By Jacksonville Public Library
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The podcast currently has 171 episodes available.
NOTE: This Lit Chat will only be available to listen to through Monday, October 7th 2024.
Gabrielle Zevin is a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist whose books have been translated into forty languages! Her tenth novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, was a New York Times bestseller, a Sunday Times bestseller, and a selection of the Tonight Show’s Fallon Book Club. Tomorrow was Amazon.com’s #1 Book of the Year, Time Magazine’s #1 Book of the Year, a New York Times Notable Book, and the winner of both the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction and the Book of the Month Club’s Book of the Year. Following a twenty-five-bidder auction, the feature film rights to Tomorrow were acquired by Temple Hill and Paramount Studios.
Zevin's thoughtful, funny events bring audiences into her writing process as she shares her techniques for writing unforgettable characters, how games are integrally linked to story, and the irreplaceable relationships forged in local literary communities. Zevin’s novel The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry also spent many months on the New York Times Best Seller List. A.J. Fikry was honored with the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award for Fiction, the Japan Booksellers’ Prize, among other honors. A.J. Fikry is now a feature film with a screenplay by Zevin.
She has also written children’s books, including the award-winning Elsewhere. Zevin is a graduate of Harvard University. She lives in Los Angeles.
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NOTE: This Teen Lit Chat will only be available to listen to through Monday, October 7th 2024.
Born in Washington, DC, and raised in Maryland, Jason Reynolds first found inspiration in rap and began writing poetry when he was nine years old. He went on to publish several poetry collections before publishing his first novel, When I Was the Greatest, which won the Corretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent. He has since written numerous award-winning novels, including All American Boys, the Track series, Patina, Sunny, For Everyone, Miles Morales-Spiderman, and As Brave As You, which won the Kirkus Prize, an NAACP Image Award, and the Schneider Family Book Award. He is also the author of Long Way Down, a novel in verse which was named a Newberry Honor book, a Printz Honor Book, and best young adult work by the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Awards.
He has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, and various media outlets. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program and lives in Washington, DC. For more information, follow Jason @jasonreynolds83 on Instagram and X (Twitter).
This Teen Lit Chat was presented as part of Jax Book Fest 2024.
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Dean Butler is an actor, producer, and director best known for his role as Almanzo Wilder (the man Laura Ingalls married) in Little House on the Prairie, based on the beloved Little House book series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. He appeared in the final four seasons of the show, the spin-off show Little House: A New Beginning, and the three post-series TV movies. He was also a producer for NBC Golf’s Emmy-nominated series Feherty for over ten seasons.
"The idea of being a cowboy and riding horses began for me at our family ranch in northern California," Dean Butler says. "In this picture, I'm holding our horse, Cricket, with my sister Meg in the saddle. Those beautiful summer days in the country with my family all around me shaped my entire life and prepared me for what was to come in the years ahead."
Now, on the occasion of Little House on the Prairie's 50th Anniversary in 2024, he's sharing the details of his young life as an aspiring cowboy and what he learned from Michael Landon in touching a new memoir.
READCheck out Prairie Man from the library!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & INTERVIEWER
Cast just before his twenty-third birthday, Dean Butler joined Little House on the Prairie halfway through its run, gaining instant celebrity and fans’ enduring affection. Ironically, when the late, great Michael Landon remarked that Little House would outlive everyone involved in making it, Butler deemed it unlikely. Yet for four decades and counting, Butler has been defined in the public eye as Almanzo Wilder—a role he views as the great gift of his life.
Interviewer Devan Stuart Lesley is a longtime journalist and owner of Legacy Talent Group, representing actors and models throughout the Southeast. Her expansive media career experience includes print, radio, and TV journalism; commercial, news, documentary, and independent film producing; assistant directing; acting; and voice-over. She is a freelance correspondent for People magazine and founder of Stuart Media, LLC specializing in corporate media. As a volunteer, Lesley is co-founder and past President of the Norman Studios Silent Film Museum, a 501c3 nonprofit organization working to restore and reopen Jacksonville's sole remaining silent film studio complex, where some of the nation's first African American-cast films were produced. She also is a member of the Jacksonville Mayor's Commission on Motion Picture, Television, and Commercial Production; Film Florida's Marketing & Communications Committee and Industry & Association Council; Women in Film and Television's Jacksonville, FL and New York chapters; and the Northeast Florida Press Club.
THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDSMore memoirs from the Little House on the Prairie cast:
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Nate Powell began self-publishing as an Arkansas teenager in 1992. Now, he is a National Book Award-winning cartoonist best known for his work on the ground-breaking graphic novel memoir series, March, with civil rights icon John Lewis. An inside story of the Civil Rights Movement told through the eyes of one of its most iconic figures, it was a #1 New York Times and Washington Post bestseller.
Nate Powell has received multiple Eisner and Ignatz awards, the Comic-Con International Inkpot Award, and multiple ALA and YALSA distinctions. He was also a two-time finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has discussed his work at the United Nations, on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, PBS, and CNN. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
His other work includes the new graphic novel Fall Through (released February 6, 2024) and a new comics adaptation of James Loewen’s influential Lies My Teacher Told Me (released April 16, 2024), as well as Save It For Later, Come Again, Two Dead and more.
Interviewer Badr Milligan is a podcaster, professional moderator, and community leader all rolled into one. He has moderated panels for some of the biggest conventions and conferences around the country, and to date, he’s hosted and produced over 600 episodes of the award-winning and ongoing podcast: The Short Box: A Comic Book Talk Show.
For the past 12 years, Badr has made it his mission to use the medium of podcasting to its full potential, engaging with the world's best artists and wordsmiths in thought-provoking interviews that are shared weekly, with listeners in over 140 countries. In 2018, Badr co-founded the Jax Podcaster’s United Group: A collective of 500+ audio creators in Northeast, FL, committed to educating and inspiring the next generation of podcasters with collaborative events and community outreach programs. Badr is also an Air Force Veteran, and currently runs his own business, The Short Box Entertainment Company.
READ
Check out Nate's work from the library!
THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDSMore great graphic novels and zines to read!
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"I am, first and foremost, a Miamian. No physical location has done more to shape my personal and artistic sensibilities than the Magic City," Alejandro Nodarse said in a recent interview. "Miami is, unquestionably, very different from its neighboring Floridan cities, and I am a product of that high energy, heavy neon, fiercely multicultural coastal city."
Critics seem to agree... This deeply personal vision of the streets and swamps of Miami is getting some attention, with Publisher's Weekly saying, "Heat practically radiates off the page."
Nodarse went on to say, "The creative impulses that fueled the novel were heavily inspired by texts that, in their own right, are some of the best examples of how Florida has defined itself in the national consciousness."
Alejandro Nodarse holds an MFA from the University of Miami and is an alum of Las Dos Brujas Writers Conference and a former staff member of the VONA Writers Conference. Blood in the Cut is his debut novel.
Interviewer Michael Wiley is the Shamus Award-winning author of twelve novels in four series. The most recent series features Franky Dast, an exonerated convict who investigates crimes involving the unjustly accused. Michael’s short stories appear often in magazines and anthologies, including Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022. A former board member of the Mystery Writers of America, he teaches creative writing and literature at the University of North Florida. His new novel, Find Your Own Way Home, will release this summer at the end of July.
READCheck out Blood in the Cut from the Library! -- https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22alejandro+nodarse%22&te=
ALEJANDRO RECOMMENDSHere are the top Florida-themed works of art that helped hone Blood in the Cut:
Moonlight directed by Barry Jenkins
"Few films are so Miami-as-it-is and Miami-as-it-should-be as Moonlight. In early drafts of Blood in the Cut, Chiron served as a model for Carlos, my protagonist Iggy’s brother, and while Carlos’s character arc fell to the background, Chiron, Jenkins’s Miami, and the rugged determination of the characters to find their lanes in life held steady as I wrote."
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
"This book is everything I love rolled into one: Mystery, adventure, botany, orchids, the Everglades—what more could you want!? Orlean weaves a tale for readers that examines the lengths that some will go to feed their passions and find rare orchids. It’s this combination of beautiful, deep descriptions, unbreakable determination, love of the Everglades, and eye for detail that I hoped to capture in Blood in the Cut."
The Florida Project directed by Sean Baker
"Throughout the film, Moonee is far wiser than any six-year-old should be, but because of it, she takes everything in stride. I wanted my protagonist, Iggy, to embody that same sort of steely determination as his situation deteriorated. Like any Floridians worthy of the name, both Moonee and Iggy are adept at “resolviendo”, a Spanish word that loosely translates to “making things happen”, and this is what allows us to hope against all hope when things are darkest for them both. "
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
"The tumultuous external landscape that Janie must navigate throughout the novel mirrors her internal turbulence, and that sort of well-rendered, thoughtful characterization is a literary feat I desperately hoped to accomplish as I crafted my characters, especially Iggy."
