Jetson’s Journey Is Going on the Radio

Saturday morning at 10:30 I turned off my phone, as instructed, clicked a Zoom link, and spent twenty-five minutes talking with Tracie Hotchner about Jetson’s Journey.

Tracie has produced and hosted DOG TALK® (and Kitties, Too!) every week since 2006 on WLIW-FM 88.3, the only NPR station on Long Island. She passed her thousandth show a while back. It airs Saturday mornings, repeats Sunday, and then goes out as a podcast, which is how most of her audience listens. Each hour has two guests, and each guest gets a segment of their own.

She doesn’t send questions ahead of time. Her guest notes promise that the conversation will be casual and organic, and it was—taped as live, no editing, so whatever I said is what you’ll hear.

She did ask for a couple of readings, and here is my favorite part. We each went through the book on our own, looking for passages that wouldn’t give away the plot—which, in a story about a man and his dog, rules out most of the book. She was traveling; I was at my desk in Franklin. We came back with the same two. Page 191, the afternoon Michael carries Jetson home from the vet. Page 244, a piece of Michael’s own writing about what a dog knows about love that the rest of us keep forgetting. Two minutes each, read slowly. I took that as a good sign.

When does it air? Tracie’s segments run roughly four to six weeks after recording, so look for it on a Saturday between late November and early December. She says she wants it on the air as soon as she can manage. The podcast goes up right after the broadcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, and Amazon Music, and stays in the library at TracieHotchnerPets.com. There’s video, too; she records for YouTube.

The moment the episode is up, the link goes right here, at the top of this post, and I’ll send a note to the list the same morning.

My thanks to David Carriere, who made the introduction, and to Tracie, for the kind of attention she gave the book.

Jetson’s Journey is available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle on Amazon, and signed copies are on the shelf at Landmark Booksellers in downtown Franklin.