Reading and writing just go together. Like salt and pepper, peanut butter and jelly, Simon and Garfunkle. Well that last pair broke up but you know what I mean. The two are undeniably linked. Readers need writers and writers need readers so it makes sense that one of the perks of shared words would be a festival all about the writing process.The Writer’s Block Festival is being held November 16 at Spalding University sponsored by Louisville Literary Arts. Our guest today, Amy Miller, is the executive director of Louisville Literary Arts, an organization whose mission is to offer writers support in whatever stage they are in; whether that be before any words are put on a page or to an already published author. And while the Writer’s Block Festival is their biggest event, Louisville Literary Arts provides numerous other programs, many of them free, all year round.

Amy tells us about why you don’t need to go back to school or have an MFA to pursue writing, what the difference is between a writer who is a plotter and one who is a pantser , and what her personal perfect writing gig would look like.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

Do you love a good Broadway show? So does Michael Drury, the producing artistic director of Pandora Productions, a theater company solely dedicated to telling the stories of the LGBTQ Plus community. And this passion made him tenacious in pursuing the rights to produce Fun Home, a Broadway musical based on the critically acclaimed 2007 graphic memoir of the same name by Alison Bechdel, who is best known for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. The play adaptation won the Tony award for Best Musical and Best Original Score. Pandora’s production will be the regional premiere of this play.

Michael talks to us about the process theater companies go through to get rights to perform popular Broadway plays, why he feels its important to have an LGBTQ plus focused theater, and the innovative way the company is designing the Fun Home set to give a big nod to the original graphic novel.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

As a book lover, there are two things I’ve often fantasized about doing. Being a bookseller and writing my own novel would be at the tippy top of the list. Our guest today, Kim Colette Ballard, has hit the booknerd jackpot. She is a book buyer for Riot Book Cellar, a new independent bookstore and wine bar in the small town of Bardstown Kentucky, a place known for its bourbon distilleries and being at the heart of the Bourbon Trail. She helped the manager and owner develop the book bar concept in this quaint tourist town about 45 minutes outside of Louisville KY. She is also the author of a young adult novel, Running on Empty, published in 2014 and winner of several regional awards for young adult fiction. And while she has several other novels on the backburner she is very honest about the extreme highs and sometimes extreme lows you can experience during the publishing process.

Kim talks to us about the great features Riot Book Cellar has added to make coming into their bookstore feel like hanging out with “Friends”, the experience that sparked her journey to writing her first book, and why she stopped reading for awhile but vows to never let that happen again.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

Amy and Carrie talk about some bookish events they have attended lately such as a storytelling festival, Southern Festival of the Book, author talks, and private bookstore recommendations.

Sam Miller The Bookseller's Recommendations

Tony Dingman is an actor, historical educator, playwright, and creator of the Frazier History Museum’s annual event An Evening with Poe, which is a celebration of everything dark and macabre about this great American author. For 10 years he and the other actors at the Frazier have been adapting and creatively performing such classics as The Raven, The Bells, and the Tell-Tale Heart but they also include the lesser known works of Edgar Allan Poe each Halloween season.

Tony tells us how long it takes to research and write scripts for the historical figures he plays, which Poe story literally made a school student scream , and why it’s ok to fail at something before you actually succeed, regardless of whether you are Edgar Allen Poe or someone not famous at all.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

It's October, it finally feels like fall, and it's time for everything creepy, scary, spooky, and things that go bump in the night.  And if you are local, it means it's time to book your theater tickets for Dracula which is performed every fall season by the Actor's Theater of Louisville.

Actor's Theater is one of the top regional theater in the nation.  It's won Tony Awards and many notable performers have graced it's stage including Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Kevin Bacon, and Kathy Bates to name just a few.  It's Humana Festival of New American Plays which takes place every Spring is internationally known and Newsweek once called it, "a miniature Cannes film festival for theater".  Crowd favorites like Dracula and A Christmas Carol makes this theater company beloved in the city.

Today's guest, Hannah Rae Montgomery, is Actor's Theater's dramaturg.  Don't know what a dramaturg is?  Neither did we until we talked with Hannah Rae.  A dramaturg is basically a literary editor on the staff of a theater who interpret and research texts for their productions.  She tells us what is new and fresh about the roles for women in this year's Dracula, why people come to see it year after year, and how Bram Stoker's book differs from the play adaptation.  It's close to Halloween and time to talk literature's favorite vampire.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

Do you remember hearing a spooky story around the campfire when you were a kid? If there was a talented storyteller, you may have laughed, cried, or screamed, convinced a ghost was right behind you, sending shivers down your spine. Before printed books were widespread, storytellers were the keepers of all the local history and lore.

Today’s guest Bob Thompson, professionally known as Colonel Bob, is a master storyteller and producer of the Corn Island Storytelling Festival happening on October 19 at Blackacre State Nature Preserve just outside of Louisville. He is also the author of 2 short story collections and hosts a radio Show, Kentucky Homefront, featuring regional music and storytellers on WFPK 91.9 on Saturdays at 8 am. Bob Thompson is one busy colonel !

Colonel Bob talks to us about how the old guys sitting on his grandmother’s front porch spinning yarns sparked his love of stories, what tricks of the trade storytellers use to keep their audience engaged, and why hitchhiking is a big part of his story repertoire.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

Today’s guest has an multi-faceted story to tell. Fadhia Mohamud is a member of a women of color bookclub that meets monthly to discuss a wide range of books; from romantic comedies to thrillers. But she is also a Somali immigrant herself who has taken her experience growing up in multiple countries feeling a little bit out of place and using that knowledge to help her students face many of those same challenges. She is a middle school language teacher for ESL students from countries including Nepal, Uganda, and Syria and uses diverse books to help them adjust and love to read.

Fadhia talks to us about why you are missing out if your bookclub only reads black authors during February’s Black History month, how her bookclub uses a theme related to their book to make their meetings a little extra, and why this Somali girl loves Harry Potter.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

When you think about taking English classes in college, do you envision heavy dusty textbooks written by old dead guys, like Thoreau, Chaucer, and Dickens? Well perhaps that was true 20 years ago, but colleges now have changed a bit and we have a real live English professor with us today to talk about how teaching university English has changed and what things have stayed the same. Dr. Jon Blandford is an associate professor of English at Bellarmine University and also leads their Honors Program.

He discusses how he incorporates more than just old white guys in his curriculum, which modern authors will be considered “classics”, why an English education is useful for any career, and what music he loves to listen to at really high decibels.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

I discovered the bookclub we will talk about today purely by accident. I was looking at the website of my local art museum, the Speed Art Museum, because I was buying tickets for the Toni Morrison documentary that aired this summer, The Pieces I Am, at the Speed’s attached cinema. While on the website I saw a listing for the Speed Reading Club, a funny play on words title for their bookclub sponsored by the museum. My interest was piqued. What kind of bookclub would it be. I contacted today’s guest, Shannon Karol, Director of Education and she was so eager to tell me about the club and invited me to sit in on a session. There I also met Cheryl Sweeney, a dedicated regular member of the group. Shannon and Cheryl talk to carrie and I about how the club integrates books and art at the museum, why reading a novel can make viewing art less intimidating, which book/art pairing involves a former president solving mysteries, and which gallery in the museum makes all the schoolchildren imagine Harry Potter. Our discussion today just reminds me that visual art and the art of words on the page are just two sides of the same coin. Its a day at the museum on Perks.

You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.