Nevada City poet Molly Fisk broadcasts in the Women's Collective rotation on Monday nights from 8 to 10 p.m. every couple of months and her essays are heard at the end of the Thursday news hour, around 6:55. She also sneaks onto Steve Baker's Wednesday Morning Show (where she trained) once in a while to heckle him, call him on all that innuendo he flings around, and remind his female listeners that he does have a soft side. From to 2000 to 2004 she was co-host of Book Town, with Eric Tomb, Mondays from 1 to 2 p.m. Words to Live By, her motley collection of poems, mottos, advice, and definitions, is heard on Jerianne Van Dijk's Monday afternoon Music Magazine.

"I've loved radio all my life for the way it enters the human brain so directly, not impeded by visual clutter. The intimacy of it, the fact that it's so private but still so connected is compelling. I've fallen in love with so many radio voices, male and female, just because of that closeness. And radio seems the perfect way to convey local or national goings on, keeping people informed and at the same time reassured that the fabric of community is in place. You'd never think of calling up Tom Brokaw, but tons of people try to reach radio broadcasters, the big NPR names as well as the local ones. Radio is personal that way."

"I think it's hugely important the way radio calls our imaginations into play. You can be standing at your front door, looking out into the rain, and still hear Click & Clack arguing about catalytic converters and imagine what they look like from the sounds of their raucous voices. Or some jive-ass Brazilian insanity that Dawn Fischer has gotten ahold of will come on and you can just see that tropical landscape inside your mind as you shimmy around the house. Radio lets you play too, it's interactive. You can bring it with you into your life. TV seems like a Neanderthal format in comparison, because you have to stop whatever you're doing. It foists somebody else's idea of what the world is supposed to be like onto you, instead of letting you invent your own."

"So I'm delighted to be part of the making side, the sending end, as well as the receiving. I want people to know me, and I want to bring them all the weird stuff from the community and the world that I find delicious and interesting. Learning to be a broadcaster has taught me a huge amount about listening well to other shows; it's broadened my knowledge of music and communication enormously. I'm grateful, and glad to be part of the family."

Molly's books include Listening to Winter, Terrain, and Salt Water Poems, available at your local independent bookseller. You can reach her at molly @ mollyfisk.com, www.mollyfisk.com and www.poetrybootcamp.com.

After almost 80 radio essays for KVMR, Molly's commentary has been picked up by KQED's The California Report. Look in the Audio Archives for the week of July 2, 2006 (air date: 7/7/06), and August 7, 2006 (air date: 8/11/06).