Alan Heathcock Reads an Excerpt from Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, OH”

By Joel Wayne

Published February 12, 2026 at 9:53 PM MST

“February is a complicated month,” writer Alan Heathcock said, when I asked him about the year’s shortest month. “On one hand, it’s a month when I can think deeply. Everything is still kind of in hibernation. I can just sit there in my burrow and read and think. There’s a beautiful quietude to it."

“At the same time, you begin to feel the distance between you and everything else that’s outside, in their own burrows. You want to climb out. Hoping for that groundhog to say that we don’t have much longer to see our friends again."

It’s the second week of February and we’re hearing works along the theme of home this month. Today, Alan Heathcock reads an excerpt from Sherwood Anderson’s linked story collection, “Winesburg, OH.” Anderson was an author of novels and short stories who began writing full-time after suffering a nervous breakdown at the age of 36. He wrote eloquently about the loneliness of small town life, and influenced writers like Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Something I Heard is supported by Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Joel Wayne

I started working with Boise State Public Radio in 2018, first as a freelance podcaster and co-host of <a href="https://youknowtheplacepodcast.com/" target="_blank" link-data="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000176-cd8c-dd4d-a7f6-fdbc82e80000","_type":"ae3387cc-b875-31b7-b82d-63fd8d758c20"},"cms.content.publishDate":1770959128371,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000178-e86a-ddcf-affb-fb7faf9b0001","_type":"6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc"},"cms.content.updateDate":1770959128371,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000178-e86a-ddcf-affb-fb7faf9b0001","_type":"6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc"},"cms.directory.paths":[],"anchorable.showAnchor":false,"link":{"cms.directory.paths":[],"attributes":[],"linkText":"You Know The Place","target":"NEW","attachSourceUrl":false,"url":"https://youknowtheplacepodcast.com/","_id":"0000019c-5563-d745-a7fd-dd7f82140000","_type":"ff658216-e70f-39d0-b660-bdfe57a5599a"},"_id":"0000019c-5563-d745-a7fd-dd7f81710000","_type":"809caec9-30e2-3666-8b71-b32ddbffc288"}">You Know The Place</a>, which ran for six award-winning seasons, visiting funeral homes, ostrich farms, and nude retreats for the story. I later began working as a contract producer on <a href="https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/show/readers-corner" target="_blank" link-data="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000176-cd8c-dd4d-a7f6-fdbc82e80000","_type":"ae3387cc-b875-31b7-b82d-63fd8d758c20"},"cms.content.publishDate":1770959164599,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000178-e86a-ddcf-affb-fb7faf9b0001","_type":"6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc"},"cms.content.updateDate":1770959164599,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000178-e86a-ddcf-affb-fb7faf9b0001","_type":"6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc"},"cms.directory.paths":[],"anchorable.showAnchor":false,"link":{"cms.directory.paths":[],"attributes":[],"linkText":"Reader’s Corner","target":"NEW","attachSourceUrl":false,"url":"https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/show/readers-corner","_id":"0000019c-5564-d543-a7fc-fd6d29ff0000","_type":"ff658216-e70f-39d0-b660-bdfe57a5599a"},"_id":"0000019c-5564-d543-a7fc-fd6d29ff0001","_type":"809caec9-30e2-3666-8b71-b32ddbffc288"}">Reader’s Corner</a> and <a href="https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/show/something-i-heard" target="_blank" link-data="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000176-cd8c-dd4d-a7f6-fdbc82e80000","_type":"ae3387cc-b875-31b7-b82d-63fd8d758c20"},"cms.content.publishDate":1770959193586,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000178-e86a-ddcf-affb-fb7faf9b0001","_type":"6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc"},"cms.content.updateDate":1770959193586,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000178-e86a-ddcf-affb-fb7faf9b0001","_type":"6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc"},"cms.directory.paths":[],"anchorable.showAnchor":false,"link":{"cms.directory.paths":[],"attributes":[],"linkText":"Something I Heard","target":"NEW","attachSourceUrl":false,"url":"https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/show/something-i-heard","_id":"0000019c-5564-dfdd-adde-dffea9f00000","_type":"ff658216-e70f-39d0-b660-bdfe57a5599a"},"_id":"0000019c-5564-dfdd-adde-dffea9f00001","_type":"809caec9-30e2-3666-8b71-b32ddbffc288"}">Something I Heard</a>, the former in its 24th year of interviewing NYT-bestselling, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning authors, the latter a bite-sized literary break, along a monthly theme.

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Alan Heathcock Reads an Excerpt from Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, OH”

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