Although he has a huge following on social media now, Jonathan Edward Durham’s life as a writer used to be a lot more low tech. It involved locking himself in a room in Los Angeles, pounding away on screenplays that almost no one ever read, sucking back smokes and liquor, barely sleeping, and finding himself to actually be pretty miserable. He did manage to write and self-publish a novel, Winterset Hollow, that found an audience, which led to getting online to promote it. He started to write more online, finding an audience, effectively keeping a journal to understand himself and the challenges he was facing in his life and in his mental health. Jonathan left Los Angeles, met a guy and got married, and came to a much better understanding of problems he had been dealing with his whole life. The second edition of Winterset Hollow comes out this fall and Jonathan is at work on a new book now.

We also hear from John Moe about getting mad, starting MADD, and how to interview the anger that you’re feeling to see what injustice it’s alerting you to.

Of note, we kept seeing Jonathan’s short writing come up in our Preshies group on Facebook so much that we eventually had to book the guy. Thanks, Preshies, you are all now associate producers.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

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Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines