Meet Peter Rosch | Author and Co-Host of What We Know What We Don’t

We had the good fortune of connecting with Peter Rosch and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Peter, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Before What We Know, What We Don’t was a radio show on KWVH 94.3 in Wimberley, TX, it was an idea. My cohost, Benita Conde, came up with it—as a writer, I’ve come to accept that most of the best lines or titles I’ve ever been a part of usually come from non-writers! The concept is rooted in the belief that listening with an open mind is key to aggressive self-evolution. The mediascape is chockfull of rage-tainment options, and for a good reason: those shows get clicks quickly, develop followings quickly, and, to be frank, it’s easy and dopamine-inducing to be mad all the time. Nonetheless, we wanted to try something different, and thankfully, the station manager, Tim Kiesling, was very on board.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I loved writing as a kid, but I suppose I liked the notion of being an MTV-esque rockstar more. For a good chunk of my angsty years, I put the pen down in favor of drumsticks, then guitar, then both. For the better part of a decade, the only writing I did was for school assignments or the lyrics to songs I was writing while performing in a couple of different bands. Even after college, where I basically accidentally majored in Advertising, I went out billing myself as an Art Director. Dozens of incredibly smart people who interviewed me in both San Fransisco and Manhattan asked me repeatedly why I wasn’t trying to be a writer. It’s a long story, and frankly, I’m not sure what answer I even gave them, but after doing just okay as an AD, eventually, I took a job as a writer at Cartoon Network in their OnAir Promotions department and never looked back. That’s when my career in advertising really started to take off—because, I guess, I was actually a pretty decent writer. Of ads and adlike objects, anyway.

Of course, my alcoholism and addictions caught up with me, and came close to not only killing my career but also killing me—and so, it’s pretty easy for me to say I’ll always be proud (though I prefer to say grateful) of the sobriety I achieved with the help of my higher power, AA, and a handful of good friends and my family. I don’t typically think of it as an achievement, to be honest. It feels more like a gift that was given to me that I work to protect at all costs. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without both the life I had as an addict and an alcoholic and the life I have now as a healthy, sober, but still darkly optimistic human.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When friends visit Wimberley, we do our best to spend the day outdoors. Blue Hole is amazing, Jacobs Well, when it’s flowing, is amazing, the Blanco River (if you can find a place to sneak into it) is amazing—we’ll hit a few of the shops in town and grab a coffee at Sip or Blanco Brew, but for the most part I’m here to be outside and I’d advise anyone visiting to do the same—just not in August or September when it’s always so miserable that I think about running away to the highest mountains for good.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There is no shortage of people, groups, or literature to shoutout to! I do know this: all my success and joy and good fortune over the past fifteen years isn’t possible without Alcoholics Anonymous and the sobriety I achieved through a twelve-step program. I’d say both our significant others deserve a ton of credit, too. Given more space, my shoutout list would be pages long!

Website: https://www.peterrosch.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peterrosch/

Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/4iomAXjUbRc9c2nVkE5Ils?si=d557d449bda04619 – WWKWWD on Spotify https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-we-know-what-we-dont/id1638627477 – WWKWWD on Apple Podcasts https://a.co/d/bAYVevX – my most recent novella, Future Skinny