger: (0:09 - 1:59) Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.   I want to say a huge thank you to today's sponsors for this episode, Chick-fil-A East Peoria and Savvy Sauce Charities.   Are you interested in a free college education for you or someone you know? Stay tuned for details coming later in this episode from today's sponsor, Chick-fil-A East Peoria. You can also visit their website today at Chick-fil-A.com forward slash East Peoria.   If you've been with us long, you know this podcast is only one piece of our nonprofit, which is the Savvy Sauce Charities. Don't miss out on our other resources. We have questions and content to inspire you to have your own practical chats for intentional living. And I also hope you don't miss out on the opportunity to financially support us through your tax-deductible donations. All this information can be found on our recently updated website, thesavvysauce.com.   Today is the final episode in our mini-series, where we've been learning the Charlotte Mason educational philosophy. And today we're going to tie it in with general parenting principles, all of which are rooted in scripture.   My guest is Liz Cottrill, and she has parented babies to adults, and she's also a grandmother. So, we have a lot to learn from her experience. Here's our chat.   Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Liz.   Liz Cottrill: (1:59 - 2:03) Well, thank you so much for having me. I am just honored to be with you today.   Laura Dugger: (2:04 - 2:08) Will you just begin by sharing your testimony with us?   Liz Cottrill: (2:09 - 4:12) Well, it's kind of long, but I'll make it as short as I can. I grew up in an unbelieving family, but we were churchgoers. And when I was 12 years old, I put my trust in Christ.   After listening to a 17-year-old boy at a youth group meeting who presented the gospel so clearly for me that I understood and wanted to receive Christ. And then I met my husband in high school in German class. Actually, I don't remember very much German, but I was interested in him and he with me because we were Christians.   And we just got off on that foot together. And we have been married 46 years, always trying to put Christ first in our family and in our life. I have six children who are all grown now.   Two came to us by adoption later on in our life. And I have four married children with 15 grandchildren. And grand is just a minimal word for what they are.   I have been homeschooling for 37 years. I graduated my last child just this past spring, and it's been a long journey. It was illegal when I first began.   And I struggled to know the right path, you know, when and how and what subjects to teach and all of that. And a friend gave me a copy of Susan Schaefer McCauley's, For the Children's Sake, which I immediately gravitated to and started the narration way of teaching and using nature and art. But it really was another five years before I understood a lot more about Charlotte Mason and tried to implement more of her ideas.   And then when my grown daughter Emily, 15 years ago, started reading me her actual writings, it wasn't really until then that I started to understand her method.   Laura Dugger: (4:13 - 4:23) Well, and that's incredible. You mentioned it was illegal at that time to homeschool. And you've said before that you and your husband had never even heard of homeschooling when you met. Right.   Liz Cottrill: (4:23 - 6:15) So, how did you make that choice? You know, it's funny. I had my first child, and I remember a conversation with friends in the nursery at church when we were out of the service with our little ones.   And some of them were teachers, and they were talking about how it would be so wonderful if we could just keep our children out of public school and teach them Ourselves. And that put a little seed in my mind. And then I heard Dr. Dobson interview someone on homeschooling when she was about maybe two. And a year later, a friend took me to a kind of clandestine meeting of homeschool people with a national educator who was big on the idea. And we just decided that was the way we wanted to go. There were people that were actually being prosecuted for truancy and things like that when I started.   But we just wanted to be above board right from the beginning. So, I called the school board and just said, “I'm not going to send my child to school. I'm going to keep him at home, but I just want you to know he is being educated.”   Sorry. And so, you know, they didn't mind it. But I kind of marveled that I did that.   And I had to kind of beg, borrow and steal materials from friends who were ex-teachers and so on and didn't know really what I was about. I just remembered my own experience and tried to replicate that as best I could. And anyway, it was a process.   And by the time my fourth child was in school, there were absolutely no laws at all on the books about homeschooling in Michigan where we live. So, there had been several stages of them becoming more open to it over the 10 years since I started.   Laura Dugger: (6:16 - 6:44) Wow. And I love how that seed was planted through a conversation. And I've spoken with some mothers who have chosen to homeschool, and I've always been intrigued by this concept of morning time.   They say that they use that time to gather their children and read the Bible together. So, even broader than that, will you vision cast what type of healthy rhythm is available with Charlotte Mason's recommended schedule?   Liz Cottrill: (6:45 - 8:29) Well, she was a proponent of very short lessons, which for children under nine would be a maximum of 20 minutes long. And some of them are even shorter. And so school morning does run along at quite a little cliff because you're constantly changing pace.   But that is something that most six- and seven- and eight-year-olds love. And we do begin with Bible. And if you have children of multiple ages, the schedule broadens out for them.   I am not personally a big fan of the quote unquote morning time because all of her morning is together and separate and then together again. And what happens a lot of times when you have too long of a gathering of all ages is that the older children are then left with all the real hard toil at the end of the morning. And, you know, the little kids usually can only stand, you know, maybe half an hour at the most.   But we always sing a song and then had our Bible lesson, which Charlotte Mason has a wonderful plan for how to study Bible as a school subject so that they get to know the entire story from Genesis through Revelation. And then usually we have some poetry and then we just move into all our subjects, which vary from day to day. I mean, math and reading and things like that happen every day.   You know, some days we have art, some days we have geography, you know, all those things happen at various times through the week and not every single day. So, that helps you to cover a lot of ground in a week. That makes sense.   Laura Dugger: (8:30 - 8:36) That does. And so that may be the focus in the morning. And then what does that open up for the afternoon time?   Liz Cottrill: (8:36 - 9:43) So, afternoons are especially for young children, mostly free for them to play and explore and enjoy nature. There are some recommended activities that could occupy some of the afternoon hours, especially if you live in Michigan like I did. And we're snowed in much of the time in the winter months. ‍   But handicrafts and nature walks and reading and housework and things like that could be part of the afternoons. They're more open ended. They're not time limited the way school lesson mornings are.   So, it ushers in a sense of maybe a more leisurely pace in the afternoon, would you say? Yes. And, you know, you might say this afternoon after we come in from play or nature study, we're going to draw.   But there's no regulation that that has to end after 15 minutes or something. You know, some children get really involved in making up their own play or having a puppet show or just doing whatever they want with their free time. And they don't want to be curtailed, you know?   Laura Dugger: (9:44 - 9:56) Sure. And I'm wondering then for the mother, if she's the one doing the homeschooling, is that the time when you used it for lesson planning or preparing for the next day's work?   Liz Cottrill: (9:57 - 10:20) Or doing the laundry and getting dinner ready and all the other million things you have to do every day. Yeah, I usually encourage moms to take 10 minutes to plan for the next lesson day. And sometimes they get that done even before lunch so that when lunch happens, you know, basically their mind is off school and just on to all the other life that we have.   Laura Dugger: (10:21 - 10:29) Wow. And if this is new to someone and they hear 10 minutes to plan the next day's lessons, how is that possible?   Liz Cottrill: (10:32 - 11:06) Well, mostly because a lot of your lesson is already determined by the amount of time you have. There's only so much you can do in any lesson. A young child would have maybe 9 or 10 lessons in a morning.   But usually there's been some preplanning in the summer or before that school term starts. So, a lot of it, you already know what you're doing. And so, we're just specifically troubleshooting or figuring out what's going to happen the next day.   You know, so we give a right amount of math work or choose the vocabulary for the reading lesson or whatnot.   Laura Dugger: (11:07 - 11:41) Okay, that's helpful. And you say that your own education began when you were born into a family who loved and valued books. And Charlotte Mason is quoted saying, “The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading.”   So, Liz, what are some of the benefits of both reading and reading aloud? And how can we prioritize making this a frequent rhythm in our homes?   Liz Cottrill: (11:43 - 15:13) I have to preface what I say by saying that this is a huge problem in our culture today. I don't know if you know that my daughter Emily and I started a library for homeschool families. And I have about 20,000 books in my library that we loan out to 40 to 50 families each year.   They have a membership, so they have access to wonderful books. But it wasn't long into this journey almost 20 years ago that I realized that most moms had not even read Little House on the Prairie. And very common children's books were a mystery to them because our culture has kind of lost the art of reading.   I think it's a pretty known fact that only one in four adults ever reads even one book in a year. And I guess books are critical to our culture. They're definitely integral to the whole education process of our children.   They can learn so much more through a whole book than they can through a few paragraphs in a textbook. And the bottom line is that you can't give your children what you don't love yourself. So, the best way to ensure that you make your child become a reader is to be a reader yourself.   So, children, I always say, have to be surrounded by books. There are even education studies out worldwide in all socioeconomic brackets that children who grew up in a home of 500 books or more automatically become readers as adults. I just think that's fascinating.   So, they need to be surrounded with books, but they need to see you reading. And we need to make time to read to them from the very youngest ages. They should be well into early chapter books by the time they ever start school.   And so, reading as a family is just a wonderful, enjoyable activity. I think that when I say they need to see you reading too, I just want to add that that doesn't mean on your phone. Because for all they know, you're looking at YouTube or Facebook or something like that.   I had a friend who said that she really woke up to this one day when her kids were running through the room and she was reading an actual book and her son stopped and said, what are you doing? It just shocked her because she was a reader, but she didn't often read from an actual book. I do think reading as a family builds a wonderful culture in your home.   It is one of the wonderful ways of keeping a family together. You have common jokes and insights and just conversations because of the things you've been reading together. And Charlotte Mason said that our books are our greatest teachers.   And I think that's because they fertilize a child's imagination. They give them so many ideas about the world that they just can't receive from TV or just our normal life. Reading really is the most countercultural thing that you can do.   It slows down our life, the pace that we all live at. It gives us time to spend together to relax. It brings a sense of peace in the home.   Just a lot of enjoyment to life. I can't imagine living without books.   Laura Dugger: (15:14 - 15:30) And Liz, I just get so excited to hear you describe all of this and some of the benefits and the culture that's added. Are there any other books you talked about? Little House on the Prairie.   Are there some other chapter books that you have especially fond memories of sharing with your family?   Liz Cottrill: (15:32 - 16:24) Well, it's no secret to the world, if anybody has ever heard me talk or read anything I've written, that Heidi by Johanna Sperry is probably my all-time favorite. I had my six-year-old daughter, my third daughter. I read it to all my kids.   I read all the books through to her over several weeks or whatnot. And at the end, she said, read it again as if it was a little picture book. And so, I just started it over again and we read it again. ‍ ‍   And then I promised her I'd read it to her every year while she was growing up. So, it's a precious book. I love Ralph Moody's Little Britches series for children and all the classic things, Anne of Green Gables and The Yearling.   And oh, my goodness, how many would you like me to say?   Laura Dugger: (16:25 - 16:29) Feel free to share a few more and I will put links to these in the show notes.   Liz Cottrill: (16:30 - 17:39) Well, the Narnia series and The Secret Garden, Where the Red Fern Grows, Little Women, The Singing Tree by Kate. It's pronounced Charity, S-E-R-E-D-Y. I could go on and on.   The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Gouge. Just dozens. And the fact is that great books are still being written today, but they're like a needle in a haystack.   And so, if you go back to books published before 1970, you are going to find just amazing books that still speak to children. Because adventures are always adventures to a child. They don't care if they were driving horse and buggy or old cars.   And books that children loved back in the last century, in the 20th century, it was the golden age of children's literature, they say. There were as many books published in the 1930 to 35 era as were in the previous 500 years for children. And it just grew from there.   Laura Dugger: (17:39 - 17:47) And there are a few reasons for that before 1970. Didn't that have to do with the library and with publishing houses?   Liz Cottrill: (17:48 - 18:40) Yes, the government passed an educational bill, 1964, I believe, President Johnson, that funded school libraries. So, all of a sudden, all of these small county schools and libraries that had very limited resources and had to be very picky and choosy about what books they put into their library had a flood of income. That produced a flood in the publishing houses of producing books of all kinds.   So, there is a lot of junk out there and unhelpful stuff. But the classics that I grew up on back in the 60s, Beverly Cleary and Carolyn Haywood and all the series they wrote for children are just timeless. My grandchildren still enjoy them, even though they like the latest and greatest, too.   Laura Dugger: (18:41 - 24:25) Sure, but that's helpful to have that context to realize that previously it used to be only the best of the best were able to be published. And that changed. And now a brief message from our sponsor.   Did you know you can go to college tuition-free just by being a team member at Chick-fil-A East Peoria? Yes, you heard that right. Free college education. All Chick-fil-A East Peoria team members in good standing are immediately eligible for a free college education through Point University. Point University is a fully accredited private Christian college located in West Point, Georgia.   This online, self-paced program includes 13 associate's degrees, 17 bachelor's degrees, and two master's programs, including an MBA. 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Your money will go to support creatively getting the gospel message of Jesus Christ to the nations as we continue to share the good news on every episode.   And I say this is reaching the nations because The Savvy Sauce podcast is downloaded in all 50 United States, as well as over 100 countries around the world. Your financial support also supports practical needs, such as aiding our team to continue producing helpful content that is practical and uplifting and always pointing to Jesus. Your financial support, furthermore, will help us continue to expand our reach and secure future projects we have planned for this ministry.   If your ears are hearing this message right now, I am specifically asking you to give. We are so grateful for any amount, and our team will continue to seek to be good stewards of the gifts offered to us. 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We are all about sharing around here, sharing resources, sharing joy, and sharing the good news about Jesus Christ. ‍   We ask that you also will share by sharing financially, sharing The Savvy Sauce podcast episodes, and sharing a five-star rating and review. You can also share any of our social media posts on Instagram or Facebook. We are grateful for all of it, and we just love partnering together with you.   Now, back to the show.   In addition to reading, handicrafts are another piece of the Charlotte Mason education. So, can you explain what is meant by that term handicrafts?   Liz Cottrill: (24:26 - 25:45) Well, it's a huge arena of things, but it's basically learning to work with your hands, doing purposeful tasks, making things that will make life beautiful. So, it's aesthetic as well as useful. So, I think we all could see that learning to knit is great fine motor training for a child, but being able to make a handmade sweater for someone is serviceable and lovely.   But all kinds of things, woodworking, embroidery and sewing, paper folding and origami, clay modeling, weaving, all of these things, basically a child can start at the rudimentary stage and develop over the years. And there was a huge emphasis with Charlotte Mason that these crafts would then give children opportunity to help and serve others. So, if you know how to work well with your hands, you'll be able to help someone change a tire, or you will be able to make cookies or gifts for people who are sick or shut in or lonely.   Just you'll be a useful person. And she was very interested in the whole person, not just training the mind.   Laura Dugger: (25:46 - 26:02) And I would love to know, I'm sure there's a lot of brain science behind this, even like we know that movement and physical activity, that there is a mind-body connection and how that even unlocks emotions. So, I wonder what is freed up when we work with our hands?   Liz Cottrill: (26:03 - 27:04) One of the things for little children in school, because this was part of the morning lessons, the training process the first few years, as they get older, they work more in that free afternoon time we were talking about. But it gives them a rest from all the effort of paying attention and thinking through things in school. And then there are just the benefits that we all benefit from serving other people.   We all benefit when we are doing something productive and not just rambling around the house, bored and looking out the windows and causing mischief too. So, I think it benefits the mother in many ways, because the children are trained up to learn how to do chores and housework. So, the whole family can be working together.   They can learn how to garden together. That can be a handicraft, for example, that brings in food. And then they can learn to can as they get older.   And, you know, the sky is the limit.   Laura Dugger: (27:06 - 27:32) That's really helpful to hear. And regardless of schooling choice, there is another Charlotte Mason principle that we all may relate to in parenting in general. And she explains the principles of authority on the one hand and obedience on the other are natural, necessary and fundamental.   So, what can this look like in our parenting?   Liz Cottrill: (27:33 - 29:31) You know, she also said that we as parents are deputed as the authority of our children by God. And I think when we realize that this is a God given office that we hold and by authority, I know a lot of people recoil a bit in our day and age, but she meant that we were made by God to lead and guide and protect the children under our care. And children naturally look to us for those things, don't they?   So, when that relationship is understood and a parent is comfortable with the fact that they are the authority in their child's life, the children stay in that role most naturally, too. They respond with trust and obedience. So, loving leadership, you know, is not, as some people think when we say authority over your child, it is not like being overbearing and dictatorial and arbitrary or inconsistent.   And, you know, both ends of that spectrum are a disrespect of the child as made in the image of God. And as someone who God has entrusted to you to bring up, to know him. So, much of what is considered love in our era is just pure child centeredness or indulgence of the child.   We think that's love and love and discipline go hand in hand. And by discipline, I don't mean corporal punishment at all. I think there are many ways to guide a child that help them feel that security, that someone knows the boundaries, that I'm safe within this space.   I have a lot of freedom as long as I obey within these limits. I think we're all like that, right.   Laura Dugger: (29:32 - 29:45) Absolutely. And you parented six children. So, what insight do you have for helping us teach our children to distinguish between I want and I will?   Liz Cottrill: (29:46 - 32:01) And this was a very helpful thing when I started reading Charlotte Mason, to have her distinguish some of these things, because, you know, as parents, we can get into power struggles with our children because we tell them or ask them or prefer them to do a certain thing. And they just don't want to. So, she taught that the will is our decision maker.   It's what causes us to choose things. It's our independence. I can say yes to this or no to this.   Right. But this is sometimes a struggle, even for us adults. I mean, the candy bar is laying there.   You know, you shouldn't eat it, but you want to. So, we all have big and little struggles with what we want versus what we know we ought to do. And she said children should have a sense of ought that they should know there is a right and a wrong.   So, she talked about how we can teach our children what we should do is what helps the other person or gives them their due rights. But the will can get kind of weary of making a lot of decisions, too. And we all talk in our day and age about decision fatigue.   Right. And so, she taught parents to teach a practice with their children how to rest the will when it is in that struggle or turmoil of having to decide whether I will clean my room because mother has asked me. But I do not want to do this nasty job.   So, she said to teach them how to turn their thoughts momentarily to some other thing. Think about something pleasant and desirable that you love just for a moment and then return to the decision at hand, and you will discover that automatically your will is stronger and able to do what it ought to do instead of just what you want to do. And it's really the whole call of Christ on all of our lives.   You know, he said, follow me, lay down your life, don't serve yourself, but serve others. And those are hard things. But when we think of him and the joy of serving him, they become easier to us.   And so, we're beginning to train our children to that habit, too.   Laura Dugger: (32:02 - 32:32) And like you said, yes, that's beneficial to all of us. Charlotte Mason is also quoted saying, the question is not how much does the youth know when he has finished his education, but how much does he care? So, Liz, from your experience home educating many children, how can each of us bring up our own children so that they do care and they do desire to be lifelong learners?   Liz Cottrill: (32:33 - 35:10) I think first is to recognize that every child has an innate desire to learn. A baby is curious from day one, right? We just see them interested in everything.   They're interested in things we have long since forgotten about. They notice everything. And in Charlotte Mason's method of educating, the entire curriculum was called a feast because there were so many different kinds of things.   You know, it's like a big smorgasbord for learning. And I think that in itself builds a lot of care and interest. You know, I think it's also the way God gave us his word and his world and said, taste and see that the Lord is good.   So, when we let our children learn a little bit of this and a little bit of that, they are tasting all kinds of things and discovering new delights all the time and things they would never have noticed or been interested in otherwise. I think it is not pushing our children ever in school. We have very false ideas sometimes about the level a child should be at.   We think more is better all the time. And we're always either pushing or pulling them, dragging them through where they're not really quite ready. I think it's also not leaning on rewards or penalties when it comes to school subjects, especially.   They're maybe not the best idea of parenting in any arena, but knowledge, Charlotte Mason said, is delectable. All kinds of knowledge. And I think that this carries over outside of school to help a childcare is to talk about interesting things with them all the time.   I think in general; parents don't talk to their children a whole lot anymore. We don't have just conversations on other topics that are not currently the hot thing on social media or something.   Interesting your children in a lot of different things is like amending your garden soil in the spring, you know, adding lots of different things so that you ensure a good crop. I think that when you give your children a little of this and that, you are automatically appealing to their instinctive curiosity. And you're giving them the idea that there are dozens and hundreds of things to know and they pursue them then.   Laura Dugger: (35:11 - 35:43) Well, learning is such a value in part because we hope to grow wise and provide a home environment where our children can grow wise as well. And it makes me think of Proverbs 9 10 that says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. So, how can we experience the Holy Spirit as our supreme educator and encourage our children in the same way?   Liz Cottrill: (35:44 - 37:01) Our children have a natural thirst for knowledge and truth. It's in the heart of every person who's made in God's image. And the spirit, of course, is the one who leads us into all truth.   There is no truth that is not God's truth. So, you stand as a teacher in Charlotte Mason's way of teaching. You are outside in a way you recognize that your child is the learner, and you are just presenting the lessons and the feast.   And it is amazing to see how the spirit does work in our children. One morning, this was brought home to me just personally by the Lord when I was reading the beginning of the book of Mark to my boys during our Bible lesson. And when I got to the phrase where John the Baptist says, “prepare the way of the Lord.” It was like the Holy Spirit tapped on my shoulder and said, “that is what you will be doing all morning.”   Because we don't know what God is going to use in their life. And the Holy Spirit does. So, I think it's a lot of trust that he is active and breathing life into our school lessons.   Laura Dugger: (37:02 - 37:03) I love that.   Liz Cottrill: (37:03 - 37:52) Prepare the way for the Lord. Yes. And, you know, we just are constantly amazed at what our children's insights into the scripture are.   But they have those insights when they're doing an art lesson and looking at a beautiful painting. They'll say, oh, this reminds me of or they receive instruction morally from their stories that they're reading. And even in geography and natural sciences, you know, they're seeing all the things God's made and it increases their wonder.   And, you know, the Holy Spirit speaks to them in all kinds of areas. So, I think allowing them to explore and engage, which, you know, traditional workbooks and textbooks do not allow for as much.   Laura Dugger: (37:53 - 38:37) Well, and even as you're speaking, it makes me think about Philippians 2:13, because you're talking about the part that is our part to do. But it also says, for God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. So, that is helpful to realize we can help prepare the way for the Lord.   But he's the one who's going to give us and our children the desire to obey and learn these things. Well, and kind of on that topic, what control do you believe that we as parents have to influence the divine life of our child?   Liz Cottrill: (38:39 - 40:38) Well, I think God, in all his wisdom, made parents to be the primary influence in our child's life. You know, Deuteronomy talks about to teach these things to your children while you walk and while you sit and while you lie down and all those things. I'm not quoting it exactly, of course, here.   But so, it's a way of life. We have our mind on God, and he is the center of our life. Our children are automatically going to assume that that is a normal way of being.   But, you know, to a baby, we actually are God to them. We control everything for their life. And so, they begin learning and they're going to have their view of the world and of God shaped by our attitude toward our children, by our behavior toward them, the way we care for them.   If God is our orientation, he's going to be there when we're having fun or even in our discipline moments. God is going to be our reference point as a family. So, they grow up in this culture where God is first, and we look to him and everything.   And I don't mean this means we have to talk to our children about God all the time, but I think it's a pattern of life. I also think that as parents, we teach our children much about God and how to live with him and others in the world. When we are humble Ourselves, when we go to our children, when we have offended them and ask their forgiveness, when we have behavior issues with them and we ask God for wisdom with our child.   We just bring prayer or his wisdom into situations naturally. And I think they just automatically assume or realize our reverence for God by our own demeanor, our own attitude toward God every day Ourselves.   Laura Dugger: (40:39 - 40:45) Well, and furthermore, what do you see the gospels teaching us about God's view of children?   Liz Cottrill: (40:48 - 45:12) I'll tell you, this was my biggest turning point in accepting Charlotte Mason's method of teaching, because I thought if this was what she said was at the heart of her educational method, I could trust her to learn about the things I didn't understand about her method yet. I think it begins with realizing what Jesus said that you cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you do so as a little child. And why is that?   Because children are naturally humble. They're naturally weak. They're naturally poor in spirit.   And he said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So, it helps us to remember when we're working with children that this is God's way, because our children can cause some friction in our life, right? They can be obstinate and oppositional and irritating and slow and whining and frustrating.   It's natural for us to push back on those things. But when we realize their character is being formed, that we're accountable to God for these things, then her three rules from the gospels that we should not offend children, which means we don't sin against them. We don't hurt their body or their feelings.   We treat them as we would treat our own friends. We would never say things to our friends that we all feel quite free to say to our children sometimes. And we need the humility, like I've said before, to go to them and ask their forgiveness and to pray with them and to reconcile with our child and not just assume, oh, well, they'll understand when they're older or just, I guess it didn't hurt them that much.   We should never assume those things. Jesus said, do not despise the children. So, when we don't think that they're worthy of the best books, that they are worthy of learning important ideas straight from the truth of books, and we think they have to have dumbed down materials that are just shaped for their, what we consider thimble full of ability.   I think when we're impatient with our children in school lessons and, you know, as a homeschool mom, I did it for so long and I know how easy it is, but we have to ask God for the patience and kindness of Jesus. And we can just very easily dismiss our children that their thoughts are silly. We can belittle them for ideas they have.   We can use our words to make them feel small. And I think Jesus was saying, don't despise them. And then the third thing he said was not to hinder them.   And again, I think by holding them back, by not allowing them to progress when they're ready to learn more, by assuming that they're too young for this or that, sometimes I think we're babying them too much and holding them back. That's a hindrance. I think that especially middle school boys, we don't like them to be growing up, and we don't allow them to exert some of the independence that's just natural with them getting to that age.   So, we just need to remove things in our lives that are going to make school a struggle for them, which doesn't mean we don't require them to learn, but we need to allow them to make mistakes. I mean, how are they going to learn to solve math problems if we're always saying, no, you're doing it the wrong way, and take it out of their hands and show them the way we do it. It's better for them to get the understanding by trying several times.   We let them do this when they're learning to walk and talk. When they start talking, they say things, and only we as mothers know what they're asking for because it isn't clear yet. Well, that is true of every single area of their life.   So, not hindering them means that we work with them and allow them to grow up into the things that they're getting understanding about. And I think sometimes in school lessons, not hindering them is just if they have trouble keeping their hands busy doing what they're supposed to be doing, then let's remove everything in their reach that is going to tempt them to fool around and not pay attention.   Laura Dugger: (45:13 - 45:26) Well, as parents, if we focused on nothing else, what is your highest recommendation for cultivating a moral and righteous character in our children?   Liz Cottrill: (45:28 - 46:32) Well, obviously reading the Bible to your children is a wonderful moral instructor. But I think that novels and poetry and tales, fairy tales, fables, all those things are the children's best teacher. Charlotte Mason said, knowledge touched with emotion is what our minds absorb.   And so, when you're reading a book and you become excited or tense or nervous, I mean, you can watch heart monitors and EEGs, how the mind changes when we're reading different parts of things. And as a parent, a book is the third party that the child will accept much more easily than if we just try to instruct them. I think books engage their imagination and kind of give them a chance to practice life in a safe way.   So, they may have thought that doing a particular thing is a smart idea. But when they encounter a heroine in a book who does it and it doesn't turn out well for her, then they learned a lesson safely.   Laura Dugger: (46:33 - 46:55) I love that thinking about the book as a third party and maybe even a mentor, someone to partner with us to help cultivate that character. And Liz, you have so much to offer, even with your living books, library and your podcast and so many things. If we want to learn more from you after this conversation, where would you like to direct us online?   Liz Cottrill: (46:56 - 47:45) Well, on our website, A Delightful Education dot com, we do have some teacher training videos, we call them, but anybody would be welcome to watch those. And I have done a whole hour long talk about moral instruction through all kinds of literature for children that would, I'm sure, be of interest to any parent, regardless of what educational method they follow. I've made videos on how to teach a child to read and how to keep the wrong books out of their hands and things like that.   So, that would be one specific, but https://www.livingbookslibrary.com. We haven't done a lot with that website, but it's still there. And there are lots of blogs and archives that I've written about children and books and discipline and things like that.   Laura Dugger: (47:45 - 48:03) Wonderful. We will link to that in the show notes for today's episode. And Liz, you may already be familiar that we're called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge.   And so, as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?   Liz Cottrill: (48:05 - 48:57) You know, I think as a Christian parent, the best thing you can do for your child is to spend time alone with God yourself every day, even if it's three minutes. We need to learn to listen to him and his word, and we need to bring our concerns to him and orient Ourselves to him because the job we have before us is life and death, really. And if I was to add to that, I would say, learn to really listen to your child.   They're telling you all kinds of things, and we need to hear what's really in their heart and deal with their heart issues. And that's probably why I say spending time with God, not only for our own personal growth and maturity, but it is our lifeline as a parent to be able to have wisdom for our children.   Laura Dugger: (48:58 - 49:22) Well, and Liz, you have modeled that so well, and you're just a wealth of knowledge. And it's been encouraging just to hear your courageous decisions, even going back to choosing to homeschool at a time when it was not even legal, but trusting in your Lord. And you've modeled that for all of us today.   So, thank you for all that you've shared. And thank you for being my guest.   Liz Cottrill: (49:23 - 50:22) Well, I am so appreciative of your wonderful questions and thought-provoking things that you've asked. And can I just add one other thing? Oh, please do.   So, I don't know if your listeners are aware of the fact that I am totally blind and have been since birth. And so, I know how scary it is to venture out into homeschooling. I know what a struggle it is to find books to read because there weren't a lot available to me as a blind mother, either for school or just for fun.   So, I just think that one of the reasons God planned for me to have this handicap through my life is just to encourage moms that we really do need God's sight and wisdom. And no difficulty you have before you is too great for Him to help you to navigate the waters of raising children.   Laura Dugger: (50:22 - 54:17) That is beautifully said. And I just appreciate you sharing that. Thank you for opening up to us and what an incredible perspective you have. So, thank you, Liz.   One more thing before you go.   Have you heard the term gospel before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you.   But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves. This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own.   So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much.   He made a way for his only son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with him. That is good news.   Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what he has done for us.   Romans 10:9 says, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So, would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to take our place.   I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to you. Will you clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare you as Lord of their life? We trust you to work and change lives now for eternity.   In Jesus name we pray. Amen. If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring him for me, so me for him.   You get the opportunity to live your life for him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned.   So, you ready to get started? First, tell someone. Say it out loud.   Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible and I love it.   You can start by reading the book of John. Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.   We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read scripture that describes this process. And finally, be encouraged.   Luke 15:10 says, in the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. And if you've already received this good news, I pray you have someone to share it with.   You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.‍

