Episodes
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Emily talks with Minrose Gwin, author of Beautiful Dreamers and five other novels.
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A native of Tupelo, Mississippi, Minrose has been a writer all of her working life, starting out as a newspaper and wire service reporter and working in Mobile, Atlanta, Nashville, and Knoxville. She has taught as a professor at universities around the country, most recently at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has spent many summers leading creative writing workshops at the University of New Mexico Writers' Conference in Taos and Santa Fe. She lives in Austin, TX, and Albuquerque, NM.
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About Beautiful Dreamers bookshop.org:
From Minrose Gwin, award-winning author of The Accidentals, comes Beautiful Dreamers, a story of a precocious teen and her mother, their gay best friend, and the con man who unravels their family.
It's 1953 when Memory Feather and her mother, Virginia, are welcomed back home to the Mississippi Gulf Coast community of Belle Cote by Virginia's childhood friend Mac McFadden, whose verve and energy buoy the recently divorced Virginia to embrace this new chapter. Memory ("Mem") is unlike other girls: she is attuned to the voices of plants and animals and is missing two fingers on her twisted left hand. The three of them knit their lives together and become a close, though unconventional, family.
While Mac's wealth, brains, and good humor have allowed him to carve out a niche in Belle Cote, his position as a gay man active in the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement exposes him to censure, harassment, and even brutality. When the unscrupulous and charismatic Tony Amato arrives in Belle Cote as Mac's "guest," he sets in motion a series of events that will shatter familial bonds and forever change Mem's life. Now, an adult Mem recounts the story of the scars Tony left in her teenage years, confronting her culpability in the disastrous events of that final summer.
Sweeping, dramatic, and vividly rendered, Beautiful Dreamers is a novel of innocence and betrayal, love and intolerance, and the care and honesty we owe the families we choose.
-Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Emily Liner
Guest Author: Minrose Gwin
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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American gothic author and artist Brom joins Rachel in the FCB Studio to discuss his newest book, Evil in Me - available now!
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Over the past few decades, acclaimed dark fantasy artist Brom has lent his distinctive vision to all facets of the creative industries, from novels and games to comics and film. He is the nationally bestselling author of Slewfoot, The Child Thief, Krampus, The Lost Gods and the award-winning illustrated horror novels The Plucker and The Devil's Rose. Brom is currently kept in a dank cellar just outside of Savannah.
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About Evil In Me (bookshop.org)(libro.fm):
Evil in Me is bestselling author Brom's newest novel of possession, damnation, and rock 'n' roll, where one woman must get the world singing in order to save her soul.
Aspiring musician Ruby Tucker has had enough of her small rural town and dysfunctional family. But a falling out with her best friend and bandmate has killed her dreams of escaping and making it big in the Atlanta punk scene.
While helping her eccentric neighbor organize his religious artifacts, an ancient ring clamps down on her finger--possessing her with the spirit of a blood-thirsty demon. There's no exorcizing it unless hundreds of people chant a spell to set Ruby free. And what's worse, the ring is a beacon for evil, drawing an unimaginably wicked mob straight to Ruby, hungry for her flesh.
If Ruby can get her band back together, she has a shot at salvation. It's time for her to face the music and put her whole soul into a song--one powerful enough to raise some Hell.This devilish tale includes nearly two dozen of Brom's immersive paintings and brilliant endpapers.
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For a video version of this interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
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Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Rachel Derise
Guest Author: Brom
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Episodes manquant?
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Caroline talks with Dale Gray, author of South of Somewhere and creator of The Daley Plate! Donât miss Dale Gray at the Possumtown Book Fest in Columbus, MS on August 24th!
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Dale Gray was born in South Africa. After graduating from Stellenbosch University, she moved to South Korea to teach English and spent six years there. In her last year in South Korea, she met a soldier from Mississippi, and they fell in love. They moved back to the United States, and that's when Dale began to experiment with both Korean and South African flavors, along with the Southern dishes she was introduced to.
She began to share her recipes on TheDaleyPlate.com and on social media platforms such as Instagram, and she now has hundreds of thousands of followers. Her work was featured in Martha Stewart, Saveur, Food 52, Cooking Light, Food & Wine, TheKitchn, Bake from Scratch, and more. She lives in Mississippi with her husband.
