The Spark

The start of rifle deer season began on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. According to Travis Lau, Pa Game Commission Communications Director, most participation takes place on opening weekend.

“So, what we've seen is like in the firearms deer season, which is still the big one that we're that, you know, it sort of generates a lot more media requests than anything else. We have longer deer seasons, longer stretch deer seasons than we ever have in Pennsylvania, higher participation by hunters in earlier starting seasons. But we'll still see about 550,000 deer hunters out during the firearms deer season.”

Deer hunting is very important in Pennsylvania as it helps to control the deer population.

“You know, the deer are our state animal here in Pennsylvania. They influence a lot of the impact Pennsylvanians in a lot of positive ways. But at the same time, there are negatives there. So, it is a balancing act. You know, the annual deer harvest is an important means of managing that population to the objective. And the hunters really should be complimented for the work they do there. You know on the wit with hunters not only do hunters provide a public service in deer management and pay to do it, but then at the same time, through the purchase of their hunting licenses, they fund the conservation of all other wildlife species.”

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming up on The Spark Weekly;

The Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center is an open-air folklife museum and research center dedicated to preserving and celebrating Pennsylvania German folk culture, history, and language in a unique educational setting at Kutztown University.

Also, on the Program

Ambassadors for Hope is the only organization in Lancaster County with the sole function of supporting children as soon as the parent of a child is incarcerated.

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Spark is hosting its annual book-as-gifts- guide. We spoke with Catherine Lawrence, co-owner of the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, Travis Kurowski, (Ph.D) an assistance professor of creative writing at York College of Pennsylvania, and Carolyn Blatchley MLIS, Executive Director of Cumberland County Library System.

The Midtown Schloar Bookstore recommendation can be found here.

The Cumberland County Library Systems recommendations can be found here.

Travis Kurowski Recommendations list below:

NONFICTION

Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music

By Rob Sheffield

I just ordered this book because I am in love with a woman who is the biggest Taylor Swift fan I have ever met. As it happens, I have only recently realized the most obvious thing about Swift’s music: It’s mostly about heartbreak. Our American Shakespeare of longing and distance, of regret and revenge, Swift’s oeuvre is analyzed from first album to last by best-selling Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield in this new book.

From the publisher: “Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music is the first book that goes deep on the musical and cultural impact of Taylor Swift. Nobody can tell the story like Rob Sheffield, the bestselling and award-winning author of Dreaming the Beatles, On Bowie, and Love Is a Mix Tape. The legendary Rolling Stone journalist is the writer who has chronicled Taylor for every step of her long career, from her early days to the Eras Tour. Sheffield gets right to the heart of Swift and her music, her lyrics, her fan connection, her raw power.”

The Message

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Baltimore native Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book of nonfiction takes a risk in being human. I’ve been following Coates since his days reporting for The Atlantic where he made national attention making a persuasive case for reparation. Since then, he’s published a best-selling works of fiction and nonfiction, even written for Marvel Comics. This latest book from Coates is an analysis of how myths and stories shape cultures and nations, from Senegal to the ongoing war on Gaza.

From the publisher: “In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.”

Lovely One: A Memoir

By Ketanji Brown Jackson

The election was hard for everyone—every national election has been in recent memory. Memoirs from people behind the scenes in spaces shaped by such elections have always been popular, more recently they seem to be a source of sustenance. I cannot see the new memoir by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—the first black woman and first public defender to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court—as anything else.

From the publisher: “With this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.”

FICTION

The Vegetarian

By Han Kang

2024 Nobel winner for Literature, Han Kang also won the 2016 Booker Prize for her most widely read novel, The Vegetarian, a short novel I read in a gulp years ago when it was first translated from the Korean into English by Deborah Smith. The power of The Vegetarian is ineffable, which is an odd thing to say for a book—that it is beyond words—but that is the power and experience of great art.     A perfect introduction to Kang’s work.

