This episode is also a film, with the words on the screen as they are spoken. Watch it with the sound on: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast

A lamp in a kitchen window. A porch light over a step. The glow at a front desk after everyone has gone up. Little lights, everywhere, and behind almost every one of them, somebody keeping it.

This week, a keeper who holds the light. Avery holds the first proof of Come In. It's Already Warm. for the first time, on the floor by the fire: the title, the map of the country around the house, his signature on the last page, and the line under it, there will always be a second cup. The Kindle edition opens for pre-order. A stranger in Denver orders a signed copy, and a little shop in Oregon becomes the first to carry the books on its shelves.

Still Here. continues on Monday, one reading a day. A reading at the Dillon Wellness Collective, and the fund called Someone is Coming, which keeps counseling and recovery within reach in Summit County. And a winter going north to Gardiner, Montana, at the north gate of Yellowstone, nine miles out of town, where the houses keep their lights on for each other.

Then the story at the center, Day Nineteen: From One Keeper to Another. Before dawn, Elias lights the lamp on the marble and writes to strangers who keep houses, a lighthouse on a far coast among them, where the people who look after it are still called keepers. Twenty-seven letters to thank them. Sixteen asking for a desk for the winter. And the paragraph where you are supposed to say what you are good at, which comes out, after most of an hour, as one line: I keep the porch light on before the knock.

The question for the week: who has been holding a light for you? Have you thanked them yet? One line will do.

The keeper's book. Come In. It's Already Warm. arrives on Thanksgiving, 26 November 2026. A large hardcover, 186 pages: hand-drawn topographic maps, seventeen plates, the views as they stood, and the recipes from the kitchen. Signed by hand and sent to you the week it arrives, $79, shipping in the US from the house. Or carry it on any screen: the Kindle edition is open for pre-order. The signed hardcover and the Kindle edition: averylanemaxwell.com/come-in

Chapters

00:00 Little lights, everywhere

00:57 The first proof, by the fire

02:21 Still Here., a reading, and Someone is Coming

03:10 Going north to Gardiner

03:53 The way in

04:33 Day Nineteen: From One Keeper to Another

05:00 The lighthouse

07:13 August at a quarter to six

09:02 The second kind of letter

11:05 I keep the porch light on before the knock

14:09 Twenty-seven thanking, sixteen asking

18:29 The keeper's book, made to travel

21:21 August goes home

24:34 The porch light

26:16 A keeper who holds the light

27:19 The question for the week

28:10 Come In. It's Already Warm.

The music under this episode is its own, a Galena House song written for it.

Keep the lamp on: the house is kept by the people who listen to it. The Patron Circle is at averylanemaxwell.com.

⌂ Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters: averylanemaxwell.com/letters · the kitchen: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen

♫ The Galena House playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw

Credits: written and read by Avery Lane Maxwell. The score, a house song of its own. Photographs and footage by Avery Lane Maxwell, in Frisco, Colorado, the first proof turned page by page by the fire. With thanks to everyone who keeps a light on for someone they have not met yet.

A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them.

STILL HERE

No. 1 of 5
A USED SUNDAY

Sunday night, and the house has given everything it had. Elias at the desk with the coffee made five times, a glass on the landing where no glass belongs, and a question from a guest about whose version gets to be true. The first of five readings for the end of a long day. If today used you up a little too, this one is for you.

Still Here. is five readings from the house: Elias, read aloud by Avery Lane Maxwell. Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters: averylanemaxwell.com/letters

♫ The Lamp On, the music under these readings, is out on its own on Sunday 18 October: averylanemaxwell.com/the-lamp-on

The book: Still Here., the first in Come In., on Kindle now for pre-order and as an audiobook on 1 November: averylanemaxwell.com/still-here

A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them.

This episode is also a film. Watch it with the sound on: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast

Get comfortable first. Avery is in green sweatpants and an old red tee with a gold eagle that has nearly washed away, the kind of thing that knows your shape without asking you to become a different one.

A hello to you, whoever is out there with a mug and a long day behind you. Two people keeping another old house, a long way from here, and a light in their eyes he recognized. Then, on Monday, scones out of thin air: light brown sugar, corners gone almost to toffee, and a maple cream glaze that sets in thin glassy lines.

Then a reading for Elias. The house before anyone is awake, a page with one word on it, river, the Yellowstone going past Gardiner at its own speed, and a guest by the fire who asked the question Elias has carried all year: who does that for you? About keeping a quiet ledger of who called and who came, and learning instead to hold people to the care in the work. The cup set down, already made the way you take it.

The question: who does that for you? And who are you doing it for, quietly, without putting your name on it? One line is enough. Write to avery@averylanemaxwell.com and say how you would like it held. Nothing becomes part of Galena House without permission.

From the kitchen: maple and brown sugar scones with a maple cream glaze. Two cups of flour, half a teaspoon of salt, two and a quarter teaspoons of baking powder at altitude (a tablespoon nearer the sea), a third of a cup of light brown sugar, packed, half a cup of cold butter, about a cup of heavy cream. 425 degrees, 13 to 15 minutes. The glaze: a cup of powdered sugar, three spoonfuls of maple, half and half until it falls in a ribbon, a pinch of salt.