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About South of Somewhere (bookshop.org):
NAMED A BEST COOKBOOK OF 2023 by TASTING TABLE and LOCAL PALATE
A one-of-a-kind recipe chronicle of Dale Gray's life in the south--from South Africa to South Korea to the American South.
South of Somewhere is a unique culinary tour of beloved food blogger Dale Gray's life to date. Her journey goes way back to South Africa on the outskirts of Cape Town. Dale grew up with a close-knit family who has resided in her hometown for generations, but it's almost impossible to encapsulate her heritage in a few words. She describes the people of South Africa as a product of centuries of colonization, enslavement, apartheid, and intermarriage between people from Asia, Africa, and Europe--now compromising a colorful blend of Eastern, Western, and African heritage.
After growing up in South Africa, Dale taught English for six years in South Korea, and she later moved to the American South where she resides now with her husband. The result of her travels is a one-of-a-kind cookbook with dishes including Porch Party Shrimp with Mississippi Comeback Sauce, Salmon Ssam Feast, and Garlic Peri-Peri Roast Chicken.
Dale Gray is best known for creating delicious dinner recipes for her blog and Instagram that look as good as they taste, but this book delves far deeper into her story and food with delicious creations like these and more which you'll return to time and time again.
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Dale Gray will be joining us in Columbus, MS for the Possumtown Book Festival on August 24th! Join us for a day of bookish fun with author panels and book signings, a local author showcase, kids programming, and a book fair for adults and kids! Visit friendlycitybooks.com for more information.
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Caroline Barbee
Guest Author: Dale Gray
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Thomas Easterling sits down with NYT Bestselling author, Ace Atkins to discuss his thrilling new book, Donât Let the Devil Ride. Donât miss Ace Atkins at the Possumtown Book Fest in Columbus, MS on August 24th!
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Ace Atkins is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author who started his writing career as a crime beat reporter in Florida. Donât Let the Devil Ride is his thirtieth novel. His previous novels include eleven books in the Quinn Colson series and multiple true-crime novels based on infamous crooks and killers. In 2010, he was chosen by Robert B. Parkerâs family to continue the iconic Spenser series, adding ten novels to the franchise. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family.
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About Donât Let the Devil Ride (bookshop.org)(libro.fm):
Addison McKellar isnât cluelessâshe knows she and her husband Dean donât have the perfect marriageâbut sheâs still shocked when he completely vanishes from her life. At first Addison is annoyed, but as days stretch into a week and sheâs repeatedly stonewalled by Deanâs friends and associates, her frustration turns into genuine alarm. When even the police seem dismissive of her concerns, Addison turns to her fatherâs old friend, legendary Memphis PI Porter Hayes.
Porter and Addison begin to dig deeper into Deanâs affairs and quickly discover that he was never the hardworking business owner and family man he pretended to be. As they piece together the connections between a hook-handed mercenary, one of Elvisâs former leading ladies, and a man posing as an FBI agent, it becomes clear that Dean was deeply enmeshed in a high-stakes web of international intrigue, and Porter and Addison arenât the only ones looking for him.
Dean angered some very dangerous people before he disappearedâpeople who have already killed to get what they wantâand they wonât hesitate to come after his family to even the score.
Donât Let the Devil Ride is a thrilling adventure about what can happen when you pull back the curtain on your life. Ace Atkins, long known for gritty Southern noir with a witty edge, has crafted an ambitious, globe-hopping story that comes home to Memphis in explosive fashion.
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Ace Atkins will be joining us in Columbus, MS for the Possumtown Book Festival on August 24th! Join us for a day of bookish fun with author panels and book signings, a local author showcase, kids programming, and a book fair for adults and kids! Visit friendlycitybooks.com for more informations
For a video version of this interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube
Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Thomas Easterling
Guest Author: Ace Atkins
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Author and animator-extraordinaire Rob Renzetti joins Rachel again to discuss his newest middle-grade novel, The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment! This is the second time Rob Renzetti has joined us, Listen to the first episode we did with Rob Renzetti last year!
