Montana author Philip Burgess joins host Mike Smith in the Trail 103.3 studio alongside longtime friend and creative collaborator Ednor Therriault. Together, they talk about Burgess’s powerful new memoir, The Bunch Quitter — a sweeping, poetic account of a life spent drifting through America during the ’60s and ’70s in pursuit of ultimate freedom. From the windswept badlands of eastern Montana to sleeping under stars on the Gulf Coast, Burgess reflects on memory, pain, growth, and the cost of independence. Hear stories behind the book, the role of personal truth in writing, and what it means to be a true bunch quitter.

Recorded ahead of the book release party at Shakespeare & Co. in Missoula.

🎧 Featuring: music by Bob Wire

In addition to The Bunch Quitter, Philip Burgess has written three books of poetry, Henry’s Cows: Poetry by Philip J. Burgess; Penny Postcards and Prairie Flowers; and Badlands Child. In 2005, Burgess was nominated for the position of Montana’s first poet laureate. He was born in Eastern Montana and served as an officer in Vietnam, and then, after he returned to the US, he took to the road. He made his home in Western Montana, where he dedicates his life to serving as a veteran’s spokesman and therapist, and to being a poet and a storyteller as he continues to reckon with the road, memory, and meaning.