Book City ★ Roanoke

Join 2023 Writer by Bus Eva Lynch-Comer for a reading and Q&A session at Book No Further, hosted by the Latinas Network. In this episode, the we feature the sixth annual celebration of transit through the arts sponsored by the Roanoke Arts Commission, Ride Solutions, and Valley Metro with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Eva Lynch-Comer is an Afro-Latina and African-American poet with Costa Rican ancestry. She is a Creative Writing MFA student and teaching fellow at Hollins University. Eva holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Hamilton College where she received the John V. A. Weaver Prize in Poetry and the Sydna Stern Weiss Essay Prize in Women’s Studies. She is a two-time pushcart prize nominee. Eva’s work has appeared in over 15 literary magazines including Free Verse Revolution, Honeyguide Magazine, Nightingale & Sparrow, and Capsule Stories, among others. Her writing centers on themes of healing, family, love, social justice, the divine feminine, nature, jazz, music, ecofeminism, the ocean, and magic. In her free time, Eva enjoys singing, drinking tea, and walking her dog Osito. You can find more of Eva's work at www.evalynchcomer.com

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Tim Duggan Books, 2017) is an ideal book to launch season four. This season we're exploring BOOKS THAT MATTER--books that challenge us and shape the way we think and act. And return guest Shari Henry is an ideal guide for a look at our first book, which draws 20 lessons from the 20th century on how to care for our democracy.

Shari Henry is the director of democracy and community impact for the Urban Libraries Council. Shari has worked in libraries for over 15 years, including director for Roanoke County, Va. Prior to her library career, she worked in community engagement and outreach in nonprofits and is a published writer. Shari is driven by the desire to impact the community for good by connecting resources to people, and by her undying belief that libraries are fundamental to healthy democracies.

Here are some links to content discussed in the podcast.

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Urban Libraries Council
Virginia Library Association
The Suffragist Playbook: Your Guide to Changing the World by Luncinda Robb and Rebecca Boggs Roberts

The BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke Podcast is sponsored by Book No Further.

Get the book at Book No Further.

Learn more about the virtual Black History event on 2/22/22 at 7 PM.
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Get Beth's books at Book No Further.

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Poet, writer, editor, publisher, and journalist Mike Allen is trying to scare us. And he's succeeding.  With another collection out now from his own Mythic Delirium Books, he discusses his novella, "The Comforter," from his 2020 collaborative suite, A Sinister Quartet. The conversation explores this season's theme Alone / Together: What pulls us into community and stands us apart through the lens of the story's central character, an eighth grade girl undergoing some traumatic experiences. 

A conversation with author Eleanor Levine is as wide ranging and unexpected as her stories. Following her book of poetry, Waitress at the Blue Moon Pizzeria (Unsolicited Press, 2016), Levine now offers Kissing a Tree Surgeon from Guernica World Editions.  We dig into the stories, unrequited love, and our theme, "Alone / Together in a conversation that we just couldn't cut short. 

The BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast is sponsored by our good friends at Roanoke's independent book store, Book No Further. Purchase Kissing a Tree Surgeon here.

You can catch Brad's latest podcast: Quarantine Conversations with My Friends.

Brad Stephens spends his days working in the world of workforce development and has spent many years working with the social change and entrepreneurship community in Roanoke, helping build innovative community solutions. Along with being the founder of Big Lick SOUP, a co-founder of Noke Codes and putting on CityWorks (X)po, he is always looking for new community development projects that can help improve the lives of the people that call this community home.

Brad and his wife, Sarah, moved to the Roanoke Valley years ago while he was working on his M.S. in Forestry at Virginia Tech with a focus on community collaborations in sustainable development. Ever since, this community has felt like home. They have grown to love the authenticity of this dynamic place. He wants to build communities that work for people.

Larry I. Palmer, the author of Scholarship Boy: Meditations on Family and Race (Paul Dry Books, 2020), attended Phillips Exeter Academy at 14, boarding at the prestigious school, worlds away from his large St. Louis Family. Now his coming-of-age memoir highlights the strength of a family, the determination of parents, and, of course, the lessons of youth -- all in an era of dramatic upheavals and gradual change, spanning school desegregation and the fight for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s.