Rob Renzetti is a multi-talented author and veteran of TV animation whose work on Cartoon Networkâs Fosterâs Home for Imaginary Friends earned him an Emmy. He created the Nickelodeon show My Life as a Teenage Robot, acted as the supervising producer for Disneyâs Gravity Falls, and served as executive producer on the first two seasons of Disneyâs Big City Greens, among other projects.
He is the author of several books:
The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment (bookshop.org) (libro.fm)The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things (bookshop.org) (libro.fm)Gravity Falls: Dipper's and Mabel's Guide to Nonstop Mystery and Fun! (bookshop.org)Onward: Quests of Yore (bookshop.org)Rob's newest book, The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment, a continuation of the story from The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things, The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment is a thrilling and spine-chilling fantastical adventure sure to delight kids and adults alike and is perfect for fans of Coraline, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Small Spaces.
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Rob's favorite books:
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (bookshop.org) (libro.fm)The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (bookshop.org) (libro.fm)Geek Love by Katherine Dunn (bookshop.org) (libro.fm)Pet Sematary by Stephen King (bookshop.org) (libro.fm)Foundation by Isaac Asimov (bookshop.org) (libro.fm)-
Thank you to Rob Renzetti for being our first ever repeat podcast interviewee! We had so much fun discussing his books, animation, and horror with him. For a full audio and visual version of this interview, check out the Friendly City Books youtube channel.
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Rachel Derise
Guest Author: Rob Renzetti
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Rachel and Lauren celebrate Hot Possum Horror's return with a crossover episode of HPH and Make It Gay! Tune in to discover their favorite Queer Horror books!
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List of recommendations to come!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
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Host: Rachel Derise
Cohost: Lauren O'Connell
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Make It Gay! is a series that celebrates queer stories and authors in different genres. This week Lauren is joined by University of Mississippi's Pip Gordon to explore Mississippi's queer literary legacy.
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Philip "Pip" Gordon was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up just north of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Pip is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi, and the author of "Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond" (bookshop.org)(libro.fm).
Most recently, Pip Gordon worked to preserve Mississippi author Hubert Creekmore's work, The Welcome (bookshop.org).
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks-
Host: Lauren O'Connell
Cohost: Pip Gordon
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production assistance by Neon Newt Media LLC-
© 2024 Friendly City Books Inc.
friendlycitybooks.com -
Debut author Vaishnavi Patel joins Aislinn in the FCB studio to celebrate her captivating new novel, Goddess of the River! ICYMI - Goddess of the River will be The Muses Book Club's July Pick at Friendly City Books!
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Vaishnavi Patel is a lawyer focusing on constitutional law and civil rights. She likes to write at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism, and anti-colonialism. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Kaikeyi. Vaishnavi grew up in and around Chicago, and in her spare time, enjoys activities that are almost stereotypically Midwestern: knitting, ice skating, drinking hot chocolate, and making hotdish. Her latest novel Goddess of the River is available in stores now!
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Goddess of the River will be The Muses Book Club July Pick! We will be discussing Goddess of the River on July 23rd at 7pm at Friendly City Books.
The Muses Book Club is a collaboration between Friendly City Books and The Columbus Lowndes Public Library that celebrates mythology, fantasy, and stories about mythic women. If you're in the Columbus area, join us!
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About Goddess of the River (bookshop.org)(libro.fm):
A powerful reimagining of the story of Ganga, goddess of the river, and her doomed mortal son, from Vaishnavi Patel, author of the instant New York Times bestseller Kaikeyi.
A mother and a son. A goddess and a prince. A curse and an oath. A river whose course will change the fate of the world.
Ganga, joyful goddess of the river, serves as caretaker to the mischievous godlings who roam her banks. But when their antics incur the wrath of a powerful sage, Ganga is cursed to become mortal, bound to her human form until she fulfills the obligations of the curse.
Though she knows nothing of mortal life, Ganga weds King Shantanu and becomes a queen, determined to regain her freedom no matter the cost. But in a cruel turn of fate, just as she is freed of her binding, she is forced to leave her infant son behind.
Her son, prince Devavrata, unwittingly carries the legacy of Gangaâs curse. And when he makes an oath that he will never claim his fatherâs throne, he sets in motion a chain of events that will end in a terrible and tragic war.
