Before Your Time

We talk with people involved in the creation of Charity and Sylvia, our Vermont Reads 2026 choice, including author Tillie Walden.

Created by Walden from archival materials at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury, and other primary and secondary sources, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking graphic novel that is also the story of 19th century America.

In addition to Walden, we talk with:

The Light Pirate is divided into four sections. This second episode focuses on Water.

We speak with author Lily Brooks-Dalton, along with:

The Vermont Reads 2025 podcast was produced by Ryan Newswanger; with script, interview and production help from Noel Clark; and with script and narration help from Miciah Bay Gault.

We’re grateful to our supporters: the Trout Lily Foundation and the Jack & Dorothy Byrne Foundation. Vermont Public is our Media Sponsor. And thanks to Junction Arts and Media for the use of their recording studio.

Music in this episode was created by:

We are releasing two podcast episodes featuring interviews with people whose work intersects with the themes in "The Light Pirate," our Vermont Reads 2025 book. The episodes are centered around the first two sections of the book: Power, and Water.

This first episode focuses on Power. We speak with author Lily Brooks-Dalton, along with:

- Federico Cintrón Moscoso, Ph.D., Program Director of El Puente Puerto Rico, a group working on sustainability issues for Puerto Rican communities

- Writer and environmental journalist Megan Mayhew Bergman

- Dan Nott, author of the Vermont Book Award-winning graphic novel Hidden Systems

- Cyril Brunner, Innovation and Technology Leader at Vermont Electric Cooperative

James Wilson is an almost mythical figure in Vermont History, reputedly a lone genius who created the first globe in America. For several years, the Vermont Historical Society researched more about Wilson and his globes - and the picture that emerged was much more complicated and interesting than the legend.

Vermont's water quality has long been a top concern for scientists and residents, and in the 1980s it reached national attention as acid rain came to the forefront of public understanding. What is acid rain, anyway? Why was Vermont getting so much attention? And where are we now in addressing those challenges?

The “Library Map of Vermont” was created in 1914 to track all 225 brick and mortar libraries as well as 267 traveling library stations around the state. In this episode we’ll ask; Can a map truly show what it means for a community to have a well-supported library… and when communities lack that?

Vermont's extensive old-growth forests drew representatives from the King's Navy looking for mast trees. What can their map of timber resources tell us about our relationship to the land, how Vermont defined itself, and how history is saved or not?

In the summer of 1829, three Army surveyors created a map exploring a potential canal route that would have connected Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River. "Canal Fever" was gripping the region, with the success of the Erie Canal. But this quantum leap in transportation technology would have to contend with an even bigger idea: the railroads.

Technological improvements, from butter churns to electricity, transformed life on Vermont farms from the 1890s through the mid-20th century. Many of these changes eased the workload of Vermont's farming families. But other changes - done in the name of modernity - had long-term impacts on the future of dairy in our state.

People speaking Spanish as they milk cows may not fit our traditional image of a Vermont farm. But workers from Mexico and Central America are crucial to the state’s economy. And such migrant labor has a long history in Vermont.