From the publisher: “Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself. Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.”

All Fours

By Miranda July

There has been no other book I’ve heard about as much this year as filmmaker and fiction writer Miranda July’s latest novel All Fours, about what happens when we ignore our desires—by which I mean, ignore our very selves—and the confusing struggle it might be to ever find ourselves again. The conversations I’ve had about this book have been as rich and meaningful as the book itself, conversations I hold dear and have changed me forever.

From the publisher: “A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey. Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.”

Playground

By Richard Powers

Richard Powers won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his previous novel The Overstory, arguably the single most important American novel ever published about our relationship to the environment, all told through the lens of our human relationship to trees. Powers’s latest novel, Playground, is about artificial intelligence and the ocean. And I expect nothing less.

From the publisher: “Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough. They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away. Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.

COMICS

Future

By Tommi Musturi

I saw this book while browsing with my daughters and close friends at Lost City Books in Washington, DC—a bookstore I cannot recommend enough for its curation, display, and overall artistry in the selling of books—and it actually took my breath away. I saw it from across the room, huge and bold in color and design. Almost the shape and size of a small board game, this absolutely thrilling collection of Mutsuri’s is so stunning it feels unbelievable it exists and, more than that, was somehow published. It’s an atomic explosion of creativity fracturing the very medium of comics. Few art experiences in the world give such a rush.

From the publisher: “A graphic, genre-mashing magnum opus from one of the most restlessly creative voices in comics. Tommi Musturi's Future traps the reader into a web of stories happening in different timespaces, providing perspectives on the possible futures of mankind through imaginary future worlds, current events, historical references, utopias, and ideals. Future is a mash-up of the familiar and the terribly alien: quotidian existence, sci-fi spectacle, utopian fantasy, AI dystopia, and other worst-case scenarios. Richly philosophical and allegorical, Musturi gives us alcoholic magicians, guerrilla art squads, mutant reality television hosts, and incel archaeologist-astronauts, among many others. Weaving between a variety of styles in illustration and narration that transform and reflect our constantly changing reality, Future is an impassioned graphic novel for our times that renews the medium of comics—a vital and multifaceted work of art.”

Here

By Richard McGuire

Now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks and Robin Writing, Richard McGuire’s 2014 graphic novel Here is almost made small by calling it a graphic novel. It is, certainly, a work of fiction, and so technically then a graphic (comic) novel (fiction), but it’s also one of the strangest and most beautiful works in the comics medium ever made. Every page of the book is a drawing of the same corner of the same room across 300 million years of history. Yes, the same space, variously drawn, across 300 million years. And seeing that space across time, stories do emerge, but only in the same way they do in the reality within which we all exist—because we construct them. Since the first pages of the book concept were published in 1989, its impact has rippled throughout the comics world, and continues to.

From the publisher: “From one of the great comic innovators, the long-awaited fulfillment of a pioneering comic vision: the story of a corner of a room and of the events that have occurred in that space over the course of hundreds of thousands of years.”

POETRY

By Fady Joudah

There are few contemporary issues as important as the well-being and fate of the Palestinian people, and few voices in American literature as important and prominent in this area as Palestinian American poet and physician Fady Joudah. The book’s strange title, […], is a pictogram, a symbol evoking meaning: silence, perhaps, or erasure. The brackets for what has been omitted, the internal ellipsis for all that remains unsaid. Joudah wrote the poems in […] between October and December 2023, a time of much suffering, ceaseless since.