As the years unfold, Ganga and Devavrata are drawn together again and again, each confluence another step on a path that has been written in the stars, in this deeply moving and masterful tale of duty, destiny, and the unwavering bond between mother and son.
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For a video version of this interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Aislinn Kopp
Guest Author: Vaishnavi Patel
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Debut author O.O. Sangoyomi joins Caroline in the FCB studio to discuss her captivating new novel, Masquerade! And big news - O.O. Sangoyomi will be at the 2024 Mississippi Book Festival, and Masquerade will be The Muses Book Club's August Pick at Friendly City Books!
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O.O. Sangoyomi is a Nigerian American author. During a childhood of constantly moving around, she found an anchored home in the fictional worlds of books. Sangoyomi is a recent graduate of Princeton University, where she studied literature. Her debut novel, Masquerade, will be published by Macmillan/Forge on July 2, 2024!
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Masquerade will be The Muses Book Club August Pick! We will be discussing Masquerade on August 27th at 7pm at Friendly City Books.
The Muses Book Club is a collaboration between Friendly City Books and The Columbus Lowndes Public Library that celebrates mythology, fantasy, and stories about mythic women. If you're in the Columbus area, join us!
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About Masquerade (bookshop.org)(libro.fm):
Set in a wonderfully reimagined 15th century West Africa, Masquerade is a dazzling, lyrical tale exploring the true cost of one womanâs fight for freedom and self-discovery, and the lengths sheâll go to secure her future.
ĂdĂČdĂłâs hometown of Timbuktu has been conquered by the the warrior king of YorĂčbĂĄland. Already shunned as social pariahs, living conditions for ĂdĂČdĂł and the other women in her blacksmith guild grow even worse under YorĂčbĂĄ rule.
Then ĂdĂČdĂł is abducted. She is whisked across the Sahara to the capital city of SÌŁĂ ngĂłtáșčÌ, where she is shocked to discover that her kidnapper is none other than the vagrant who had visited her guild just days prior. But now that he is swathed in riches rather than rags, ĂdĂČdĂł realizes he is not a vagrant at all; he is the warrior king, and he has chosen her to be his wife.
In a sudden change of fortune, ĂdĂČdĂł soars to the very heights of society. But after a lifetime of subjugation, the power that saturates this world of battle and political savvy becomes too enticing to resist. As tensions with rival states grow, revealing elaborate schemes and enemies hidden in plain sight, ĂdĂČdĂł must defy the cruel king she has been forced to wed by re-forging the shaky loyalties of the court in her favor, or risk losing everythingâincluding her life.
Loosely based on the myth of Persephone, O.O. Sangoyomiâs Masquerade takes you on a journey of epic power struggles and political intrigue that turn an entire region on its head.
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Caroline Barbee
Guest Author: O.O. Sangoyomi
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Joselyn Takacs joins Emily in the FCB studio to celebrate her debut novel, Pearce Oysters, a family drama set during the 2010 BP Oil Spill.
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Joselyn Takacs holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California and an MFA in Fiction from Johns Hopkins University. Her fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, Narrative, Tin House online, Harvard Review, The Rumpus, DIAGRAM, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and elsewhere. She has published interviews and book reviews in the Los Angeles Review of Books and Entropy. She has taught writing at the University of Southern California and Johns Hopkins University.
Joselyn's debut novel, Pearce Oysters (bookshop.org)(libro.fm) is a family drama set during the 2010 BP Oil Spill. She lived in New Orleans at the time of the spill, and in 2015, she received a grant to record the oral histories of Louisiana oyster farmers in the wake of the environmental disaster. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
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About Pearce Oysters:
A fractured family, a devastated community, and the disaster that brings them together.
Pearce Oysters, a lush, evocative, finely-drawn debut novel set on the Louisiana coastline during the historic 2010 oil spill, follows the Pearce family, local oyster farmers whose business, family, and livelihood are all on the brink of collapse.