Trigger Warning: This discussion includes references to suicide, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Please take care while listening/reading, and step away if needed. If you or someone you know is struggling, consider reaching out to a trusted person or call 988 for the suicide hotline."The Return of Mr. Edwards” is one of the series' darkest examinations of despair. After a crippling logging accident leaves Isaiah unable to walk, the man who once embodied rough-edged warmth, strength, and frontier vitality turns inward,becoming angry, self-destructive, and nearly unrecognizable to the people who love him. In Victor French's performance, the episode reaches back toward the harder, more menacing screen.Victor French brought warmth, humor, grit, and humanity to every role he played. He had a rare gift: he made people feel seen. Beneath the tough exterior was a deeply compassionate spirit, and that sincerity resonated with generations of viewers. And this episode is the epitome of all that Victor encompassed.We also remember Victor Allen French, who made his debut as his father's stand-in during this episode. Victor Allen passed away from cancer on April 6, 2026, and we honor him today. He became such an important part of our Prairie family, carrying his father's legacy and sharing that spirit with fans around the world. As we reflect on both father and son, we hold space for the joy they brought and the lasting impact they leave behind.May their memories continue to inspire kindness, empathy, laughter, and connection. They will not be forgotten.Links and Resources: Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast... PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events! To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweet www.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Episode 185 Ch. 11 of Little House on the Prairie, "Miss Wilder Teaches School". Join us this week as we discuss Eliza Jane Wilder, Ida Wright Brown, Rev. Edward Brown, Genevieve Masters, what a "polonaise" is, a jabot of lace, "With double a ruffle round her neck", "The Whip-Poor-Will's Song", and whippoorwills.