In a BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke conversation leading up to a 10/13/2020 Roanoke County Public Library author event, Palmer reflects on this season's theme: Alone/Together--on that which connects us and stands us apart.  

Roanoke native Kris Spisak writes, edits, and coaches writers through professional services, a podcast, a blog, two books, and creative workshops. In this conversation with BOOK CITY Roanoke's Douglas Jackson, Spisak discusses the thought process, common mistakes made by beginning writers, why grammar matters, and how it just might be fun.

Spisak is most recently the author of The Novel Editing Workbook. A former college writing instructor, having taught at institutions including the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University, Kris is now an active speaker, workshop leader, and freelance editor. She is the board chair of James River Writers and is a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, the Virginia Writers Club, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.

This season of the BOOK CITY Roanoke podcast is sponsored by www.Booknofurther.com.

Celebrating 10 years of "Word from the Appalachian South," The Revivalist's Mark Lynn Ferguson reflects on Appalachian craft, food and literature in a conversation with BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke's Douglas Jackson. 

Ferguson is co-owner of Crafteria in downtown Roanoke. The vendor-filled space celebrates contemporary makers of Southern Appalachia craft and includes a retail presence for his blog. In the conversation he discusses economic disparity, regional identity, and the resurgence of interest in Appalachian culture.

"Something like vinegar pie comes to mind," says Ferguson. "That kind of ingenuity is born of necessity."

Find the conversation wherever you get your podcasts, and get more information about our things literary at BOOKCITYRoanoke.com.

The sponsor for this season of the podcast is Book No Further.

Sandee McGlaun is an associate professor of English and the director of the writing center at Roanoke College. She writes nonfiction as well as poetry and plays. She has released her writing in two blogs, Still Life, Beyond Cancer and 40 Something First Time Bride.

"When I switched from fiction to nonfiction," says McGlaun, "I realized everything's a story. There's material everywhere. It's a matter of seeing it, looking at it." 

In addition to her work with students at Roanoke College, McGlaun has worked as an artist-in-residence at Carilion Clinic through the Dr. Robert L.A. Keeley Healing Arts program.

In this conversation with BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke's Douglas Jackson, she talks about her relationship to the written word, how a breast cancer diagnosis shaped her writing path, and crafting a voice in nonfiction.

Artist Napoleon Jones-Henderson recently installed a sculptural series, "Rhapsody in Knowledge," in front of Roanoke's Melrose Library. In this conversation with BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke's Douglas Jackson, the artist reflects on the role of books and libraries in his life, including the experience as a child of hearing Gwendolyn Brooks read poetry at Chicago's Hall Branch Library and the impact of the writings of James Baldwin on him as a young artist in Paris.

A founding member of the AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), Jones-Henderson discusses music, art, and the sense of purpose that connects the ten member artists, who after 50 years, he considers family. "All artists start out with a place they want their work to go... Only through the interaction and relationship with others does that work actually grow and manifest into what you want it to be in the end."

Hear Jones-Henderson on who's shaped him and the responsibility he feels for passing it on.

Urban gardener Cameron Terry began Garden Variety Harvests in 2017. The businesses borrows other people's land to grow fresh produce for the Roanoke market. In this episode of the podcast, Cam talks with BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke's Douglas Jackson about books that continue to shape the strategy and spirit with which he's connecting local residents with local food.

There's a real social mission behind this enterprise, and through collaborative and intentional strategies, Terry says it can make a difference. "I'm the kind of person, this small farm operation," he says, "who's going to be responsible for changing how our food system works and making it so that everyone can eat at that table."

Hear more about equity, local food, and the books that inspire this City Builder increasing access to healthy food in the city.

Mentioned in this episode.

• Garden Variety Harvests
• Carilion Clinic Community Health and Outreach
• LEAP (Local Environmental Agricultural Project)
• The Urban Farmer by Curtis Stone
• Ingredient by Ali Bouzari
• Farming While Black by Leah Penniman
• Soul Fire Farm

Get more on Ashley at ashleywilsonfellers.com 

Visit our sponsor Book No Further

Find links to the books Katherine mentioned at BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke.