Eye-opening, eco-fiction at its best, Pearce Oysters highlights the grit and beauty of lives lived in an overlooked corner of the American South and the interdependence of nature and man. Diving deep into the bonds of family, culture, community, class, and industry, blazing new talent Joselyn Takacs elevates the voices of her deeply sympathetic characters: Jordan, the reluctant head of his family's storied oyster business; May, his distressed, widowed mother who has her own unexpected drama; and Benny, the beatnik musician brother, who returns from New Orleans to help with the crisis.
Inspired by years of her own research, Takacs's debut novel sparkles as it shines a light on murky waters, old wounds, the power of a family clinging to survival, and their inspiring path forward.
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Emily Liner
Guest Author: Joselyn Takacs
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Caroline and Lauren are celebrating Pride Month with a countdown of their favorite lgtbq+ historical fiction novels!
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Make It Gay! is a series that celebrates queer stories and authors in different genres. Don't forget to check out our previous episodes on YA, Fantasy, Romance, and Poetry!
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Historical Fiction Recommendations:
Hild by Nicola Griffith (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Empty Theater by Jac Jemc (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)The Library Thief by by Kuchenga Shenje (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Cantoras by Caro de Robertis (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Maojin (bookshop.org)Jobs For Girls With Artistic Flair by June Gervais (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Love Junkie by Robert Plunket (bookshop.org)Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)-
Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks-
Host: Lauren O'Connell
Cohost: Caroline Barbee
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production assistance by Neon Newt Media LLC-
© 2024 Friendly City Books Inc.
friendlycitybooks.com -
Author Margaret Hagerman sits down with Emily to discuss her new book - Children of a Troubled Time
Growing Up with Racism in Trump's America.-
Margaret A. Hagerman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate in African American Studies and Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. She is the author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America which won the William J. Goode Book Award given by the American Sociological Associationâs Section on Family and was a Finalist for the C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
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Maggie's new book, Children of a Troubled Time Growing Up with Racism in Trump's America (bookshop.org)(libro.fm) is out now!
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About Children of a Troubled Time Growing Up with Racism in Trump's America:
Kids are at the center of todayâs âculture warsââpundits, politicians, and parents alike are debating which books they should be allowed to read, which version of history they should learn in school, and what decisions they can make about their own bodies. And yet, no one asks kids what they think about these issues.
In Children of a Troubled Time, award-winning sociologist Margaret A. Hagerman amplifies the voices of children who grew up during Trumpâs presidency and explores how they learn about race in America today. Hagerman interviewed nearly fifty children between the ages of ten to thirteen in two dramatically different political landscapes: Mississippi and Massachusetts. Hagerman interviewed kids who identified as conservative and liberal in both places as well as kids from different racial groups. She discovered remarkably similar patterns in the ideas expressed by these children. Racism, she asserts, is not just a local or regional phenomenon: it is a broad American project affecting childhoods across the country.
In Hagermanâs emotionally compelling interviews, children describe what it is like to come of age during years of deep political and racial divide, and how being a kid during the Trump era shaped their views on racism, democracy, and America as a whole. Childrenâs racialized emotions are also central to this book: disgust and discomfort, fear and solidarity, dominance and apathy.
As administrators, teachers, and parents struggle to help children make sense of our racially and politically polarized nation, Hagerman offers concrete examples of the kinds of interventions necessary to help kids learn how to become members of a multi-racial democracy and to avoid the development of far-right thinking in the white youth of today. Children of a Troubled Time expands our understanding of how the rising generation grapples with the complexities of racism and raises critical questions about the future of American society.
-For a video version of this author interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube channel!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Find us on social media -
Facebook: facebook.com/friendlycitybooks
Instagram: @friendlycitybooks
Tiktok: @friendlycitybooks
Youtube: @friendlycitybooks2586
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Host: Emily Liner
Guest Author: Margaret Hagerman
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Caroline sits down with NYT Bestselling romance author, Katherine Center to discuss her new book, The Rom-commers - a must-read for any romantic comedy lover!
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BookPage calls Katherine Center âthe reigning queen of comfort reads.â Sheâs the New York Times bestselling author of over half a dozen books, including How to Walk Away, Things You Save in a Fire, and What You Wish For.