Cocaine Cowboys directed by Billy Corben
"Corben’s skill at recreating a bygone era and fully immersing audiences is something I’ve always marveled at and wanted to achieve in Blood in the Cut, which is set in Miami in 2016, just as the presidential elections are taking shape."
Gator Country by Rebecca Renner
"I think of this book as Blood in the Cut’s nonfiction aspirational counterpart because of how beautifully Renner renders the Everglades and the worlds it contains within. One goal I set for myself as I was writing my novel was to treat the Everglades as a character by rendering it as elegantly, vividly, and faithfully in terms of scope, beauty, danger, and primordial, elemental mood. Gator Country forced me to step my game up as I rendered the Everglades in my work."
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective directed by Tom Shadyac
"I’d like to go on the record and state that the protagonist of this eponymous, comedic whodunit, Ace Ventura, is the original Florida Man. This film is part mystery, part comedy, part love letter to Miami: a tryptic of accomplishments that inspired some key elements of Blood in the Cut."
Swamplandia! By Karen Russell
"This book. All of it. The way that Russell lures readers into the Everglades and into the lives of the Big Tree family is the magic I pray for every time I crack open a book. This coming-of-age mediation on love, loss, and “resolviendo” is one of the reasons Blood in the Cut exists."
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Jeff Goodell is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, which was picked as a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2017, as well as one of Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2017. Goodell's previous books include Sunnyvale, a memoir about growing up in Silicon Valley, which was a New York Times Notable Book, and Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future.
His latest book is the New York Times bestseller The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet - about the impact that temperature rise will have on our lives and our planet.
This program was presented in partnership with the St. Johns Riverkeeper and the Jacksonville Climate Coalition.
Jeff Goodell has covered climate change for more than two decades at Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, his work has been recognized by the American Meteorological Society, New America, and the inaugural Covering Climate Change Now Journalism Awards for Feature Writing. He is a Senior Fellow at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and serves on the board of the McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
Interviewer Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy award-winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black & Published podcast. Her latest novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree, was acquired by Scout Press and will be published in 2025. A Chicago native, Nikesha is a columnist with JAX Today. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, ESSENCE, and VOX. She lives in Florida with her family.
READ THE AUTHOR'S WORKCheck out Jeff's work from the Library!
THE LIBRARY ALSO RECOMMENDSOther climate change reads:
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe
Are We Screwed?: How a New Generation is Fighting to Survive Climate Change by Geoff Dembicki
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
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Siera London says, "I write sassy, sensual heroines." Whether it's the Forbidden series, Fiery Fairy Tales, The Bachelors of Shell Cove, you're sure to find plenty of heat, humor, and a rollercoaster of emotions.
Dubbed a "Hallmarky romance with a little extra heat" by author Lizzie Shane, London's latest book, Fake It Till You Make It, is no exception.
In it, we meet Amarie Walker, who has just left her cheating ex and her entire D.C. life in the rearview. It's not long after crash landing in a small town with no money, no plans, and no job, that Amarie meets certified veterinarian (and certified grump) Eli Calvary. He may not be cracking many smiles but his animal clinic is the only gig for miles.
The only problem? The practice Eli inherited from his father is in financial trouble and when he needs to invent an investor on the fly, it's Amarie's name that comes to his lips! Can the gorgeous, bubbly, and business-savvy Amarie help save the clinic from foreclosure? And can the two ignore the nonstop sparks between them long enough to save his family business?
The Lit Chat Interview with Siera London took place live at the Bradham and Brooks Library on Saturday, May 11, 2024.
USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Siera London crafts tales with a message to heal the heart and soul. From contemporary to paranormal, Siera weaves stories with heroines you know, heroes you love, and romance you feel. When not writing, Siera roams with Mr. Awesome and Frie, her cat muse. Siera is a retired Navy veteran and a Jacksonville native. Learn more about the author and her literary catalog online at sieralondonauthor.com
Interviewer Jessica Hatch has a passion for writing genre-blind, character-first fiction with a love of words and a strong beating heart. Her work has appeared in such publications as Writer’s Digest, The Millions, Fast Company, Neutral Spaces, and Surely Magazine, and she hosts the virtual reading series Comp Title Book Club. Her freshman and sophomore novels were published by Hachette UK’s Bookouture imprint, and her debut novel, My Big Fake Wedding, a Lonely Victories Book of 2022, appeared in the Top 50 women’s fiction and Top 100 romantic comedy titles on Amazon. Before becoming an author, Jessica worked and interned in New York trade publishing institutions Writers House and St. Martin’s Press. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
READCheck out Siera's work from the library: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22siera+london%22&te=
SIERA RECOMMENDS“I enjoy lazy days at the museum and learning about people who inspire me to invest in myself and others. Check out Fort Mose, a free black settlement established in 1738 in America’s oldest city, Saint Augustine, FL.”
