It was Podcast moving day last week and the EdTechLoop Pod is happy to now be hosted by Podbean! However all the archived shows did not make it through the move so over the next few weeks before the school year begins I plan to post some of our most popular past episodes starting with the very first BiblioTech podcast featuring local writer and illustrator Brianne Farley. Please excuse the poor audio quality, we hadn’t dialed the studio or editing in yet but the interview is too good to not have on the feed. And as always, thanks for listening and inspiring.

Please forgive the first attempt to transcribe the podcast. As always, we will strive to improve.

0:00 - Stephie

This is Brianne Farley, and she is an author and illustrator, and a local Traverse City Area Public Schools, alumni, we're gonna chat today.

 

0:37 - Stephie

What’s your background, your educational background and career, what your career path has been. And if you want to look, you know, in when I say educational background. Back in elementary school, the experiences you had an elementary school how those have carried along with you and how you ended up in the career that you're in. Okay.

 

1:02 - Brianne 

All right. Well, I started. Well when I moved up here to Traverse City when I was seven, and I started Old Mission, and we live actually right, my parents live right behind Old Mission.

 

Yeah okay and that's like the world's best playground. I think when I did when I first did a visit at Old Mission with my book that's like, all I talked to the kids about was, I was like, tell me about your playground. Is it the coolest is the pond still haunted. and they're like, No, and I was like, It’s still haunted.

 

1:37 - Brianne

And so I went to Old Mission and then, and then I went to the talented and gifted program at Central. And then, yeah and I went to East, Central High School, and 

 

Stephie

When did you graduate?

 

Brianne

I graduated in ‘02. Yeah, I was the first class after the split. Okay, yeah. 

 

Stephie

So one year after split. 

 

Brianne

yeah yeah one year to split, and.

 

2:06 - Brianne 

And then I went to McAllister college actually on the recommendation of my principal, Mr. Townsend, 

 

Stephie

Mr Townsend Yeah, yeah, 

 

Brianne

Funny enough, he’s been my principal since elementary school. Interesting. He kept moving up as I graduated and so yeah he’s been my principal forever and then you say, also go to college here. 

 

Stephie

And then he and he promoted your book for you.

 

2:35 - Brianne 

Yeah. Yeah, he's my publicist.

 

2:40 - Stephie

he's a great person 

 

Brianne

he is great. He's so great. Um, and then after McAllister, I 

 

Stephie

What was your focus there. 

 

Brianne

Oh I went there for English. I like knew that I wanted to be an editor. And so I went for English and I really loved, art, but I thought that for some reason I had this idea that if I made art my career I would hate it, like, like you said, like the pressure of having to make something that makes me not like it anymore. So I really loved reading I loved books as a total bookworm growing up and, and so I knew I wanted to be an editor and then I went off to New York after a year of college, and did an editorial internship and totally hated it. Yeah. I really hated it. And 

 

Stephie

What do you think it was. Did you find it too technical or too, was it, work was mundane?

 

Brianne

I was at a very small publishing house. And so I think that having a little bit of a different view of what editing was then what I saw at this house and which actually is probably not very accurate it's like how other houses edit but, um, yeah it was like it was a little too mundane it was I thought that I was going to be like in the trenches with the writers like helping them like what if you used this other word here and, and that's not what it was at this house.

 

4:13 - Stephie

Did you have much contact with authors. 

 

Brianne

No, no, no. Yeah, it ended up being this very I mean it w