This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with writer, teacher, and fly-fishing guide Micah Fields. When Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017, Micah set off from his home in Iowa, back to the battered city of his childhood (Houston, Texas), to rescue his mother who was hell-bent on staying no matter how many feet of rain surged in from the Gulf. In his debut memoir, he tracks the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, one storm in a long lineage that threatens the fourth largest city in America and and does so with reverence and lyrical certainty. We Hold Our Breath: A Journey to Texas Between Storms (W. W. Norton & Company) is a lyrical, honest investigation into the conflicting facets of Texan identity that are as resilient as they are catastrophic; it sees Micah confronting his own relationship to this water-logged place, to family, both given and chosen, and to masculinity.
About Micah:
Micah Fields is a writer, teacher, and fly-fishing guide on the Missouri River. His work has been published in the Oxford American, Gulf Coast, Baffler, Columbia Journalism Review, Field and Stream, and other outlets. He served as a Marine Corps infantry rifleman from 2007 to 2011 and is a combat veteran of deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He lives in Helena, Montana.
Micah Fields recommends:
Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir by D. J. Waldie (W. W. Norton & Company)
Anything by poet C. D. Wright
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans (Mariner Books)
Lauren Korn recommends:
We Hold Our Breath: A Journey to Texas Between Storms (W. W. Norton & Company) and these essays and photographs in the Oxford American by Micah Fields
Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir by D. J. Waldie (W. W. Norton & Company)
Mountain City by Gregory Martin (North Point Press)
Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World by Leslie Kern (Verso Books) and this conversation forThe Adroit Journal
Negroland by Margo Jefferson (Vintage Books)
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson (Graywolf Press)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer; and MTPR intern Nani Hamilton helped with preliminary edits!
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss. Our music was written and recorded by John Floridis.
Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