his week, we couldn't record a full recap episode because Dean was in Washington, D.C. doing important things! Instead, we're sharing an exclusive clip from a longer conversation that will be released on Patreon on Monday, May 11.In this preview, Dean talks about his visit to the Library of Congress and how Little House on the Prairie has a surprising presence there. We also get into unexpected connections between Star Trek and Prairie, the music of David Rose, and the quietly powerful experience of being inside the U.S. Capitol.For the full 45-minute conversation, join us on Patreon. You'll hear about Dean and Alison's trip to Ocean City, Maryland—where the crab was hot and the cars were hotter—before diving into the rest of Dean's time in Washington, D.C., from meeting Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben, the Chaplain of the House of Representatives, to the moments that left him feeling hopeful, inspired, and connected to something larger.Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Cindy Wilson returns to the show to help me discuss Barn Burner! Check out Cindy’s newest book, We Suffered Much: Charles Wood Irish and the Dakota Territory Railroad Survey of 1879-1881 https://www.amazon.com/We-Suffered-Much-Territory-1879-1881-ebook/dp/B0D3S7ZTMH “Jonathan loses his cool at Jud Larrabee for not keeping his word about not changing their prices when someone comes along to buy grain from them. Later, Larrabee goes to Jonathan’s to “get back” but finds his son, Andy, and attacks him. Andy goes to his father and they go back home and they find their barn on fire. They think Larrabee did it so they go and arrest him. He’s brought to trial. Larrabee claims what happened to Andy was an accident and that he didn’t burn the barn.” Barn Burner originally aired on February 19, 1979 The opening song “Albert” is written and performed by the amazing Norwegian band, Project Brundlefly and is used with permission. Check them out at: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBrundlefly Become a Patron! The post Revisiting Barn Burner first appeared on The Little House on the Prairie Podcast: Walnut GroveCast.

What happened a century ago, may explain what's happening today. Enjoy this episode? Please consider leaving a rating & review on your podcast player. For inquiries and feedback, please email sgepodcast@outlook.com. Resources: Youtube - ‘Most Haunted Unseen - The Mermaid Inn' - uploaded by most haunted vids - September 17th, 2012 Youtube - ‘Eerie Encounters: Inside Mermaid Inn - World's Scariest Hauntings - S01 EP6 - Paranormal Documentary' - uploaded by Banijay Documentaries - September 22nd, 2023  The Mermaid Inn website - https://www.mermaidinn.com/  Wikipedia - The Mermaid Inn, Rye - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mermaid_Inn,_Rye  Wikipedia - Wattle and daub - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wattle_and_daub  Historic England - Mermaid House The Mermaid Hotel - https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1251961?section=official-list-entry  Wayback Machine - The Mermaid Inn, Rye - https://web.archive.org/web/20110815231924/http://www.mermaidinn.com/history.html  Little House of Horrors - THE MERMAID INN  - By Sonja - June 14th, 2025 - https://thelittlehouseofhorrors.com/the-mermaid-inn/ The History Press - Hawkhurst: The story of smuggling in the 18th Century - by Joseph Dragovich - April 13th, 2023 - https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article/hawkhurst-the-story-of-smuggling-in-the-18th-century/  The Novium Museum - ‘The Hawkhurst Gang' - by Portia Tremlett - https://www.thenovium.org.uk/article/28843/The-Hawkhurst-Gang  Rye News - ‘The fascinating history of the Rye's Mermaid Inn' - by Michael Montagu - December 19th, 2024 - http://ryenews.org.uk/culture/the-fascinating-history-of-ryes-mermaid-inn  Pellicle Magazine website - ‘Cinque Ports - How Medieval Law Shaped the Pubs of Rye, East Sussex' - by Fred Garratt-Stanley - April 2nd 2025 - https://www.pelliclemag.com/home/2025/3/21/cinque-ports-how-medieval-law-shaped-the-pubs-of-rye#:~:text=%22The%20cellars%20here%20are%20nearly,States%20to%20secure%20the%20deal Haunted Rooms - “ALL ENGLAND HOTELS: The Haunted Mermaid Inn, Rye, East Sussex” - https://www.hauntedrooms.co.uk/product/mermaid-inn-rye-east-sussex  Exploring Great Britain - “The Mermaid Inn, Rye: One Of Britain's Most Haunted Inns” -  https://www.exploringgb.co.uk/blog/the-mermaid-inn-rye-haunted  Send us your listener questions to ⁠bit.ly/AskYOC⁠. Become a member on ⁠Buy Me A Coffee⁠ for as little as $1/month to support the show.  Get your groceries and essentials delivered in as fast as 1 hour via Instacart. Free delivery on your first 3 orders. Min $10 per order. ⁠Terms apply⁠. You can write to us at: Ye Olde Crime Podcast, PO Box 341, Wyoming, MN 55092. Leave us a rating and review on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, ⁠Podchaser⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠Podcast Addict⁠, ⁠Audible⁠, or ⁠Goodpods⁠! Don't forget to follow us on ⁠Twitter⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠Threads⁠, ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠TikTok⁠, and ⁠YouTube⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're going through something difficult take courage from this quote that came across my path last week. "Most troubles are not as black as they seem if you pull them into the sunshine and shine the light on them." - Robert Alden. Here's yet another quote that came across my path while playing a game on my phone. “A single Sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” St Francis of Assisi (as well as my Word Cookies game). The sun is so good for us in so many ways. This episode is a continuation of last week's episode, so listen and share, you'll be Happy you did. Podcast links  Our podcast on the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses with my chiropractor Dr. Tye Bratfvold https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/happylife/episodes/2020-11-02T05_00_00-08_00  National Library of Medicine article https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2290997 The song we used for the intro was "Are You Happy" by Primitive Radio Gods. The ending song was "Make Someone Happy" by Jimmy Durante. We also used used "Little House" by David Rose, "Good Day Sunshine" by The Beatles and "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp. We don't own any rights. Contact usLinktree: www.Linktr.ee/HappyLifeStudiosEmail: Podcast@HappyLife.StudioYo Stevo Hotline: (425) 200-HAYS (4297)Webpage: www.HappyLife.lol YouTube: www.YouTube.com/StevoHaysLinkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/steve-hays-b6b1186b/TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@happylifestudiosFacebook: www.Facebook.com/HappyLifeStudios Instagram: www.Instagram.com/HappyLife_Studios Twitter: www.x.com/stevehays If you would like to help us spread the HappyPayPal: www.PayPal.me/StevoHaysCash App: $HappyLifeStudiosZelle: StevoHays@gmail.comVenmo: @StevoHaysBuy Me A Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/HappyLifeStudioCheck: Payable to Hays Ministries or Steve Hays and send to 27240 213th Place S.E. Maple Valley, WA 98038

This week, we dive into one of the most quietly devastating episodes of the series: “My Ellen” — and honestly, may have emotionally wrecked an entire generation of children who were just expecting, you know… a nice pond day. Can we say TRAUMA ON THE PRAIRIE?!What starts as a classic Walnut Grove hang—Laura, Mary, Carrie, and their friend Ellen Taylor heading out for a carefree swim—takes a sudden and deeply upsetting turn when Ellen accidentally drowns. Trauma #1 !From there, the episode shifts into something even more haunting. Ellen's mother, Eloise, spirals into grief that manifests as blame, denial, and eventually a full psychological break. Laura becomes the target—first as someone to blame, then as someone to replace her lost daughter. Casual! Totally normal emotional trajectory! Definitely what kids tuned in for at 8pm! Trauma #2 !And then—because this episode apparently decided emotional devastation needed a B-plot—we get Busby. Sweet, gentle, minding-his-own-business Busby. A classic “gentle giant” figure, he's immediately misunderstood by the town , and before you can say “maybe let's ask a follow-up question,” he's framed for the abduction (and suspected murder of Ellen) and shot. Shot! In what is already an episode about a child drowning! Trauma #3 !We talk about how Busby represents yet another layer of tragedy here: the danger of fear, mob mentality, and assumptions. Busby is in the dreaded Vortex of one-episode wonders--but we want more of him!We talk about how shockingly raw this episode is, especially for younger viewers, and how Little House doesn't soften the edges of grief here. There's no quick resolution, no neat moral bow—just a portrayal of loss that is messy, frightening, and painfully human. It's a bold swing for a family show, and one that still lands decades later.Bring tissues. And maybe don't watch this one right before bed.Then, join us on Patreon where we delve deeper into My Ellen, and the reason why Michael Landon would have these cinematic, one-off episodes, centering on outside characters never to be seen again.FINALLY! The Jan Broberg Show has re-released her podcast interview with Alison--and it is a must listen! direct episode: Listen Here!https://janbrobergfoundation.org/podcast/Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

This is an experimental episode that Lydia Kikuchi and her friend Saya Ishida were kind enough to help me with. “The mysterious decline in Mary’s school performance is explained when Charles discovers that she needs glasses; but the joyous self-confidence that comes with Mary’s improved eyesight is short-lived after Nellie and Willie incite the rest of the class to call her “Four Eyes” and tease that she’ll end up a spinster like teacher, Miss Beadle.” Four Eyes originally aired on September 17, 1975 The opening song “Albert” is written and performed by the amazing Norwegian band, Project Brundlefly and is used with permission. Check them out at: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBrundlefly Become a Patron! The post Four Eyes (in Japanese) first appeared on The Little House on the Prairie Podcast: Walnut GroveCast.