Katherine writes laugh-and-cry books about how life knocks us downâand how we get back up. Sheâs been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas Morning News calls her stories, âsatisfying in the most soul-nourishing way.â
Her books have made countless Best-Of lists, including RealSimpleâs Best Books of 2020, Amazon's Top 100 Books of 2019, Goodreads' Best Books of the Year, and many more. Bestselling author Emily Henry calls her summer 2022 book, The Bodyguard, âa shot of pure joy.â The movie adaptation of Katherineâs novel The Lost Husband (starring Josh Duhamel) hit #1 on Netflix, and her novel Happiness for Beginners is now a Netflix original starring Ellie Kemper.
Katherine lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas, with her husband, two kids, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog.
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Katherine Center's list of novels include:
The Rom-Commers (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Hello Stranger (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)The Bodyguard (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Happiness for Beginners (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)What You Wish For (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Things You Save in a Fire (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)How to Walk Away (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)-
About The Rom-Commers:
Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. Sheâs spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comediesâgood ones! That win contests! But sheâs also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie YatesâThe Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!âitâs a break too big to pass up.
Emmaâs younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Donât meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesnât want to write with anyoneâmuch less âa failed, nobody screenwriter.â Worse, the romantic comedy heâs written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesnât even care about the scriptâitâs just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.
But Emmaâs not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matterâeven if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story theyâre writing breaks all Emmaâs rulesâand comes true?
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For a video version of this interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube
Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Caroline Barbee
Guest Author: Katherine Center
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
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Author Jess Everlee joins Lauren in the FCB Studio to celebrate her delightful new romance novel, A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence!
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Jess Everlee writes decadent romance from the Northeast Ohio split-level she shares with her small family of furballs and fellow humans. She holds a B.A. from The Ohio State University, where she studied English and Gender Studies, focusing on Victorian Literature and public health topics.
While that background resulted in an eclectic resume, her passion for reading and writing has never wavered. She has a deep love of interesting art, offbeat communities, and admittedly pretentious coffee brewing systems.
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Jess Everlee is the author of the Lucky Lovers of London series:
*The Gentleman's Book of Vices (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)
*A Rulebook for Restless Rogues (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)
*A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)-
About A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence -
London, 1885
A lesbian in a lavender marriage, Jo Smith cuts a dashing figure in pin-striped trousers, working in her bookshop and keeping polite company. But her hard-earned stability is about to be upended thanks to her husbandâs pregnant paramour, who needs medical attention that no reputable doctor will provide.
Enter Dr. Emily Clarke, a tantalizing bluestocking working at a quaint village hospital outside the city. Emily has reservations about getting mixed up in Joâs scandalous arrangement, but her flustered, heart-racing response to Jo has her agreeing to help despite herself.
Thereâs a world of difference between Joâs community of underground clubs and sapphic societies and Emilyâs respectable suburbs. Perhaps itâs a gap that even fervent desire canât bridge.
But for those bold enough to take the risk, who knows what delicious adventures might be in store âŠ
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For a video version of this author interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube channel!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Lauren O'Connell
Guest Author: Jess Everlee
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
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Author Joanna Pearson sits down with Emily to discuss her debut novel - Bright and Tender Dark.
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Joanna Pearson is the author of two short story collections and a book of poetry. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and many other publications. She has won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and the Virginia Literary Awards. She lives in North Carolina, where she works as a psychiatrist.
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Joanna's debut novel, Bright and Tender Dark (bookshop.org)(libro.fm) is out Tuesday, June 4, 2024!
BRIGHT AND TENDER DARK is this week's FCB Book of the Week! Between now and June 10, 2024, enjoy 15% off your copy in store or online at friendlycitybooks.com!
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About BRIGHT AND TENDER DARK:
Days after the dawn of Y2K, beautiful, charismatic nineteen-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, those who knew Karlieâand those who just knew of herâremain consumed by her death. Among them is her freshman-year roommate, Joy, now middle-aged and mid-divorce, living in the same college town and desperate for a new beginning.
When she stumbles upon a twenty-year-old letter from Karlie, Joy becomes convinced the man in prison for her murder was wrongfully convicted. Soon she is diving deep into the dark world of internet conspiracy theorists and amateur sleuth blogs and bouncing off others touched by the long, sensational aftermath of this crime. They include KC, the trans night manager at the building where Karlie was killed; Sheri, the mother of the man serving time; and Jacob Hendrix, the charming professor with whom, Joy knows all too well, Karlie was romantically entangled before her death.