From the house:
· Sunday 18 October: The Lamp On, the music under these episodes, out everywhere you listen.
· Monday 26 to Friday 30 October: Still Here., five readings for Elias, one each evening, each with its own song. The book, the audiobook and the album on Sunday 1 November. averylanemaxwell.com/still-here

The music under this episode is its own: Who Does That for You?, a new Galena House song written for this episode.

Keep the lamp on: the house is kept by the people who listen to it. The Patron Circle is at averylanemaxwell.com.

⌂ Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters: averylanemaxwell.com/letters · the kitchen: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen

♫ The Galena House playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw

Credits: written and read by Avery Lane Maxwell. The score, Who Does That for You?, a house song of its own. Photographs and footage by Avery Lane Maxwell, in Frisco and Idaho Springs, Colorado. With thanks to two innkeepers, a long way from here, and to whoever puts the kettle on for you.

A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them.

THE SUNDAY ROOM

No. 2
LET THE BEAUTIFUL THING STAY ITS ACTUAL SIZE

A baby pumpkin on the desk. A family ring with a row of very small diamonds. And a week of missed buses that kept putting Avery, somehow, exactly where he was supposed to be.

First, Denver.

Lunch with someone who has become important to the work. An afternoon beside an old letterpress born in 1933. A garden two new friends insisted he see before the light went.

Then, a few days later, another bus and another town.

Idaho Springs, a place Avery had driven past for years and never properly entered. A first walk through town. An afternoon in the warm water of the hot springs caves. Another reminder that some places do not need to become home in order to become part of you.

At the center of the room is Elias, from Met Before the Introduction.

Wooden letters resting backwards in their drawers. People who first saw him in the middle of an ordinary day, before the introduction had been prepared, and came back anyway.

Avery has spent much of his life making beautiful things larger.

A room becomes home.
A kindness becomes proof.
A friendship becomes a future.
A good afternoon begins carrying architectural plans before dinner.

This Sunday asks for something different.

Let the thing remain what it is.
Not smaller.
Accurate.

Because actual size does not mean insignificant.

A door is a door.
A wall is a wall.
A garden can simply make you happy.
A person can matter before you know what they will become.

And a beautiful thing does not have to promise forever in order to have been beautiful.

THE SUNDAY QUESTION

What beautiful thing in your life are you asking to become bigger than it needs to be?

Tell Avery the thing.
Then tell him its actual size.
One line is enough.

Write to avery@averylanemaxwell.com and tell him how you would like it held:

Keep this between us.
You may read this anonymously.
You may use my name.

Nothing becomes part of Galena House without permission.

FROM THE KITCHEN

Sunday Pumpkin Butter Toast.

Good bread, toasted properly.
Butter.
A thin layer of cream cheese.
Pumpkin with brown sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.
A moment under the broiler.
Coffee beside it.

That is enough.
The pumpkin does not need to become a pie.

FROM THE HOUSE

Thursday, October 22
6:00 to 7:30 PM

Avery reads from Still, by Design. at the Collective, followed by a conversation about place and recovery, questions, and signing.

Free.

WATCH THE FILM

The Sunday Room is also a film.

Watch on YouTube or at:
averylanemaxwell.com/podcast

KEEP THE LAMP ON

Galena House is kept by the people who listen to it.

Twenty patrons at ten dollars a month keep the room.

The Patron Circle:
averylanemaxwell.com

⌂
Every episode and film:
averylanemaxwell.com/podcast
The letters:
averylanemaxwell.com/letters
The kitchen:
averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen

♫
The Galena House playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw

A NOTE FROM THE HOUSE

This is a personal podcast.

Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective.

When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them.

The first episode of The Keeper, the television expression of this house: a half hour, cut for broadcast from the prelude and The Sunday Room, with titles.

Imagine a room with me: two chairs, a lamp instead of the overhead light, a window with something worth looking at in it. Then six minutes on a bicycle through Frisco at the gold hour, and the discovery that I know this town well enough to leave it. The versions of people we keep and defend. Why the later truth does not crawl backward and erase the earlier one. A portrait catches a Tuesday afternoon, not a person. Home as the thing that survives the change. The question of the week: what is one beautiful thing you still protect from being rewritten? The house pumpkin bread, with the numbers for nine thousand feet. And, as promised, where Elias is going to write.

Leave the room ready. Someone is coming.

The Keeper with Avery Lane Maxwell is a host-led literary series from Galena House, made at nine thousand feet in Frisco and Dillon, Colorado. Every episode, the letters and the kitchen: averylanemaxwell.com

A note from the house: this is a personal programme. I tell these stories as I remember and understand them, from my own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, I protect what belongs to them.

Fall has never felt new to Avery. It arrives every year dressed differently, and he recognizes it before he understands why: a certain yellow, the brown underneath it, light going flatter in the afternoon. And suddenly he is also on Maley Road, in Georgia, watching his stepmother mark the season.