[Content Warning]: Sexual abuse and mature languageToday, Jan is joined by the one and only Alison Arngrim! She discusses her experiences with abuse and her involvement in The National Association to Protect Children, where she currently serves as California Chair, National Spokesperson and Founding Board Member.  Jan and Alison discuss the impact of child abuse on development, the global crisis of child abuse, future plans and advocacy, upcoming events, such as the 50th anniversary of Little House on the Prairie, and the importance of hope, resilience, laughter, and courage.Alison Arngrim is best known for her role as the nasty Nellie Oleson on "Little House on the Prairie” and continues to amuse audiences through film, tv, stage and multimedia performances. Her one woman show "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" has become a worldwide phenomenon. As a stand-up comedian, she has headlined at major comedy clubs and currently stars in two comedy series pilots including “Life Interrupted” and “C.P.R. She frequently mocks her "ex-child star" image on talk shows and won TV Land's "Character Most Desperately In Need of a Time Out" award in 2006. After co-star Steve Tracy died of AIDS complications in 1986, Arngrim began volunteering for AIDS Project LA.  She later managed a nonprofit assisting families affected by HIV/AIDS. Currently a spokesperson for PROTECT, Arngrim advocates for stronger child protection laws and has shared her own story of childhood sexual abuse. Arngrim resides in Tujunga with her husband of 20+ years. She takes pride in being hated as Nellie and is happy to give people the chance to continue to do so.Where You Can Find Alison:Facebook: Alison ArngrimInsta: alisonarngrimX: @arngrimBonnetheads.comSupport Protect.orgBuy Alison's Book!:Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Olsen and Learned To Love Being HatedIf you or someone you know is experiencing emotional distress or suicidal ideation, please access the resources below:National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call/Text 988National Sexual Assault Hotline  (RAINN) : 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)National Alliance for Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264Subscribe / Support / Contact:

This week on the Little House 50 Podcast, we leave Walnut Grove for the bustling metropolis of Milwaukee—where, apparently, high school reunions were just as awkward in the 1800s as they are now.Charles Ingalls is in town representing Hero Township at the Grange convention, while Caroline Ingalls attends her 25th high school reunion. Reconnecting with old classmates, they quickly realize… maybe not everyone aged gracefully—emotionally speaking.On the Grange side, Charles discovers that large, wealthy farming operations are beginning to squeeze out the small farmers. And as expected, he is absolutely not having it. He launches into full speech mode, urging his fellow farmers to stand up, push back, and protect their way of life. Prairie union rep energy, activated.Meanwhile, Caroline is taking in the reunion scene and noticing a pattern: sure, her former classmates may have money and status, but they also seem deeply unhappy—and, in some cases, a little too eager for attention. (Can we say "Thirst trap on the Prairie"?!) Envy quickly gives way to clarity, as she realizes these “success stories” come with some serious cracks.As the episode unfolds, it becomes clear that appearances are doing a lot of heavy lifting. Carolina's marriage is strained and unfulfilling, Amy's polished life slips when she makes a bold—and very inappropriate—move on Charles, and Dylan's financial success comes paired with some major red flags, revealing a darker, more controlling side.By the end, the Ingallses walk away with a renewed appreciation for the life they've built—proving that integrity and love beat a flashy façade any day.Join us as we unpack farmer politics, comparison spirals, and why turning off that bedroom light felt incredibly satisfying—and fully earned.Then, join us on Patreon, where we spill the beans on our own personal High School Reunion stories--the good, the bad, and the ugly!Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Anchored by the Sword Podcast!I am so excited for today's episode because this is Part 2 of our 3-part series all about the brand new TV series, Sugarcreek Amish Mysteries—and you guys, this one is so special.Today, I'm sitting down with Denise Gossett, who plays Naomi in the series—and not only that, her real-life daughter plays Esther. How incredible is that?! And if you've been following along, you already alongside this cast and crew and build real relationships on set was something I'll never forget.In this episode, Denise shares her story—from being a young girl who knew she wanted to act, to stepping into a full career in film and television… and ultimately trusting God in one of the biggest leaps of her life.We talk about:​Her journey into acting (and how “being naïve” actually helped her step into her calling)​Working alongside her daughter in the series as a real-life mother/daughter duo​What it looked like to leave LA, trust God, and still see Him provide more than expected​The struggle of control vs. surrender—and why worry and faith can't coexist​How she stays anchored (including her love for opening the Bible and letting God speak in the moment)​

Episode 270, April 19, 2026-America and the West has been trafficking, buying, and selling human babies for years. We lie and claim we're not. But we are. We call it "surrogacy." It's evil. -More out of control women caught on camera! -Potpourri du Moquerie featuring: Zombie grannies stealing fishing poles and biting young men, a preview of the new Little House on the Prairie reboot, and beef (curtains) between Katy Perry and Ruby Rose. Did you like the show? Throw us some cash support! https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted... -Disaffected is sponsored by purveyors of the finest cured meats. Visit biltongusa.com and use promo code JOSH to get 10 percent off your order. -Slocum Consulting: You can book an hour with Josh on video to talk about troubled relationships, political clashes at work, and more. If you're looking for someone who won't call your concerns "crazy," Josh is the guy you want. Book at https://www.joshuaslocum.netSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Omni Talk Retail Fast Five Lightning Round segment closes out the show with rapid-fire questions on pop culture, personal stories, and unexpected hot takes. Chris Walton, Jennifer Meyers, and John Benson debate Team Alex Cooper vs. Team Alex Earle, share strange DoorDash experiences, discuss the Little House on the Prairie reboot, and weigh in on the Boston Marathon. ⏩ Tune in for the full episode here: https://youtu.be/DuDBhMyLkoo #LightningRound #AlexCooper #AlexEarle #DoorDash #LittleHouseOnThePrairie #BostonMarathon #PopCulture #RetailFastFive #OmniTalk #RetailNews

Dr. Bob Thompson has the latest entertainment news including a Little House on the Prairie reboot and QVC is filing for bankruptcy

This week, we welcome special guest Raven Stone — Michigan-based comedian, songwriter, and TikTok content wizard — whose pop culture brain and razor-sharp humor make him the perfect guide through one of the most unhinged episodes of Little House on the Prairie: “Whisper Country.”And wow… this one is not just off the rails — it never knew rails existed.Raven dives in with us to unpack his own TikTok Prairie videos (they're hilarious!), and then the chaos, bringing his signature pop culture takes and comedic timing to questions like: Why does this episode feel like Little House cosplaying as a gothic horror? Why is everyone making choices that scream “this won't end well”? And most importantly — who approved this tonal left turn?! (I'm looking at you, Michael Landon!We do a mini recap of this wildly bananas one-off where Mary Ingalls stumbles into what can only be described as "Prairie Cult Realness.". There's a mysterious town, Children of the Corn-style kiddos, an unhinged cult leader, and an entire plot that feels like it wandered in from a completely different TV show and refused to leave. Is it a ghost story? A psychological thriller? A fever dream Mary had after eating questionable trail stew? The answer is...yes?Expect laughs, confusion, and a deep appreciation for the sheer audacity of Raven Stone and “Whisper Country.” It's strange, it's spooky, and it's proof that even on the prairie… things can get real weird.Then, join us on Patreon, where we talk with Raven about nostalgia and why it has become such an important and popular genre! It's fascinating and very insightful.Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvRaven StoneMrStoneAuthor@gmail.comIG/TikTok @mrravenstoneSpotify: @ Raven Stone Social Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Colleen tries "Trust Me: The False Prophet," Jason and Colleen can't recommend "Rooster" enough, Colleen tries to talk Jason and Holly into watching "Ted Lasso," the final season of "Hacks" is a bittersweet watch and the trailer for the Netflix "Little House on the Prairie" just droppedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cindy Pearlman Gaber, senior writer for the New York Times and entertainment columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, joins Bob Sirott to talk about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, a “Hunger Games” prequel, and Netflix’s “Little House on the Prairie.” She also shares details about Lady Gaga’s song for “The Devil Wears […]

(airdate: 4.14.26) Today's Who Cares News is a beautifully chaotic TV-and-celebrity mashup: Netflix gives the Little House on the Prairie reboot the prestige-drama prairie glow-up, ABC keeps comfort crime TV alive with renewals for The Rookie and Will Trent, and Kim Kardashian somehow adds Broadway producer to the résumé because apparently there are still industries left unconquered. Voted 6th Best Entertainment News Podcast! Because being #1 is soooo overrated. And @HalleBerry Listen to the daily Van Camp and Morgan radio show at: https://vancampandmorgan.com/stations buy us a coffee    

This week, we're back in full chaos mode with “The Race". Previously on Little House: Laura loses her beloved horse Bunny thanks to Nellie Oleson's Oscar Award-level brat behavior, and the entire town collectively decides, “Yeah… that kid needs consequences.” Spoiler: She does not really get them.We pick up right where the emotional damage left off. Laura is still being taunted by Nellie (the audacity!) and is understandably ready to go full prairie vengeance. Enter: THE RACE.What begins as a simple competition quickly becomes Walnut Grove's version of Fast & Furious: Horse Girl Drift...with a silver cup as the prize!Once again, it's Laura Ingalls vs. Nellie Oleson, a rivalry now operating at historic levels. And just to make sure Nellie has every possible advantage, enter Harriet Oleson, who does what she does best: throws money at the problem and buys Nellie a brand new horse. Because clearly the lesson here is more horse, less accountability.Meanwhile, Laura is out here with Bunny—icon, legend, moral compass—relying on grit and determination to fuel her training montage.What follows is a race that is equal parts thrilling and deeply stressful, because nothing about this feels safe, supervised, or emotionally regulated. Meanwhile, Bunny continues to be the real star of the show. (Still no clarity, by the way: boy? girl? We demand answers.)We break down the buildup, the blatant favoritism, and the absolute audacity of buying your way into victory. And of course, we get all the behind the scenes tea from Nellie (Alison) herself!Then, join us on Patreon where Muppets once again are part of the conversation, and more delicious behind the scenes stories about Little House, production, and if we're able to watch ourselves on screen after we've finished filming. (Spoiler alert, some of us are not). Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Cori returns to the show to help me revisit this amazing episode! I hope you enjoy it! “While traveling Charles Ingalls struggles with a broken wagon wheel and bad weather trying to get home in time to celebrate his wedding anniversary while, back in Plum Creek, waiting wife Caroline tries to keep worry at bay by entertaining their daughters with the tale of another time she was kept waiting and how she and their father first met.” I Remember, I Remember originally aired on January 23, 1978 The opening song “Albert” is written and performed by the amazing Norwegian band, Project Brundlefly and is used with permission. Check them out at: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBrundlefly Become a Patron! The post Revisiting: I Remember, I Remember first appeared on The Little House on the Prairie Podcast: Walnut GroveCast.

