Book City ★ Roanoke

Identity and Action: Season one of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast continues with a conversation with Bryan Hancock, the founder and host of Soul Sessions, Roanoke's open-mic spoken word evening. Also known as performer Harvest Blaque, Hancock has built a supportive and inclusive environment for sharing original work and celebrating others. 

This season of the podcast we're looking at our engagement with the written word—how it shapes our identity and how we put that into action in the world around us. As Bryan Hancock does just that, he is modeling what it means to explore the self in an imperfect world, one that we can keep improving together.

Identity and Action: Season one of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast continues with a conversation with Ben Bazak and Gail Steele of the Raleigh Court Library Book Club for a discussion of David Brooks' The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (Random House, 2019). This season we look at our engagement with the written word. How it shapes our identity and how we put that into action in the world around us. Bazak, a retired teacher, and Steele, an environmental engineer and yoga instructor invite you in for a taste of their discussion on Brooks' fifth book, which explores the joy that might be found in a "community of cause." 

Identity and Action: Season one of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast launches with a conversation with biographer and curator Heath Hardage Lee. This season we look at our engagement with the written word. How it shapes our identity and how we put that into action in the world around us. Lee addresses the role of biography in uncovering untold stories of women leading in times of change and the relevance of those stories in inspiring action in a new generation today.

Heath Hardage Lee is the author of The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. government to Bring Their Husbands Home (St. Martin’s Press, 2019), and Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause (Potomac Books, 2014).

Authors, readers, and resident city builders gather in BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke to discuss how the written word shapes our identity and helps us act in the world. BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke projects explore engagement and equity at the intersection of books and place.