An essay about resemblance, the word more generous than sameness. How memory keeps what it likes, by color and texture. The versions of a self lined up like a police lineup, and why all of them were him, in different light. Elias at a fire, moving a log that did not need moving, and loving him for getting up anyway. The scone that is ruined by too much care. The leaf that was not dishonest when it was green; it simply had not reached October. Places and people and books that do not save us but keep us company. And the next Avery, who he hopes resembles this one, keeps the good parts, and leaves the rest in the field, where things decompose and something else grows.

Then, what came back. On Sunday the house asked what beautiful thing you still protect from being rewritten. The first answer arrived within the hour, from a reader almost seventy: five years old at a screen door, a soft southern rain, the metal smell of the screen, arms out wide. Read with her permission.

The question stays open: write to avery@averylanemaxwell.com and say how you would like it held. Nothing becomes part of Galena House without permission.

From the kitchen: the scones, folded twice. averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen

From the house:
· Saturday 10 October, 4 to 7 pm: the Dillon Wellness Collective's Welcome Gathering, with a silent auction. Avery's lot is a private reading in the winner's own front room.
· Thursday 22 October, 6 to 7:30 pm: Avery reads from Still, by Design. at the Collective, then a conversation about place and recovery, questions and signing. Free.

This episode is also a film. Watch it on YouTube or at averylanemaxwell.com/podcast.

Keep the lamp on: the house is kept by the people who listen to it. Twenty patrons at ten dollars a month keep the room. The Patron Circle is at averylanemaxwell.com.

⌂ Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters: averylanemaxwell.com/letters · the kitchen: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen

♫ The Galena House playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw

A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them.

The first Sunday Room. Tuesday carries the finished essay; Sunday carries the life around it.

Avery asks you to imagine a room with him: two chairs, a lamp instead of the overhead light, a window with something worth looking at. It feels a little like a therapist's office. That is fair. He is borrowing the furniture, and the hour. The Sunday Room goes wherever he goes; its one fixed address is Galena House's new writer's studio on Lake Dillon Drive in Dillon, used for sound baths while he is away.

The essay, Six Minutes at a Time: a ride from the footbridge to the Frisco Lodge at the gold hour, and what it means to know a town well enough to leave it. On making yourself structural, the boy who hoped usefulness might buy permanence, the versions of people and of ourselves that we keep and then defend, why the later truth does not crawl backward and erase the earlier one, portraits that catch a Tuesday afternoon rather than a person, and home as the thing that survives the change.

The question this week: what is one beautiful thing you still protect from being rewritten? Tell him the detail. Write to avery@averylanemaxwell.com, and say how you would like it held. Nothing becomes part of Galena House without permission.

From the kitchen: the house pumpkin bread, with the numbers for nine thousand feet. averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen/the-pumpkin-bread/

From the house:

• Galena House's address is 350 Lake Dillon Drive, Dillon, Colorado (packages; letters to the Frisco post office box).
• Saturday 10 October, 4 to 7 pm: the Dillon Wellness Collective's Welcome Gathering, with a silent auction. Avery's lot is a private reading in the winner's own front room.
• Thursday 22 October, 6 to 7:30 pm: Avery reads from Still, by Design. at the Collective, then a conversation about place and recovery, questions and signing. Free.
• A lead, please: if you know of an inn, a lodge or an old house with a story that could use someone to keep it, write to avery@averylanemaxwell.com.

And before the end, where Elias is going to write.

This episode is also a film. Watch it on YouTube or at averylanemaxwell.com/podcast.

Keep the lamp on: the house is kept by the people who listen to it. Twenty patrons at ten dollars a month keep the room. The Patron Circle is at averylanemaxwell.com.

⌂ Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters: averylanemaxwell.com/letters · the kitchen: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen

♫ The Galena House playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw

A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them.

A prelude. Not the leaving; the thing before it.

Avery started on the footbridge, turned left toward the post office, and for six minutes rode through a town that has held a very large version of his life. Not the whole thing. That distinction matters now.

On a boy who spent years looking for home and the man who learned to make one almost everywhere he went: a cup placed correctly, a lamp instead of an overhead light, a book left open. On twenty-three addresses and the superstitions they train into a person. On the innkeeper in Good Little Innkeeper, who thought that if the room stayed warm enough he could stay inside it forever, and on what Still, by Design. offered him instead. On the stillness he once built walls around, which turned out to have come with him. On gold, which is not the absence of shadow but what happens when light reaches something at the right angle.

He expected an orchestra. There was one. It was the world outside.

And news, because a prelude should say what is coming: Galena House has a home. 350 Lake Dillon Drive, in Dillon, one room upstairs at the Wellness Collective, with a sliver of the lake in the window. The first evening there is Thursday, 22 October, around Still, by Design. You are invited.

Filmed by Avery on the ride itself, Frisco, Colorado, 2 October 2026.

Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters, every one open to read: averylanemaxwell.com/letters · the rooms of the house: averylanemaxwell.com/sky

The Galena House playlist: on Spotify

A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them.