This week on the Little House 50th Anniversary Podcast, we are positively GIDDY to dive into one of the most iconic, unhinged, and endlessly discussed episodes of all time: “Bunny” (Season 3, Episode 2). Truly, if you've listened to this podcast before, you already know—we bring this episode up constantly. And now? It finally gets the full deep-dive treatment it deserves with the villain herself, Alison, who gives us all the behind-the-scenes stories!At the center of it all: sweet Bunny… and Nellie Oleson, who takes “horse girl” to deeply alarming new levels. When Bunny is gifted to Laura Ingalls, it sparks one of the pettiest—and most entertaining—rivalries in Walnut Grove history. Naturally, Nellie responds in the most reasonable way possible: by abusing her own horse, tormenting Laura, and generally behaving like the villain she is.What truly cements this episode in the Little House Hall of Fame, though, is Nellie's absolutely deranged commitment to the bit—faking paralysis after the big fall and milking it for all it's worth. The level of manipulation? Oscar-worthy. The lack of adult skepticism? Truly inspiring. Watching her gleefully torment Laura while confined to a wheelchair is both infuriating and, frankly… kind of impressive?And then—of course—we get the moment. The scene. The reason this episode lives rent-free in all of our minds: Laura Ingalls finally snapping and sending Nellie Oleson flying down that hill in her wheelchair in one of the most satisfying acts of frontier justice ever put to screen. Was it ethical? No. Was it earned? Absolutely.We also ask the hard-hitting questions this episode leaves behind—like… is Bunny a boy? A girl? Do we ever get a clear answer? (Justice for Bunny, who deserved better than being caught in the middle of this chaos.)We break down every chaotic beat, from Nellie's performance of a lifetime to the sheer audacity of that ending. This is the episode. The legend. The one we always talk about—and for good reason.Then, join us on Patreon, where Alison tells us about the psychological benefits of playing a villian, and how being physical on the show (throwing, screaming, bashing) helped her during a personal turbulent childhood.Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Melora Hardin, best known to millions as Jan Levinson on The Office, joins Steve Kmetko for a funny, revealing, and surprisingly wide-ranging conversation about her life and career in Hollywood. Melora looks back on working with Steve Carell, the improvisational magic behind The Office, and why the legendary “Dinner Party” episode still makes her laugh. She also opens up about her early years as a child actor on Little House on the Prairie, working with Michael Landon and Clint Eastwood, her thoughts on AI and creativity, and what it was like seeing Miley Cyrus at 15 during the Hannah Montana movie. Beyond acting, Melora talks about dance, directing, cabaret, parenting in Hollywood, Transparent, Dancing with the Stars, and the creative energy that still drives her after more than 50 years in the business. This is a smart, funny, and honest conversation with one of television's most memorable performers. #MeloraHardin, #TheOffice, #JanLevinson, #SteveCarell, #StillHereHollywood, #SteveKmetko, #LittleHouseOnThePrairie, #Transparent, #MileyCyrus, #Hollywood CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold open, Steve Carell and AI tease 00:49 Intro, Melora Hardin joins the show 02:05 Melora's colorful outfit and new scarf collection 02:43 More than 50 years in show business 03:23 Little House on the Prairie and first screen kiss 05:48 Working with Michael Landon 06:50 Clint Eastwood stories and singing for him 09:24 Did the cast of The Office get along? 10:01 Greg Daniels, improv, and the collaborative set 12:08 Does Melora watch old episodes of The Office? 13:29 The “Dinner Party” episode and breaking on set 15:37 Melora's lifestyle brand, wallpaper, and scarves 16:16 What kind of a kisser was Steve Carell? 16:38 How much improv happened on The Office 19:05 Miley Cyrus at 15 and the making of Hannah Montana 19:35 Melora's thoughts on AI and creativity 23:58 Acting, dancing, singing, directing, and creative energy 25:04 Why ballet didn't become her career 27:34 Playing Baby in Dirty Dancing 29:41 Biggest influences, her parents, and growing up in Hollywood 32:04 What she still wants to do next 34:17 More on Miley Cyrus and child stardom 36:32 Cabaret, singing, and getting through Covid 38:37 Social media, parenting, and raising kids without phones 42:18 Raising grounded children in Hollywood 44:54 Emmy nomination for Transparent 48:14 Why film and TV is the ultimate team sport 50:07 Directing, editing, and her documentary Hunter's Thunder 54:11 Melora on going to the movies 55:30 Dancing with the Stars and loving dance 55:50 From Jan on The Office to Tammy on Transparent 57:03 What she wants next in her career 57:50 Where the name Melora comes from 58:31 Jan's breakup on The Office 59:32 What still “flaps” Melora 1:00:46 Gratitude, family, and staying grounded 1:02:30 Final moments and ruby slippers story Show CreditsHost/Producer: Steve KmetkoAll things technical: Justin ZangerleExecutive Producer: Jim LichtensteinMusic by: Brian Sanyshyn https://stillherehollywood.comhttp://patreon.com/stillherehollywoodSuggest Guests at: stillherehollywood@gmail.comAdvertise on Still Here Hollywood: jim@stillherenetwork.comPublicist: Maggie Perlich: maggie@numbertwelvemarketing.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Once upon a time, back in 2011, we shared the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, beloved author of the Little House series and chronicler of life on the US prairie in the late 1800s. Now, 15 years later, we thought it was time to revisit her with our 2026 eyes (and the mountain of information about her that has been revealed since.) Laura wrote her books based on her life, but how much weight is "based on" carrying? Find out in this episode as we tell her story over the same time span that would later be the setting of her books. She lived a very long life; we'll share the rest of her years in Part Two. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Walnut Grove thought it survived Nellie Oleson… but surprise! Chaos has entered the chat in the form of Nancy—arguably less “reincarnation” and more “escalation.”In Part 2 of "The Reincarnation of Nellie", Nancy fully settles into her role as the new Oleson nightmare, and wow, she does not ease into it. We go from bratty to deeply concerning at record speed. This is the episode where the writers said, “What if Nellie… but with zero conscience?” Nancy lies, manipulates, and—just casually—attempts murder. Truly a bold character choice for a child on a prairie.Meanwhile, Harriet is absolutely thriving, because to her, this is just Nellie 2.0: bigger, louder, and somehow even more committed to being terrible. Nels, as always, looks like a man silently begging for a long walk out of town. Neither of them know they are being played by a ridiculously manipulative Nancy, whose catch phrase "they hate me" is in full swing.But Willie, Albert and Laura know the truth. And after some very questionable choices as their teacher (Where are the HIPPA rules?!), they are going to do something about it (can we say, Public Shaming?)Which brings us to our "learning moment" where Nancy finally faces some consequences. Not to mention, Nancy's grand finale look: the mermaid costume. Because nothing says “I may have just tried to kill someone” like showing up dressed as an aquatic fantasy. It's iconic. It's unhinged. It's Little House at its most chaotic.In short: Nellie walked so Nancy could run… straight into villain territory.Then, join us on Patreon where we discuss the different reincarnations of Nellie--from the books, to the tv show, to the musical, and now to the new Netflix series where they are currently casting! Nellie's coming back, baby--but what will resonate with a current day audience?Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Christina returns to the show to help me dissect and break down the different elements, trials and tribulations between Mary and Adam! I hope you enjoy this candid conversation! The opening song “Albert” is written and performed by the amazing Norwegian band, Project Brundlefly and is used with permission. Check them out at: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBrundlefly Become a Patron! The post Character Discussion: Mary and Adam first appeared on The Little House on the Prairie Podcast: Walnut GroveCast.

On this episode of Currently Reading, Meredith and Elizabeth are discussing: Bookish Moments: Reading modes and finding books for every moment Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately Deep Dive: Which authors' complete works we would take to our hermitage Before We Go: our new segment featuring bookish friend posts and a sleeper hit brought by Elizabeth. Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site). . . . :10 - Bite Size Intro  :51 - Fabled Bookshop :57 - Currently Reading Patreon 2:47 - Our Bookish Moments of the Week 8:23 - Our Current Reads 8:52 - These Is My Words by Nancy Turner (Elizabeth) 10:37 - Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder 10:40 - Centennial by James Michener 11:50 - This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum (Meredith) 16:34 - London Falling by Patrick Raddon Keefe (Elizabeth, pre-order releases April 7, 2026) 17:06 - Defending Jacob by William Landay 17:07 - Someone We Know by Shari Lapena 19:14 - The Plea by Steve Cavanagh (Meredith) 21:40 - Thirteen by Steve Kavanagh 21:41 - Fifty Fifty by Steve Kavanagh 22:40 - The Defense by Steve Kavanagh 24:20 - Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Elizabeth) 28:42 - Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Meredith) ***Each current read this week is 10% off if you order through Fabled Bookshop with the code "currently" 35:47 - Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser 35:58 - Wait for Me by Amy Jo Burns 36:20 - To sign up for Book Lover Weekend head to their website! 37:07 - Deep Dive: The Works of Five Authors for the End of Time Min Jin Lee (Elizabeth) 39:12 - Pachinko by Min Jin Lee  39:16 - American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee Louise Penny - all of them (Meredith) Anthony Horowitz (Elizabeth) 40:22 - Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz 41:02 - Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz Charles Dickens (Meredith) 41:56 - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 42:02 - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 42:07 - Bleak House by Charles Dickens Patrick Radden Keefe (Elizabeth) 42:42 - Dead Wake by Erik Larson David Sedaris (Meredith) Kristen Hannah (Elizabeth) Stephen King (Meredith) 45:46 - Fairy Tale by Stephen King Liz Moore (Elizabeth) 46:31 - Long Bright River by Liz Moore 46:32 - God of the Woods by Liz Moore Debbie Macomber (Meredith) Rick Bragg (Elizabeth) 50:40 - Before We Go Meredith highlights a bookish friend post 51:33 - StoryGraph Elizabeth brings a sleeper hit 52:35 - No One's Coming by Kevin Hazzard 52:40 - Sarah's Bookshelves Live   Support Us: Become a Bookish Friend | Grab Some Merch Shop Bookshop dot org | Shop Amazon Bookish Friends Receive: The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. March's IPL is brought by our lovely friends at An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA. Love and Chili Peppers with Kaytee and Rebekah - romance lovers get their due with this special episode focused entirely on the best selling genre fiction in the business All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the behind-the-scenes insights of an independent bookseller From the Editor's Desk with Kaytee and Bunmi Ishola - a quarterly peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry The Bookish Friends Facebook Group - where you can build community with bookish friends from around the globe as well as our hosts Connect With Us: The Show: Instagram | Website | Email | Threads | Substack | Youtube The Hosts and Regulars: Meredith | Kaytee | Mary | Roxanna Production and Editing: Megan Phouthavong Evans Affiliate Disclosure: All affiliate links go to Bookshop unless otherwise noted. Shopping here helps keep the lights on and benefits indie bookstores. Thanks for your support!

Thank you to everyone subscribing to Somehow UN-Related! It's a lot of fun and we've had some amazing guests so far. Get it here, on Apple Podcasts or go to Nearly.com.au This episode! An ancient Olympic sport and a, becoming ancient, TV show from the USA? Thinking Music Some new intro music! Link to the answer Wikipedia Support the podcasts you enjoy - check out Lenny.fm More about the show - www.nearly.com.au/somehow-related-podcast-with-glenn-robbins-and-dave-oneil/ Somehow Related is produced by Nearly Media. Original theme music by Kit Warhurst. Artwork created by Stacy Gougoulis. Looking for another podcast? The Debrief with Dave O'Neil - Dave's other podcasts with comedians after gigs. The Junkees with Dave O'Neil & Kitty Flanagan - The sweet and salty roundabout! Junk food abounds!Support on Lenny.fm: https://www.lenny.fm/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're diving into Season 8's opener, “The Reincarnation of Nellie – Part 1,” an episode that wastes no time asking: what if we solved emotional problems… with deeply questionable decisions?First shocking news--Nellie and Percival are officially in New York and--surprise!--NEVER COMING BACK. And Harriet Oleson is not handling it well. So naturally, the solution is: adopt a child immediately. No therapy, no hobbies, no self-reflection—just a full human being to fill the Nellie-shaped void. What could possibly go wrong? Enter Nancy, a sweet-faced orphan who—within approximately 30 seconds—sets off every alarm bell known to man. Except, of course, for Harriet, who sees only potential and maybe a chance to relive her glory days of raising a menace.The episode also hits viewers with another big shift: Goodbye to Mary and Adam...FOREVER! A noticeable absence that makes Nancy's arrival feel even more like a “here we go” moment.Nancy, for her part, wastes zero time stepping into Nellie's legacy. The lies are sharper, the manipulation is colder, and the vibes are… unsettling. And Harriet's determined not to notice. Choices? Everywhere. Bad parenting? Thriving. Part 1 is messy, chaotic, and full of “wait, they did WHAT?” energy—and honestly, we're kind of here for it.Then, join us on Patreon where we discuss the caveats of being a child actor. Does it benefit them in the long run? Is it more for the parents than it is for the child? Can a child even really consent? (The anser is NO). We discuss it all. Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Bundle up, Walnut Grove fans — this week we're revisiting one of the most intense winter episodes of Little House on the Prairie: “The Blizzard.” Or as Charlotte Stewart likes to call it, "Miss Beadle Kills the Kids".A sudden storm hits while the children are at school, turning into… the worst Christmas Eve ever. Miss Beadle makes the well-intentioned decision to let the kids walk home before the storm gets too rough… which, depending on how you look at it, is either a brave leadership choice or a brief moment where the entire class nearly gets accidentally yeeted into the afterlife by their teacher. Frontier education was clearly a high-risk profession. Guess which way it went? (clue: badly!)Meanwhile, the adults in Walnut Grove realize the children are missing and head out into the brutal conditions to search for them. The townspeople face the very real danger of a prairie blizzard — a reminder of just how treacherous winter could be on the frontier.It's a suspenseful, emotional episode that captures both the danger of prairie life and the strength of a community that refuses to leave anyone behind. We talk about the history of real prairie blizzards, the memorable moments inside that crowded schoolhouse, and why this chilly Christmas episode still stands out as one of the series' most unforgettable.So grab a blanket and your best Gore-Tex, and join us as we ride out “The Blizzard.” Then join us on Patreon, where Alison and Dean talk behind-the-scenes action about how they created Winter TV magic on the Prairie.Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

-Everything everywhere is broken all the time. Products, services, and human interactions have gone completely off the rails and everyone's acting like we're still living in a normal United States. We're not. Come notice with us. -Rep. Jasmine Crockett lost a primary race to an apparent psychopath Presbyterian named James Talarico who says God is non-binary, and "trans kids" are "perfect," "sacred," and made in God's own image. God seems unsure of they's identity. -Potpourri du Moquerie: Prairie Edition. We've got a sneak peek of the Netflix reboot of Little House on the Prairie and BITCH IT IS CRUNK Did you like the show? Throw us some cash support!https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=CTXSL5U8DJBUY -Disaffected is sponsored by purveyors of the finest cured meats. Visit biltongusa.com and use promo code JOSH to get 10 percent off your order. -Slocum Consulting: You can book an hour with Josh on video to talk about troubled relationships, political clashes at work, and more. If you're looking for someone who won't call your concerns "crazy," Josh is the guy you want. Book at https://www.joshuaslocum.net See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back, dear listeners! Tonight we continue with a couple more chapters from The Long Winter  by Laura Ingalls Wilder . This story takes us back to the prairie with Laura and her family as they face one of the hardest winters they've ever known. Just a gentle reminder that if you'd like access to all the full-length audiobooks from the Little House series as they're completed, you can join Drift Off Premium.So snuggle in, get comfortable, and let the gentle rhythm of this timeless story carry you into a place of peace and rest. Sweet dreams, Joanne xoMusic in this episode is "Forest Spring' by Aiyo via Epidemic SoundDrift Off Premium — Sweet Dreams Await Support an ad-free podcast for everyone Weekly bonus bedtime stories to enrich your sleep routine Exclusive early access to one new episode each month Full-length audiobooks for sleep to calm your mind and help you drift off Available on Apple Podcasts and Supercast *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts from the show page, or visit driftoff.supercast.com to join through Supercast. Did you know you can also listen to my regular bedtime stories on Insight Timer for free? It's a peaceful space for rest and relaxation. Also, for just $9.99/month, you'll get access to my premium stories plus meditations, music, and live sessions from other amazing teachers. Come curl up in this cozy corner of calm, where sweet dreams are always waiting. https://insighttimer.com/relaxforawhile Oh… and be sure to drift over to the podcast website to see what cozy wonders await you! https://www.driftoffpodcast.com

Chloe joins the show to help me revisit this amazing episode! I hope you enjoy it! “Blaming herself when Laura’s doll breaks during a game of catch, Mary is delighted to give her sad, little sister an abandoned, baby raccoon. After Pa reluctantly agrees to let her keep him, Laura names him “Jasper”, teaches him tricks and tries to keep the mischief-maker out of trouble. But one day, Jasper bites Jack, the Ingalls’ dog, and disappears into the woods. When Charles later shoots a snarling, rabid raccoon who is killing the chickens and begins to watch Jack for signs of rabies, a tearful Mary reveals a terrible secret… Jasper had also bitten Laura who made Mary promise not to tell.” The Racoon originally aired on November 20, 1974 The opening song “Albert” is written and performed by the amazing Norwegian band, Project Brundlefly and is used with permission. Check them out at: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBrundlefly Become a Patron! The post Revisiting The Racoon first appeared on The Little House on the Prairie Podcast: Walnut GroveCast.