Jumping between 2019 and 1999, Bright and Tender Dark takes us from the era of Reddit threads and online obsession to the evangelism-infused culture of the late â90s to reveal what really happened to Karlie. It is a compulsively readable, prismatic literary debut that brilliantly mines the mythology of murder, the power of urban legend, and the psychological urge to both protect and exploit what you love but cannot have.
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For a video version of this author interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube channel!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Emily Liner
Guest Author: Joanna Pearson
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
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Emily sits down with Mississippi author and journalist Ellen Ann Fentress to discuss her memoir Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning.
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Ellen Ann Fentress is the author of:
*The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning (bookshop.org)Ellen Ann Fentress is a veteran writer for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Sheâs also a seasoned southern woman, specifically a white Mississippi one. âWomen do a lot for free, no matter the era, no matter the location,â she observes in The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning. As a good southern woman, Fentress felt a calling to help others. As a teenager, she volunteered as a March of Dimes quarter collector and sang hymns at a soup-and-salvation homeless shelter. Later, she married, reared two daughters, renovated a 1941 Colonial home, practiced her French, and served as the bookkeeper for her husbandâs business. She followed the scripts she was handed by society.
But there were the convenient lies and silences that she and most southernâmake that Americanâwhite women have settled on in the name of convention and, to be honest, inertia. For Fentress, her dodges both behind her front door and beyond became impossible to miss. Eventually, along with claiming a personal second act at midlife, she realized the most urgent community work she could do was to spur truth-telling about the history she knew well and participated in. She was one of the nearly one million students in the South enrolled in all-white âsegregation academies,â a sweeping movement away from public education that continues to warp the Deep South today. To document and engage with this history, she founded the Admissions Project: Racism and the Possible in Southern Schools, which has been featured in the Washington Post, Slate, Forbes and other publications.
The Steps We Take tells how one woman reckons with both a regionâs history and her own past. Through a lens ranging from intimate to the widely human, through moments painful and darkly comic, Fentress casts a penetrating light on what it means to be a white southern woman today.
-For a video version of this author interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube channel!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Emily Liner
Guest Author: Ellen Ann Fentress
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
Friendlycitybooks.com
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Rachel sits down with one of her favorite horror authors EVER, Clay McLeod Chapman, to discuss his books and experience as an author in the horror genre.
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Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of many novels, including:
*What Kind of Mother (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)
*Ghost Eaters (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)
*Whisper Down the Lane (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)
*The Remaking (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)
* miss corpus (bookshop.org)He is also the author of story collections nothing untoward, commencement and rest area, as well as The Tribe middle-grade series: Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal and Academic Assassins.
His novel, What Kind of Mother (bookshop.org), comes out in paperback on June 4, 2024.
And! His newest novel, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (bookshop.org)(libro.fm), arrives on January 7, 2025. Preorder your copy now!
In addition to novels, Clay McLeod Chapman also writes comic books and is a writer for tv and movies. Quiet Part Loud, a 12-part horror podcast from Jordan Peele/Monkeypaw Productions, written by Chapman and Mac Rogers, is available on Spotify.
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For a video version of this author interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube channel!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Rachel Derise
Guest Author: Clay McLeod Chapman
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
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Friendly City Bestsellers is a quarterly deep dive into FCB's bestsellers and customer favorites.
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FCBâs Always Bestsellers
How to Read - Thomas Richardson (friendlycitybooks.com)Stretch Like Scarlet - Emily Liner, Illustrated by John Clark IV (friendlycitybooks.com)-
January - April 2024 Best Sellers
Bride - Ali Hazelwood (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)That Pinson Girl - Gerry Wilson (bookshop.org)A Place Like Mississippi - Ralph Eubanks (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Fourth Wing (The Empyrean #1) - Rebecca Yarros (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder - Dav Pilkey (bookshop.org)Cold War Country - Joseph M. Thompson (bookshop.org)O.N. Pruitt's Possum Town - Berkley Hudson (available in store at Friendly City Books))Thank You Please Come Again - Kate Medley (friendlycitybooks.com)In the Pines - Grace Elizabeth Hale (bookshop.org)(libro.fm)Crescent City: House of Flame and Shadow - Sarah J. Maas (bookshop.org)-
Signed copies of select books from our author events are available on the Friendly City Books website. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you never miss an author event!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm
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Host: Emily Liner
Cohost: Caroline Barbee
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road-
© 2024 Friendly City Books Inc.
friendlycitybooks.com -
Lauren talks with Billie Winter and Hannah Murphy Winter about their stunning new book, Queer Power Couples: On Love and Possibility. Available now!
