All of us have our main thing, whether we call it a career, a profession, a calling, or a vocation. It’s the primary occupant of our waking attention, it’s what we’re known for, and if we’re fortunate, it even pays the bills. But the hidden talent, the passion project, the side hustle—there’s an energy there that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s almost a kind of playfulness, an innocence reminiscent of childhood make-believe, untarnished by the urgencies of the everyday. That’s what The Molehill, the Rabbit Room’s annual literary journal, is for.
Its Latin tagline goes like this: e collibus montes or, in English, “out of hills, mountains.” It’s a literary journal that seeks to uncover the grandeur in the nearly-scrapped idea, to elevate passing amusements and musings to the status of something worth your undivided attention. The Molehill urges its readers toward the delight to be found in words, whether serious or silly, many or few.
Nearly six volumes in, we realized we were sitting on quite a mountain of treasures. So we issued an invitation to Molehill contributors, asking that they read aloud their contributions, which had previously existed only in print. The result is this podcast.
In each episode, you can expect one or a few short poems followed by a longer essay, story, or memoir. You’ll hear from Jennifer Trafton, Helena Sorensen, Don Chaffer, Jonathan Rogers, Andrew Peterson, Russ Ramsey, Rebecca Reynolds, and so many more—plus each episode will include original music scored by the marvelously talented folk duo Zach & Maggie. We’ve even got a few fun surprises in store, including a special word game that will involve you, dear listener.
Our hope is that for a half hour each week, we can provide you with an opportunity to sit back and delight in these carefully-chosen words, have a few laughs, and ask yourself which proverbial hills in your own life—dare I say molehills—deserve to be made into mountains.
Artwork by the inimitable Stephen Crotts
(Rare) Rave Reviews of The Molehill (found in The Molehill Vol. 1)
“It is a far, far better book to read than I have ever read. A far, far better book I hold than I have ever known.”
—Sydney Carton, Headless Lawyer
“I have scrupulously searched the castle archives for the answer. I have even re-read my own numerous critically-acclaimed writings, hoping I might have inadverdently touched upon the subject in Roots Run Deep: A Compendium of Leafeater Lore, Where the Restless Mangroves Roam, or A Brief History of Famous People Eaten by Poison-Tongued Jumping Tortoises (winner of the coveted Arthur P. Pickelheimer Prize for Acrimonious Adverbs). But alas, to no avail. Reader, I humbly lay the dilemma before your feet: Does this molehill, or does it not, contain a giant? The Lyre-That-Never-Lies may have to be consulted.”
—Professor Barnabas Quill, Royal Historian of the Island at the Center of Everything
“Moles, moles, moles, moles! What a world of merriment their melody unfolds!”
—Edgar Allen Poe