It's an absolutely packed episode a week away from the Oscars. We're playing some catch-up with nominees and we've got one monster of a new release. Here's what we have for you: THE BRIDE! That exclamation point says it all. Writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal's wild and bold update of "The Bride of Frankenstein" mixes tones and genres in a way that's dividing critics (including us). Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale co-star. In theaters. THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB. The last of the five nominees in the best international feature category for us to discuss here. Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania mixes the real-life audio of a 5-year-old Palestinian trapped in a car in Gaza with actors playing the emergency operators on the other end of the line. We don't agree on this film, either, but it has moved many audiences deeply. Available for online rental. THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR. Nominated for best documentary feature, this Netflix film is composed entirely of deputies' body cam footage of a neighborhood where a deadly shooting ripped the multicultural community apart. We think this is the front-runner for the Academy Award, if only because it's probably the one most people saw (plus, it's great). Streaming now. MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN. Russian school teacher Pavel Talankin bravely documents Putin's propagandist efforts to indoctrinate young minds at the start of the Ukraine invasion. You come to really care about him and the kids in his care, particularly the teens who are facing an uncertain future. This is also up for the best documentary feature Oscar. Available for online rental. MOVIE NEWS LIVE! Another busy week between early reactions to "The Bride!", HBO Max and Paramount + merging into one streaming platform, Daryl Hannah's op-ed about how she's portrayed in Ryan Murphy's "Love Story," the "Little House on the Prairie" reboot, and Catherine O'Hara's posthumous Actor Award. Join us here on Fridays at Noon Pacific. Thanks for being here! Make sure to join us Tuesday at Noon Pacific for our Oscar predictions livestream with Glenn Whipp from the LA Times: https://youtube.com/live/PTrb9bx-d4E?feature=share  

You asked, you waited, and he's finally here — our most requested guest: Bob. Yes, that Bob. The man behind the now-iconic line, “Bob, get the wig!” and the brave soul who married Walnut Grove's most notorious troublemaker, Nellie Oleson — known to the world, of course, as our Prairie Bitch, Alison.In this heartfelt (and very funny) episode, Bob shares the sweet and surprisingly down-to-earth story of how he and Alison met and fell in love. Spoiler: real life involves far fewer tantrums and significantly fewer ringlets.We also talk about Bob's meaningful work with the AIDS Project Los Angeles helpline during the height of the AIDS crisis — a moving chapter that shaped his life and reflects the compassion at the core of their partnership.And yes, we get into the moment his family and friends found out he was marrying the woman who once terrorized Laura Ingalls on national television. The reactions? Let's just say there may have been some pearl-clutching.It's an episode full of humor, heart, and the reminder that behind every great Prairie “villain” is a very patient, very lovely husband. And Bob — thanks for getting the wig.Then join us on Patreon, where Pamela, Alison, and Dean share stories about their significant others and how they support us as crazy artists. It's fun, funny, very personal, and heartfelt.Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Notes on the "Little House on the Prairie" Netflix reboot, BOOB TUBE: "Man on the Run" and "The Traitors," and MOVIE REVIEW: "Scream 7"See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

EVEN MORE about this episode!What happens when divine guidance moves through music, creativity, and the courage to trust your calling?Join Julie Ryan and Broadway star Pamela Bob as they explore spiritual channeling, divine timing, singing as sacred expression, and how play and creativity reveal why we incarnate. In this heartfelt and inspiring episode, Pamela opens up about the sacred vulnerability of singing, why performing for an intimate room can feel more terrifying than a packed theater, and how music aligns with our unique energetic vibration. From the emotional force of shows like Ragtime to a childhood moment of divine recognition—“I think this is God”—this conversation dives deep into artistry as a spiritual calling.Listeners will be captivated by Pamela's jaw-dropping story of channeling June Carter Cash during a nightly, unscripted improvisation—an experience so powerful that Julie reveals June herself chose Pamela in the audition and guided her through every performance. Pamela also shares the brutal truth behind elite performing arts training, where she was repeatedly told she couldn't sing, yet trusted her inner knowing enough to persevere when others were cut. That same guidance later led her from a lucid dream to creating the award-winning Livin' On a Prairie, as the right people and opportunities appeared at exactly the right time.This episode is ultimately a love letter to play, joy, and remembering who you were before the world told you who to be. Pamela reflects on the transformative power of creativity through stories like Encore, where adults rediscover themselves through performance, and offers a simple yet profound invitation for anyone feeling stuck: return to what you loved as a child. The conversation closes with a tear-filled reflection on why we incarnate at all—sparked by a dying woman's final words: “It was so much fun.”Guest Biography:Pamela Bob is a multifaceted actor, singer, and award-winning screenwriter whose career spans Broadway, Off-Broadway, film, television, and podcasting. On Broadway, she appeared in the Tony-nominated Hand to God and the Tony Award–winning A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, where she famously covered all six female roles and regularly stepped into leading performances. Off-Broadway, she starred as Clarice Starling in the cult hit Silence! The Musical—named one of Time Magazine's ten must-see NYC shows—and earned a BroadwayWorld nomination for Best Actor for her role in Cracked Open. Pamela is also the creator and star of the acclaimed series Livin' On a Prairie, an award-winning, festival-selected exploration of pop culture obsession inspired by Little House on the Prairie, which won Best TV Series and Best Actress at the LA International Film Fest. She currently co-hosts the Little House on the Prairie 50th Anniversary Podcast, which has surpassed one million downloads and recently sold out its first live NYC event. Pamela is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati–Conservatory of Music.Episode Chapters:(0:02:00) - When Talent Becomes Sacred(0:05:00) - The Power of Music and Vibration(0:08:00) - Pamela Sings "My Favorite Things"(0:10:00) - Channeling Spirit on Stage(0:12:00) - The June Carter Cash Story(0:17:00) - Actor Who Sings vs. Musical Theater Actor(0:19:00) - Surviving the Cincinnati Conservatory(0:24:00) - Intuition in Landing Roles(0:28:00) - Stage vs. Camera Performance(0:32:00) - Creating "Living on a Prairie"(0:38:00) - Divine Guidance and Trusting the Process(0:40:00) - Advice for Those Feeling Stuck(0:42:00) - The Transformative Power of Play(0:45:00) - Rapid Fire Questions(0:50:00) - Angel Signs and Feathers(0:52:00) - Why We Incarnate➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Español YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Português YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Deutsch YouTube➡️Subscribe to Ask Julie Ryan Français YouTube✏️Ask Julie a Question!

Welcome back, dear listeners! Tonight we continue with another chapter from The Long Winter  by Laura Ingalls Wilder . This story takes us back to the prairie with Laura and her family as they face one of the hardest winters they've ever known. Many of you have written to me requesting this next book in the series, and I'm so delighted to finally share it with you.Just a gentle reminder that if you'd like access to all the full-length audiobooks from the Little House series as they're completed, you can join Drift Off Premium.So snuggle in, get comfortable, and let the gentle rhythm of this timeless story carry you into a place of peace and rest. Sweet dreams, Joanne xoMusic in this episode is "Forest Spring' by Aiyo via Epidemic SoundDrift Off Premium — Sweet Dreams Await Support an ad-free podcast for everyone Weekly bonus bedtime stories to enrich your sleep routine Exclusive early access to one new episode each month Full-length audiobooks for sleep to calm your mind and help you drift off Available on Apple Podcasts and Supercast *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts from the show page, or visit driftoff.supercast.com to join through Supercast. Did you know you can also listen to my regular bedtime stories on Insight Timer for free? It's a peaceful space for rest and relaxation. Also, for just $9.99/month, you'll get access to my premium stories plus meditations, music, and live sessions from other amazing teachers. Come curl up in this cozy corner of calm, where sweet dreams are always waiting. https://insighttimer.com/relaxforawhile Oh… and be sure to drift over to the podcast website to see what cozy wonders await you! https://www.driftoffpodcast.com