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A born-and-raised Jacksonvillian, Bethany Baptiste is a preschool inclusion specialist by day and a young adult SFF novelist by night. If she’s not writing an inclusion support plan or a story, she does retail therapy in Florida bookstores and takes scheduled naps with her two chaotic evil dogs. You can visit her website at bethanybaptiste.com
Check out all of Bethany's books in our catalog: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=&qu=AUTHOR%3Dbethany+baptiste+&h=1
BETHANY RECOMMENDS
BOOKS
Here are some dark, unputdownable Black YA reads perfect for fans of thrills, chills, and anything but ordinary:
📖 DEAD GIRLS WALKING by Sami Ellis (out March 26)
📖 THE DARK PLACE by Britney S. Lewis - https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=TITLE%3D%22dark+place%22&qu=AUTHOR%3Dlewis&te=
📖 MONSTROUS by Jessica Lewis - https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=TITLE%3D%22monstrous%22&qu=AUTHOR%3Dlewis&te=
📖 TENDER BEASTS by Liselle Sambury - https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=tender+beasts+sambury&te=
GO-TO STOPS FOR A PERFECT NIGHT IN JACKSONVILLE (IN THIS ORDER)
SHOWS & MOVIES
📺 BLOOD & WATER (Netflix): This show is perfect for fans of shadowy family secrets, elite schools, and crime underworlds.
📺 GEN V (Amazon): This show is about superheroes in college but like on really, really dark, twisty steroids.
📺 TINY PRETTY THINGS (Netflix): This show gives you a glimpse into the glamorous yet cutthroat world of ballet.
📺 SELAH AND THE SPADES (Amazon): If elite boarding schools, dark academia aesthetics, and cunning Black female leads are a vibe to you, check this movie out.
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"In October 1997, the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley's house..."
Georgia attorney-turned-writer, McCracken Poston Jr., joins us live via Zoom to tell the story behind one of his most famous defense cases and his upcoming book, Zenith Man: Death, Love and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom.
"Like a nonfiction John Grisham thriller with echoes of Rainman, Just Mercy, and a captivating smalltown Southern setting, this is the fascinating true story—sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking—of an idealistic young lawyer determined to free an innocent neurodivergent man accused of murdering the wife no one knew he had." - from the Publisher
McCracken Poston Jr. is a practicing criminal defense attorney and former state legislator in the Georgia House of Representatives. He is a graduate of The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and received his law degree from The University of Georgia. He gained national attention for his handling of several notable cases that were featured on CNN Presents, Dateline NBC, A&E's American Justice, and Forensic Files. He lives in Ringgold, Georgia.
READCheck out McCracken's work from the library!
THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDS
True crime stories to investigate:
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The Friends of the Bill Brinton Murray Hill Library sponsored a special Lit Chat Interview with local poet Michelle Lizet Flores. Michelle spoke with fellow poet and Lit Chat alum, Jessica Q. Stark, about her latest book of poetry.
Michelle Lizet Flores is a graduate of the FSU and NYU creative writing programs. She currently works as a Creative Writing Instructor at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and co-hosts the What's in a Verse Poetry Open Mic at Rain Dogs. Publications include The NCTE English Journal, Salt Hill Journal, and The Talon Review. A finalist for the Juan Felipe Herrera Award for Poetry, she wrote the chapbooks Cuentos from the Swamp and Memoria, and the picture book, Carlito the Bat Learns to Trick or Treat. Her short fiction is in the anthology, Places We Build in the Universe. Invasive Species, her first full-length collection of poetry, is currently available from Finishing Line Press.
Interviewer Jessica Q. Stark is the author of Buffalo Girl (BOA Editions, 2023), a finalist for the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, Savage Pageant (Birds, LLC, 2020), and four poetry chapbooks, including INNANET (The Offending Adam, 2021). Her poetry has most recently appeared in Best American Poetry, Pleaides, among other literary journals. She is a Poetry Editor at AGNI and is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Florida. She co-organizes the Dreamboat Reading Series in Jacksonville, Florida.
READCheck out Michelle's work from the library: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22michelle+lizet+flores%22&te=
THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDSMore poetry to enjoy:
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