There's a particular discomfort that comes from growing up small and building big elsewhere - when you find yourself in rooms full of accomplished people and feel very much like you got on the wrong bus (and, hey, it's a pretty great bus, so maybe don't screw it up!). Michael Perry knows it. Aaron Gwyn knows it. Morgan Ranstrom knows it too.
Both Perry and Gwyn grew up on farms. Both became writers anyway. And both have learned that your blue-collar origins don't disqualify you from art so much as they ground it. In their episode of Just Press Record (where you can watch them meet for the first time ever here), when they got into self-promotion as separate from pride, I knew I wanted to show this clip to Morgan Ranstrom.
Partly because of what he's done with his own work, but also because the sense of communal grounding that comes out of these lessons is extra meaningful to Morgan, who's been raising a family in Minneapolis these past several years. Faced with a tragedy that forced people to remember how much you need your neighbors and not so much the politicians online, I knew he'd have extra ideas about the value of art and community in the world today - and he delivered.