How do you juggle multiple book projects, a university teaching role, Kickstarter campaigns, and rock albums—all without burning out? What does it take to build a writing career that spans decades, through industry upheavals and personal setbacks? Kevin J. Anderson shares hard-won lessons from his 40+ year career writing over 190 books. In the intro, Draft2Digital partners with Bookshop.org for ebooks; Spotify announces PageMatch and print partnership with Bookshop.org; Eleven Audiobooks; Indie author non-fiction books Kickstarter; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Kevin J. Anderson is the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author of over 190 books across different genres, with over 24 million copies in print across 34 languages. He's also the director of publishing at Western Colorado University, as well as a publisher at WordFire Press, an editor and rock album lyricist, and he's co-written Dune books and worked on the recent Dune movies and TV show. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Managing multiple projects at different stages to maximise productivity without burning out Building financial buffers and multiple income streams for a sustainable long-term career Adapting when life disrupts your creative process, from illness to injury Lessons learned from transitioning between traditional publishing, indie, and Kickstarter Why realistic expectations and continuously reinventing yourself are essential for longevity The hands-on publishing master's program at Western Colorado University You can find Kevin at WordFire.com and buy his books direct at WordFireShop.com. Transcript of Interview with Kevin J. Anderson Jo: Kevin J. Anderson is the multi award-winning and internationally bestselling author of over 190 books across different genres, with over 24 million copies in print across 34 languages. He's also the Director of Publishing at Western Colorado University, as well as a publisher at WordFire Press, an editor, a rock album lyricist, and he's co-written Dune books and worked on the recent Dune movies and TV show. Welcome back to the show, Kevin. Kevin: Well, thanks, Joanna. I always love being on the show. Jo: And we're probably on like 200 books and like 50 million copies in print. I mean, how hard is it to keep up with all that? Kevin: Well, it was one of those where we actually did have to do a list because my wife was like, we really should know the exact number. And I said, well, who can keep track because that one went out of print and that's an omnibus. So does it count as something else? Well, she counted them. But that was a while ago and I didn't keep track, so… Jo: Right. Kevin: I'm busy and I like to write. That's how I've had a long-term career. It's because I don't hate what I'm doing. I've got the best job in the world. I love it. Jo: So that is where I wanted to start. You've been on the show multiple times. People can go back and have a listen to some of the other things we've talked about. I did want to talk to you today about managing multiple priorities. You are a director of publishing at Western Colorado University. I am currently doing a full-time master's degree as well as writing a novel, doing this podcast, my Patreon, all the admin of running a business, and I feel like I'm busy. Then I look at what you do and I'm like, this is crazy. People listening are also busy. We're all busy, right. But I feel like it can't just be writing and one job—you do so much. So how do you manage your time, juggle priorities, your calendar, and all that? Kevin: I do it brilliantly. Is that the answer you want? I do it brilliantly. It is all different things. If I were just working on one project at a time, like, okay, I'm going to start a new novel today and I've got nothing else on my plate. Well, that would take me however long to do the research and the plot. I'm a full-on plotter outliner, so it would take me all the while to do—say it's a medieval fantasy set during the Crusades. Well, then I'd have to spend months reading about the Crusades and researching them and maybe doing some travel. Then get to the point where I know the characters enough that I can outline the book and then I start writing the book, and then I start editing the book, which is a part that I hate. I love doing the writing, I hate doing the editing. Then you edit a whole bunch. To me, there are parts of that that are like going to the dentist—I don't like it—and other parts of it are fun. So by having numerous different projects at different stages, all of which require different skill sets or different levels of intensity— I can be constantly switching from one thing to another and basically be working at a hundred percent capacity on everything all the time. And I love doing this. So I'll be maybe writing a presentation, which is what I was doing before we got on this call this morning, because I'm giving a new keynote presentation at Superstars, which is in a couple of weeks. That's another thing that was on our list—I helped run Superstars. I founded that 15 years ago and it's been going on. So I'll be giving that talk. Then we just started classes for my publishing grad students last week. So I'm running those classes, which meant I had to write all of the classes before they started, and I did that. I've got a Kickstarter that will launch in about a month. I'm getting the cover art for that new book and I've got to write up the Kickstarter campaign. And I have to write the book. I like to have the book at least drafted before I run a Kickstarter for it. So I'm working on that. A Kickstarter pre-launch page should be up a month before the Kickstarter launches, and the Kickstarter has to launch in early March, so that means early February I have to get the pre-launch page up. So there's all these dominoes. One thing has to go before the next thing can go. During the semester break between fall semester—we had about a month off—I had a book for Blackstone Publishing and Weird Tales Presents that I had to write, and I had plotted it and I thought if I don't get this written during the break, I'm going to get distracted and I won't finish it. So I just buckled down and I wrote the 80,000-word book during the month of break. This is like Little House on the Prairie with dinosaurs. It's an Amish community that wants to go to simpler times. So they go back to the Pleistocene era where they're setting up farms and the brontosaurus gets into the cornfield all the time. Jo: That sounds like a lot of fun. Kevin: That's fun. So with the grad students that I have every week, we do all kinds of lectures. Just to reassure people, I am not at all an academic. I could not stand my English classes where you had to write papers analysing this and that. My grad program is all hands-on, pragmatic. You actually learn how to be a publisher when you go through it. You learn how to design covers, you learn how to lay things out, you learn how to edit, you learn how to do fonts. One of the things that I do among the lectures every week or every other week, I just give them something that I call the real world updates. Like, okay, this is the stuff that I, Kevin, am working on in my real world career because the academic career isn't like the real world. So I just go listing about, oh, I designed these covers this week, and I wrote the draft of this dinosaur homestead book, and then I did two comic scripts, and then I had to edit two comic scripts. We just released my third rock album that's based on my fantasy trilogy. And I have to write a keynote speech for Superstars. And I was on Joanna Penn's podcast. And here's what I'm doing. Sometimes it's a little scary because I read it and I go, holy crap, I did a lot of stuff this week. Jo: So I manage everything on Google Calendar. Do you have systems for managing all this? Because you also have external publishers, you have actual dates when things actually have to happen. Do you manage that yourself or does Rebecca, your wife and business partner, do that? How do you manage your calendar? Kevin: Well, Rebecca does most of the business stuff, like right now we have to do a bunch of taxes stuff because it's the new year and things. She does that and I do the social interaction and the creating and the writing and stuff. My assistant Marie Whittaker, she's a big project management person and she's got all these apps on how to do project managing and all these sorts of things. She tried to teach me how to use these apps, but it takes so much time and organisation to fill the damn things out. So it's all in my head. I just sort of know what I have to do. I just put it together and work on it and just sort of know this thing happens next and this thing happens next. I guess one of the ways is when I was in college, I put myself through the university by being a waiter and a bartender. As a waiter and a bartender, you have to juggle a million different things at once. This guy wants a beer and that lady wants a martini, and that person needs to pay, and this person's dinner is up on the hot shelf so you've got to deliver it before it gets cold. It's like I learned how to do millions of things and keep them all organised, and that's the way it worked. And I've kept that as a skill all the way through and it has done me good, I think. Jo: I think that there is a difference between people's brains, right? So I'm pretty chaotic in terms of my creative process. I'm not a plotter like you. I'm pretty chaotic, basically. But I come across— Kevin: I've met you. Yes. Jo: I know. But I'm also extremely organised and I plan everything. That's part of, I think, being an introvert and part of dealing with the anxiety of the world is having a plan or a schedule. So I think the first thing to say to people listening is they don't have to be like you, and they don't have to be like me. It's kind of a personal thing. I guess one thing that goes beyond both of us is, earlier you said you basically work at a hundred percent capacity. So let's say there's somebody listening and they're like, well, I'm at a hundred percent capacity too, and it might be kids, it might be a day job, as well as writing and all that. And then something happens, right? You mentioned the real world. I seem to remember that you broke your leg or something. Kevin: Yes. Jo: And the world comes crashing down through all your plans, whether they're written or in your head. So how do you deal with a buffer of something happening, or you're sick, or Rebecca's sick, or the cat needs to go to the vet? Real life—how do you deal with that? Kevin: Well, that really does cause problems. We had, in fact, just recently—so I'm always working at, well, let's be realistic, like 95% of Kevin capacity. Well, my wife, who does some of the stuff here around the house and she does the business things, she just went through 15 days of the worst crippling migraine string that she's had in 30 years. So she was curled up in a foetal position on the bed for 15 days and she couldn't do any of her normal things. I mean, even unloading the dishwasher and stuff like that. So if I'm at 95% capacity and suddenly I have to pick up an extra 50%, that causes real problems. So I drink lots of coffee, and I get less sleep, and you try to bring in some help. I mean, we have Rebecca's assistant and the assistant has a 20-year-old daughter who came in to help us do some of the dishes and laundry and housework stuff. You mentioned before, it was a year ago. I always go out hiking and mountain climbing and that's where I write. I dictate. I have a digital recorder that I go off of, and that's how I'm so productive. I go out, I walk in the forest and I come home with 5,000 words done in a couple of hours, and I always do that. That's how I write. Well, I was out on a mountain and I fell off the mountain and I broke my ankle and had to limp a mile back to my car. So that sort of put a damper on me hiking. I had a book that I had to write and I couldn't go walking while I was dictating it. It has been a very long time since I had to sit at a keyboard and create chapters that way. Jo: Mm-hmm. Kevin: And my brain doesn't really work like that. It works in an audio—I speak this stuff instead. So I ended up training myself because I had a big boot on my foot. I would sit on the back porch and I would look out at the mountains here in Colorado and I would put my foot up on another chair and I'd sit in the lawn chair and I'd kind of close my eyes and I would dictate my chapters that way. It was not as effective, but it was plan B. So that's how I got it done. I did want to mention something. When I'm telling the students this every week—this is what I did and here's the million different things—one of the students just yesterday made a comment that she summarised what I'm doing and it kind of crystallised things for me. She said that to get so much done requires, and I'm quoting now, “a balance of planning, sprinting, and being flexible, while also making incremental forward progress to keep everything moving together.” So there's short-term projects like fires and emergencies that have to be done. You've got to keep moving forward on the novel, which is a long-term project, but that short story is due in a week. So I've got to spend some time doing that one. Like I said, this Kickstarter's coming up, so I have to put in the order for the cover art, because the cover art needs to be done so I can put it on the pre-launch page for the Kickstarter. It is a balance of the long-term projects and the short-term projects. And I'm a workaholic, I guess, and you are too. Jo: Yes. Kevin: You totally are. Yes. Jo: I get that you're a workaholic, but as you said before, you enjoy it too. So you enjoy doing all these things. It's just sometimes life just gets in the way, as you said. One of the other things that I think is interesting—so sometimes physical stuff gets in the way, but in your many decades now of the successful author business, there's also the business side. You've had massive success with some of your books, and I'm sure that some of them have just kind of shrivelled into nothing. There have been good years and bad years. So how do we, as people who want a long-term career, think about making sure we have a buffer in the business for bad years and then making the most of good years? Kevin: Well, that's one thing—to realise that if you're having a great year, you might not always have a great year. That's kind of like the rockstar mentality—I've got a big hit now, so I'm always going to have a big hit. So I buy mansions and jets, and then of course the next album flops. So when you do have a good year, you plan for the long term. You set money aside. You build up plan B and you do other things. I have long been a big advocate for making sure that you have multiple income streams. You don't just write romantic epic fantasies and that's all you do. That might be what makes your money now, but the reading taste could change next year. They might want something entirely different. So while one thing is really riding high, make sure that you're planting a bunch of other stuff, because that might be the thing that goes really, really well the next year. I made my big stuff back in the early nineties—that was when I started writing for Star Wars and X-Files, and that's when I had my New York Times bestselling run. I had 11 New York Times bestsellers in one year, and I was selling like millions of copies. Now, to be honest, when you have a Star Wars bestseller, George Lucas keeps almost all of that. You don't keep that much of it. But little bits add up when you're selling millions of copies. So it opened a lot of doors for me. So I kept writing my own books and I built up my own fans who liked the Star Wars books and they read some of my other things. If you were a bestselling trad author, you could keep writing the same kind of book and they would keep throwing big advances at you. It was great. And then that whole world changed and they stopped paying those big advances, and paperback, mass market paperback books just kind of went away. A lot of people probably remember that there was a time for almost every movie that came out, every big movie that came out, you could go into the store and buy a paperback book of it—whether it was an Avengers movie or a Star Trek movie or whatever, there was a paperback book. I did a bunch of those and that was really good work. They would pay me like $15,000 to take the script and turn it into a book, and it was done in three weeks. They don't do that anymore. I remember I was on a panel at some point, like, what would you tell your younger self? What advice would you give your younger self? I remember when I was in the nineties, I was turning down all kinds of stuff because I had too many book projects and I was never going to quit writing. I was a bestselling author, so I had it made. Well, never, ever assume you have it made because the world changes under you. They might not like what you're doing or publishing goes in a completely different direction. So I always try to keep my radar up and look at new things coming up. I still write some novels for trad publishers. This dinosaur homestead one is for Blackstone and Weird Tales. They're a trad publisher. I still publish all kinds of stuff as an indie for WordFire Press. I'm reissuing a bunch of my trad books that I got the rights back and now they're getting brand new life as I run Kickstarters. One of my favourite series is “Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.” It's like the Addams Family meets The Naked Gun. It's very funny. It's a private detective who solves crimes with monsters and mummies and werewolves and things. I sold the first one to a trad publisher, and actually, they bought three. I said, okay, these are fast, they're fun, they're like 65,000 words. You laugh all the way through it, and you want the next one right away. So let's get these out like every six months, which is like lightning speed for trad publishing. They just didn't think that was a good idea. They brought them out a year and a half apart. It was impossible to build up momentum that way. They wanted to drop the series after the third book, and I just begged them—please give it one more chance. So they bought one more book for half as much money and they brought it out again a year and a half later. And also, it was a trad paperback at $15. And the ebook was—Joanna, can you guess what their ebook was priced at? Jo: $15. Kevin: $15. And they said, gee, your ebook sales are disappointing. I said, well, no, duh. I mean, I am jumping around—I'm going like, but you should have brought these out six months apart. You should have had the ebook, like the first one at $4. Jo: But you're still working with traditional publishers, Kevin? Kevin: I'm still working with them on some, and I'm a hybrid. There are some projects that I feel are better served as trad books, like the big Dune books and stuff. I want those all over the place and they can cash in on the movie momentum and stuff. But I got the rights back to the Dan Shamble stuff. The fans kept wanting me to do more, and so I published a couple of story collections and they did fine. But I was making way more money writing Dune books and things. Then they wanted a new novel. So I went, oh, okay. I did a new novel, which I just published at WordFire. But again, it did okay, but it wasn't great. I thought, well, I better just focus on writing these big ticket things. But I really liked writing Dan Shamble. Somebody suggested, well, if the fans want it so much, why don't you run a Kickstarter? I had never run a Kickstarter before, and I kind of had this wrong attitude. I thought Kickstarters were for, “I'm a starving author, please give me money.” And that's not it at all. It's like, hey, if you're a fan, why don't you join the VIP club and you get the books faster than anybody else? So I ran a Kickstarter for my first Dan Shamble book, and it made three times what the trad publisher was paying me. And I went, oh, I kind of like this model. So I have since done like four other Dan Shamble novels through Kickstarters, made way more money that way. And we just sold—we can't give any details yet—but we have just sold it. It will be a TV show. There's a European studio that is developing it as a TV show, and I'm writing the pilot and I will be the executive producer. Jo: Fantastic. Kevin: So I kept that zombie detective alive because I loved it so much. Jo: And it's going to be all over the place years later, I guess. Just in terms of—given I've been in this now, I guess 2008 really was when I got into indie—and over the time I've been doing this, I've seen people rise and then disappear. A lot of people have disappeared. There are reasons, burnout or maybe they were just done. Kevin: Yes. Jo: But in terms of the people that you've seen, the characteristics, I guess, of people who don't make it versus people who do make it for years. And we are not saying that everyone should be a writer for decades at all. Some people do just have maybe one or two books. What do you think are the characteristics of those people who do make it long-term? Kevin: Well, I think it's realistic expectations. Like, again, this was trad, but my first book I sold for $4,000, and I thought, well, that's just $4,000, but we're going to sell book club rights, and we're goingn to sell foreign rights, and it's going to be optioned for movies. And the $4,000 will be like, that's just the start. I was planning out all this extra money coming from it, and it didn't even earn its $4,000 advance back and nothing else happened with it. Well, it has since, because I've since reissued it myself, pushed it and I made more money that way. But it's a slow burn. You build your career. You start building your fan base and then your next one will sell maybe better than the first one did. Then you keep writing it, and then you make connections, and then you get more readers and you learn how to expand your stuff better. You've got to prepare for the long haul. I would suggest that if you publish your very first book on KU, don't quit your day job the next day. Not everybody can or should be a full-time writer. We here in America need to have something that pays our health insurance. That is one of the big reasons why I am running this graduate program at Western Colorado University—because as a university professor, I get wonderful healthcare. I'm teaching something that I love, and I'm frankly doing a very good job at it because our graduates—something like 60% of them are now working as writers or publishers or working in the publishing world. So that's another thing. I guess what I do when I'm working on it is I kind of always say yes to the stuff that's coming in. If an opportunity comes—hey, would you like a graphic novel on this?—and I go, yes, I'd love to do that. Could you write a short story for this anthology? Sure, I'd love to do that. I always say yes, and I get overloaded sometimes. But I learned my lesson. It was quite a few years ago where I was really busy. I had all kinds of book deadlines and I was turning down books that they were offering me. Again, this was trad—book contracts that had big advances on them. And anthology editors were asking me. I was really busy and everybody was nagging me—Kevin, you work too hard. And my wife Rebecca was saying, Kevin, you work too hard. So I thought, I had it made. I had all these bestsellers, everything was going on. So I thought, alright, I've got a lot of books under contract. I'll just take a sabbatical. I'll say no for a year. I'll just catch up. I'll finish all these things that I've got. I'll just take a breather and finish things. So for that year, anybody who asked me—hey, do you want to do this book project?—well, I'd love to, but I'm just saying no. And would you do this short story for an anthology? Well, I'd love to, but not right now. Thanks. And I just kind of put them off. So I had a year where I could catch up and catch my breath and finish the stuff. And after that, I went, okay, I am back in the game again. Let's start taking these book offers. And nothing. Just crickets. And I went, well, okay. Well, you were always asking before—where are all these book deals that you kept offering me? Oh, we gave them to somebody else. Jo: This is really difficult though, because on the one hand—well, first of all, it's difficult because I wanted to take a bit of a break. So I'm doing this full-time master's and you are also teaching people in a master's program, right. So I have had to say no to a lot of things in order to do this course. And I imagine the people on your course would have to do the same thing. There's a lot of rewards, but they're different rewards and it kind of represents almost a midlife pivot for many of us. So how do we balance that then—the stepping away with what might lead us into something new? I mean, obviously this is a big deal. I presume most of the people on your course, they're older like me. People have to give stuff up to do this kind of thing. So how do we manage saying yes and saying no? Kevin: Well, I hate to say this, but you just have to drink more coffee and work harder for that time. Yes, you can say no to some things. My thing was I kind of shut the door and I just said, I'm just going to take a break and I'm going to relax. I could have pushed my capacity and taken some things so that I wasn't completely off the game board. One of the things I talk about is to avoid burnout. If you want a long-term career, and if you're working at 120% of your capacity, then you're going to burn out. I actually want to mention something. Johnny B. Truant just has a new book out called The Artisan Author. I think you've had him on the show, have you? Jo: Yes, absolutely. Kevin: He says a whole bunch of the stuff in there that I've been saying for a long time. He's analysing these rapid release authors that are a book every three weeks. And they're writing every three weeks, every four weeks, and that's their business model. I'm just like, you can't do that for any length of time. I mean, I'm a prolific writer. I can't write that fast. That's a recipe for burnout, I think. I love everything that I'm doing, and even with this graduate program that I'm teaching, I love teaching it. I mean, I'm talking about subjects that I love, because I love publishing. I love writing. I love cover design. I love marketing. I love setting up your newsletters. I mean, this isn't like taking an engineering course for me. This is something that I really, really love doing. And quite honestly, it comes across with the students. They're all fired up too because they see how much I love doing it and they love doing it. One of the projects that they do—we get a grant from Draft2Digital every year for $5,000 so that we do an anthology, an original anthology that we pay professional rates for. So they put out their call for submissions. This year it was Into the Deep Dark Woods. And we commissioned a couple stories for it, but otherwise it was open to submissions. And because we're paying professional rates, they get a lot of submissions. I have 12 students in the program right now. They got 998 stories in that they had to read. Jo: Wow. Kevin: They were broken up into teams so they could go through it, but that's just overwhelming. They had to read, whatever that turns out to be, 50 stories a week that come in. Then they write the rejections, and then they argue over which ones they're going to accept, and then they send the contracts, and then they edit them. And they really love it. I guess that's the most important thing about a career—you've got to have an attitude that you love what you're doing. If you don't love this, please find a more stable career, because this is not something you would recommend for the faint of heart. Jo: Yes, indeed. I guess one of the other considerations, even if we love it, the industry can shift. Obviously you mentioned the nineties there—things were very different in the nineties in many, many ways. Especially, let's say, pre-internet times, and when trad pub was really the only way forward. But you mentioned the rapid release, the sort of book every month. Let's say we are now entering a time where AI is bringing positives and negatives in the same way that the internet brought positives and negatives. We're not going to talk about using it, but what is definitely happening is a change. Industry-wise—for example, people can do a book a day if they want to generate books. That is now possible. There are translations, you know. Our KDP dashboard in America, you have a button now to translate everything into Spanish if you want. You can do another button that makes it an audiobook. So we are definitely entering a time of challenge, but if you look back over your career, there have been many times of challenge. So is this time different? Or do you face the same challenges every time things shift? Kevin: It's always different. I've always had to take a breath and step back and then reinvent myself and come back as something else. One of the things with a long-term career is you can't have a long-term career being the hot new thing. You can start out that way—like, this is the brand new author and he gets a big boost as the best first novel or something like that—but that doesn't work for 20 years. I mean, you've got to do something else. If you're the sexy young actress, well, you don't have a 50-year career as the sexy young actress. One of the ones I'm loving right now is Linda Hamilton, who was the sexy young actress in Terminator, and then a little more mature in the TV show Beauty and the Beast, where she was this huge star. Then she's just come back now. I think she's in her mid-fifties. She's in Stranger Things and she was in Resident Alien and she's now this tough military lady who's getting parts all over the place. She's reinvented herself. So I like to say that for my career, I've crashed and burned and resurrected myself. You might as well call me the Doctor because I've just come back in so many different ways. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but— If you want to stay around, no matter how old of a dog you are, you've got to learn new tricks. And you've got to keep learning, and you've got to keep trying new things. I started doing indie publishing probably around the time you did—2009, something like that. I was in one of these great positions where I was a trad author and I had a dozen books that I wrote that were all out of print. I got the rights back to them because back then they let books go out of print and they gave the rights back without a fight. So I suddenly found myself with like 12 titles that I could just put up. I went, oh, okay, let's try this. I was kind of blown away that that first novel that they paid me $4,000 for that never even earned it back—well, I just put it up on Kindle and within one year I made more than $4,000. I went, I like this, I've got to figure this out. That's how I launched WordFire Press. Then I learned how to do everything. I mean, back in those days, you could do a pretty clunky job and people would still buy it. Then I learned how to do it better. Jo: That time is gone. Kevin: Yes. I learned how to do it better, and then I learned how to market it. Then I learned how to do print on demand books. Then I learned how to do box sets and different kinds of marketing. I dove headfirst into my newsletter to build my fan base because I had all the Star Wars stuff and X-Files stuff and later it was the Dune stuff. I had this huge fan base, but I wanted that fan base to read the Kevin Anderson books, the Dan Shamble books and everything. The only way to get that is if you give them a personal touch to say, hey buddy, if you liked that one, try this one. And the way to do that is you have to have access to them. So I started doing social media stuff before most people were doing social media stuff. I killed it on MySpace. I can tell you that. I had a newsletter that we literally printed on paper and we stuck mailing labels on. It went out to 1,200 people that we put in the mailbox. Jo: Now you're doing that again with Kickstarter, I guess. But I guess for people listening, what are you learning now? How are you reinventing yourself now in this new phase we are entering? Kevin: Well, I guess the new thing that I'm doing now is expanding my Kickstarters into more. So last year, the biggest Kickstarter that I've ever had, I ran last year. It was this epic fantasy trilogy that I had trad published and I got the rights back. They had only published it in trade paperback. So, yes, I reissued the books in nice new hardcovers, but I also upped the game to do these fancy bespoke editions with leather embossed covers and end papers and tipped in ribbons and slip cases and all kinds of stuff and building that. I did three rock albums as companions to it, and just building that kind of fan base that will support that. Then I started a Patreon last year, which isn't as big as yours. I wish my Patreon would get bigger, but I'm pushing it and I'm still working on that. So it's trying new things. Because if I had really devoted myself and continued to keep my MySpace page up to date, I would be wasting my time. You have to figure out new things. Part of me is disappointed because I really liked in the nineties where they just kept throwing book contracts at me with big advances. And I wrote the book and sent it in and they did all the work. But that went away and I didn't want to go away. So I had to learn how to do it different. After a good extended career, one of the things you do is you pay it forward. I mentor a lot of writers and that evolved into me creating this master's program in publishing. I can gush about it because to my knowledge, it is the only master's degree that really focuses on indie publishing and new model publishing instead of just teaching you how to get a job as an assistant editor in Manhattan for one of the Big Five publishers. Jo: It's certainly a lot more practical than my master's in death. Kevin: Well, that's an acquired taste, I think. When they hired me to do this—and as I said earlier, I'm not an academic—and I said if I'm going to teach this, it's a one year program. They get done with it in one year. It's all online except for one week in person in the summer. They're going to learn how to do things. They're not going to get esoteric, analysing this poem for something. When they graduate from this program, they walk out with this anthology that they edited, that their name is on. The other project that they do is they reissue a really fancy, fine edition of some classic work, whether it's H.G. Wells or Jules Verne or something. They choose a book that they want to bring back and they do it all from start to finish. They come out of it—rather than just theoretical learning—they know how to do things. Surprise, I've been around in the business a long time, so I know everybody who works in the business. So the heads of publishing houses and the head of Draft2Digital or Audible—and we've got Blackstone Audio coming on in a couple weeks. We've got the head of Kickstarter coming on as guest speakers. I have all kinds of guest speakers. Joanna, I think you're coming on— Jo: I'm coming on as well, I think. Kevin: You're coming on as a guest speaker. It's just like they really get plugged in. I'm in my seventh cohort now and I just love doing it. The students love it and we've got a pretty high success rate. So there's your plug. We are open for applications now. It starts in July. And my own website is WordFire.com, and there's a section on there on the graduate program if anybody wants to take a look at it. Again, not everybody needs to have a master's degree to be an indie publisher, but there is something to be said for having all of this stuff put into an organised fashion so that you learn how to do all the things. It also gives you a resource and a support system so that they come out of it knowing a whole lot of people. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Kevin. That was great. Kevin: Thanks. It's a great show. The post Managing Multiple Projects And The Art of the Long-Term Author Career with Kevin J. Anderson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels have been married for more than 74 years, making them one of the longest-married couples in entertainment history. The two met as young actors at Northwestern University and built parallel, decades-long careers in television and film, most memorably starring together as husband and wife on St. Elsewhere, a collaboration that led to a historic moment in 1986 when they both won Emmy Awards on the same night. Over the years, William became a television icon as Dr. Mark Craig on St. Elsewhere, the voice of KITT on Knight Rider, and beloved teacher Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World, while Bonnie carved out a seven-decade career with standout roles on Little House on the Prairie and St. Elsewhere. Their marriage has not been without challenges and the two sat down with Amy and T.J. to discuss how their relationship has stood the test of time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels have been married for more than 74 years, making them one of the longest-married couples in entertainment history. The two met as young actors at Northwestern University and built parallel, decades-long careers in television and film, most memorably starring together as husband and wife on St. Elsewhere, a collaboration that led to a historic moment in 1986 when they both won Emmy Awards on the same night. Over the years, William became a television icon as Dr. Mark Craig on St. Elsewhere, the voice of KITT on Knight Rider, and beloved teacher Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World, while Bonnie carved out a seven-decade career with standout roles on Little House on the Prairie and St. Elsewhere. Their marriage has not been without challenges and the two sat down with Amy and T.J. to discuss how their relationship has stood the test of time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels have been married for more than 74 years, making them one of the longest-married couples in entertainment history. The two met as young actors at Northwestern University and built parallel, decades-long careers in television and film, most memorably starring together as husband and wife on St. Elsewhere, a collaboration that led to a historic moment in 1986 when they both won Emmy Awards on the same night. Over the years, William became a television icon as Dr. Mark Craig on St. Elsewhere, the voice of KITT on Knight Rider, and beloved teacher Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World, while Bonnie carved out a seven-decade career with standout roles on Little House on the Prairie and St. Elsewhere. Their marriage has not been without challenges and the two sat down with Amy and T.J. to discuss how their relationship has stood the test of time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back, dear listeners! Tonight continue with another chapter from The Long Winter  by Laura Ingalls Wilder . This story takes us back to the prairie with Laura and her family as they face one of the hardest winters they've ever known. Many of you have written to me requesting this next book in the series, and I'm so delighted to finally share it with you.Just a gentle reminder that if you'd like access to all the full-length audiobooks from the Little House series as they're completed, you can join Drift Off Premium.So snuggle in, get comfortable, and let the gentle rhythm of this timeless story carry you into a place of peace and rest. Sweet dreams, Joanne xoMusic in this episode is "Forest Spring' by Aiyo via Epidemic SoundMy new audiobook 'Tales to Help You Sleep Vol. 1'  is now available on Audible!US  ➜ Click hereCA  ➜ Click hereUK  ➜ Click hereAU  ➜ Click hereAlready an Audible member? Just add it to your library. New to Audible? Start your free trial with my book as your first listen and help support the podcast!If you decide to purchase through this link, I do receive a small benefit at no extra cost to you. It truly helps me continue sharing these bedtime stories, and I'm so grateful for your support. Drift Off Premium — Sweet Dreams Await Support an ad-free podcast for everyone Weekly bonus bedtime stories to enrich your sleep routine Exclusive early access to one new episode each month Full-length audiobooks for sleep to calm your mind and help you drift off Available on Apple Podcasts and Supercast *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts from the show page, or visit driftoff.supercast.com to join through Supercast. Did you know you can also listen to my regular bedtime stories on Insight Timer for free? It's a peaceful space for rest and relaxation. Also, for just $9.99/month, you'll get access to my premium stories plus meditations, music, and live sessions from other amazing teachers. Come curl up in this cozy corner of calm, where sweet dreams are always waiting. https://insighttimer.com/relaxforawhile Oh… and be sure to drift over to the podcast website to see what cozy wonders await you! https://www.driftoffpodcast.com