Visit Katherine's website.

Track Hoot & Holler here on Facebook.
Find more book talk at BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke.

★ The BOOK CITY Roanoke Podcast is sponsored by Book No Further, Puttin’ Ideas in Your Head since 2017.

Season two of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast continues with a conversation with four-term Roanoke City Council Member Bill Bestpitch. Bestpitch offers reflections on his reading life, Roanoke's progress, and the exchange of perspectives over shared reading.

Bestpitch entered public life through his active participation in the Old Southwest neighborhood in the early 90s and is active in a number of civic and reading groups in the community.

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Book No Further, an independent book store on Roanoke's Historic City Market.

Season two of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast launches with a conversation with freelance journalist and local foods advocate Christina Nifong. In her profiles of Roanoke area residents, Nifong plays the cinematographer.  "I'm always trying to decide when to go in tight and when to pull back," she says. The telling detail help us understand her subject, and these individual stories help us understand the broader place.

Nifong recently penned a story for The Roanoker, "What Makes Roanoke, Roanoke?" In this episode she talks about what she found out in the many conversations she had in writing it and she talks about the changes and trajectory of her own life as mother and professional.

Follow Christina Nifong's writing and projects in her Nourishing Stories newsletter available at christinanifong.com.

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Book No Further, an independent book store on Roanoke's Historic City Market.

www.bookcityroanoke.com 

Jeanne Larsen, writer, spent a career at Hollins University and is now professor emeritus. She is most recently the author of What Penelope Chooses (Cider Press Review, 2019). She describes the work as a "sassy lyrical footnotes to Homer" in which she responds to characters from The Odyssey and The Iliad. 

Joe Cobb is the co-author with Leigh Anne Taylor of Our Family Outing: A Memoir of Coming Out and Coming Through (self-published in 2011).  This summer he marked one year of service on Roanoke's City Council. He has served in the past as pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of the Blue Ridge, and currently he’s a chaplain for hermitage Roanoke and Outreach Coordinator for Highland Park Elementary School.

The three titles discussed in this episode:

• Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (Doubleday, 1975) by Henri Nouwen 
• Beloved (Knopf, 1987) by Toni Morrison
• Let Your Life Speak:Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Jossey Bass, 2000) by Parker J. Palmer

Identity and Action: Season one of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast continues with poet Ashley Rhame.  Ashley writes and performs with astonishing frequency. She's active in bringing people together in The Speakeasy, evenings of music and poetry. She is the program lead for Girls Rock Roanoke, and she works full time for Roanoke Public Libraries at the new Melrose Branch.

"Without poetry, I don't know who I would be," says Rhame.

In this episode, Rhame performs the poem "The Color of My Soul", a poem through which Rhame uncovered aspects of who she is in the world. It's a topic she uses to engage young people, who she says, need to know who they are to navigate the world around around them. Words help.

Listen to this City Builder, and share her joy for writing, performing, and caring for the people sharing the neighborhood and the world around her.

Identity and Action: Season one of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast continues with Gregory Samantha Rosenthal.  Dr. Rosenthal, an assistant professor of public history at Roanoke College, has led the charge in reviving and building the Roanoke LGBT Memorial Library at the Roanoke Diversity Center. 

Rosenthal says they learned of the pieces of past libraries even before moving to the region in 2015. "I wanted to see it," they said. The conversation highlights the power and community benefit of individual efforts, and explores the changing roles of books and technology in identity and self exploration.  "The books seem anachronistic" to young volunteers, but oral histories show just how important they were for the community in the past.

Rosenthal founded the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, a community-based queer public history initiative. The effort has resulted in the LGBTQ History Collection at the Virginia Room of the Roanoke Public Library, as well as a digital archive. Students and community members have recorded oral histories with LGBTQ+ elders. And the group offers monthly walking tours of Downtown Roanoke and Old Southwest, Roanoke’s historic gayborbood.