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Hannah Murphy Winter (she/they) is a journalist who writes about queerness and policies that impact LGBTQ+ lives. Her work frequently appears in Rolling Stone. She lives in Seattle with her wife, Billie Winter, three cats they found in their shed, and their rescue dog, Pippin. The first person she ever recognized as queer was Spinelli from Recess.
Billie Winter (she/her) is a photographer and videographer. She grew up in Queens, NY, and worked at Rolling Stone as a photo editor for fifteen years until she moved to Seattle and became an organic, regenerative farmer. She still has a crush on Cheetara from ThunderCats.
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Queer Power Couples: On Love and Possibility (bookshop.org) is a photographic celebration of queer love and excellence gathers fourteen LGBTQ+ power couples, offering a glimpse into the journeys that led to their meaningful relationships and thriving careers.
From designer Debbie Millman's ardent courtship of writer Roxane Gay to the romantic and creative relationship forged between Perfume Genius bandmates Mike Hadreas and Alan Wyffels on stage during their first world tour, this beautiful book offers a closer look into the lives of fourteen inspiring LGBTQ+ couples and the meet-cutes, success stories, and personal reflections that made them the role models they are today. These icons come from a range of backgrounds--they are trailblazers who lead research labs, kitchens, and news organizations; create life-giving art and music; and tell queer stories in award-winning books, films, and television shows.
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For a video version of this author interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube channel!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Lauren O'Connell
Guest Authors: Billie Winter and Hannah Murphy Winter
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
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Mississippi author, Aimee Nezhukumatathil joins Randi in the FCB studio to celebrate her new book, Bite by Bite! Don't miss Aimee IN COLUMBUS, MS this Saturday, May 11th!
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Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (bookshop.org)(libro.fm), which was chosen as Barnes and Nobleâs Book of the Year and named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize.
She also wrote four previous poetry collections:
Oceanic (bookshop.org)Lucky Fish (bookshop.org)At The Drive-In Volcano (bookshop.org)Miracle FruitWith the poet Ross Gay, she co-authored the chapbook LACE & PYRITE (bookshop.org), a collaboration of epistolary garden poems. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review.
Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the first-ever poetry editor for SIERRA magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. Nezhukumatathil is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippiâs MFA program where she received the facultyâs Distinguished Research and Creative Achievement Award.
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Aimee's new book, BITE BY BITE: NOURISHMENTS AND JAMBOREES (bookshop.org)(libro.fm) is OUT NOW!
Bite by Bite a lyrical book of short essays about food, offering a banquet of tastes, smells, memories, associations, and marvelous curiosities from nature.
In Bite by Bite, poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil explores the way food and drink evoke our associations and remembrancesâa subtext or layering, a flavor tinged with joy, shame, exuberance, grief, desire, or nostalgia.
Nezhukmatathil restores our astonishment and wonder about food through her encounters with a range of foods and food traditions. From shave ice to lumpia, mangoes to pecans, rambutan to vanilla, she investigates how food marks our experiences and identities and explores the boundaries between heritage and memory.
Bite by Bite offers a rich and textured kaleidoscope of vignettes and visions into the world of food and nature, drawn together by intimate and humorous personal reflections.
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For a video version of this author interview, check out the Friendly City Books Youtube channel!
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Thank you for supporting Friendly City Books by listening to our podcast. Shop with us in store and online at friendlycitybooks.com/shop or through bookshop.org and libro.fm.
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Host: Randi Robison
Guest Author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Music: Rear Projection by Hartle Road
Production Assistance: Neon Newt Media LLC
Friendly City Books Inc.
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