From the publisher: “Fady Joudah’s powerful sixth collection of poems opens with, ‘I am unfinished business,’ articulating the ongoing pathos of the Palestinian people. A rendering of Joudah’s survivance, […] speaks to Palestine’s daily and historic erasure and insists on presence inside and outside the ancestral land. Responding to the unspeakable in real time, Joudah offers multiple ways of seeing the world through a Palestinian lens—a world filled with ordinary desires, no matter how grand or tragic the details may be—and asks their reader to be changed by them. The sequences are meditations on a carousel: the past returns as the future is foretold. But ‘Repetition won’t guarantee wisdom,’ Joudah writes, demanding that we resuscitate language ‘before [our] wisdom is an echo.’ These poems of urgency and care sing powerfully through a combination of intimate clarity and great dilations of scale, sending the reader on heartrending spins through echelons of time. […] is a wonder. Joudah reminds us ‘Wonder belongs to all.’”

Wrong Norma

By Anne Carson

I’ve been following Canadian poet Anne Carson’s career since I picked up a copy of her wildly experimental and stunning 1998 book, Autobiography of Red—" richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is”—while living for a summer at the home of potter Jim Romberg in southern Oregon, details that may seem insignificant, but that’s not how art works on us. Carson is one of the world’s—the world’s—most experimentally stunning poets who somehow still reaches the depth of human emotion. A classicist who has translated the Greek Tragedies for the stage, along with the most stunning book of Sappho’s poetry I’ve ever read, Wrong Norma is a sampling of the same erudition and emotion we have for decades expected from the poet. Oh, and she’s incredibly funny. I haven’t read this book yet, but I will, because I agree wholeheartedly with the late Susan Sontag about Carson: “She is one of the few writers writing in English that I would read anything she wrote.”

From the publisher: “Published here in a stunning edition with images created by Carson, several of the twenty-five startling poetic prose pieces have appeared in magazines and journals like The New Yorker and The Paris Review. As Carson writes: ‘Wrong Norma is a collection of writings about different things, like Joseph Conrad, Guantánamo, Flaubert, snow, poverty, Roget’s Thesaurus, my Dad, Saturday night. The pieces are not linked. That’s why I’ve called them ‘wrong.’”

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the second year, the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair will take place at the Mount Hope Estate and Winery. Yuletide at the Pa Renaissance Fair opens on Black Friday, November 29 and runs Saturdays and Sundays through December 15, 11 AM-4:30 PM. Candance Smith, Director of Sales and Communications at the Mount Hope Estate says the venue is very excited about it.

"It kind of grew out of something that we did for several years. It was just an open house where we would open the mansion and allow people to walk through the the ground floor and look at the decorations. And we would have special beverage sales and we'd have carolers and things like that. And it was a free event, but we wanted to make it kind of a continuation of the actual Renaissance Faire because the Renaissance Faire goes for 11 weekends and is so popular. People are really sad when that last weekend comes. So we thought, why can't we just kind of. Light it right into the holiday season and kind of bring the two together."

This is a family friendly event, that offers a new theme each weekend.

"For instance, okay, we have a fairy weekend, we have a wizarding weekend, we have a time traveler's weekend. And the the the patrons really do support those weekends with their costuming. And it's amazing what guests come up with as far as their costume. And a lot of Comic-Con type costumes come in. So it's really it's really neat. We also see the traditional renaissance period costuming and the Knights and the Pirates and that kind of thing. So I like to say it's just a big playground for everybody just to come and have a good time."

More information for the Pa Renaissance Faire can be found here. 

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The week of thanksgiving is one of the busiest times of the year. Students are returning home from college, deer hunters are heading to camp, and black Friday shopping keeps the roads busy.

Since this weekend will kick off rifle deer season, Fritzi Schreffler, Safety Press Officer with District 8 Penndot suggests paying close attention to the roads and deer.

“It is also mating season for the deer. So, they are off in search of love and not paying attention to what the drivers are doing, obviously. So, if you're in an area that is heavily populated by deer, you definitely want to be on the lookout in case they're running out, “said Schreffler.

Lt. Adam Reed, Director of the Communications Office for the Pennsylvania State Police, says during this time of year drivers get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

“They get caught up in the rush to go see family for Thanksgiving or the shopping crush prior to Christmas. People get busy, and it's important that people take a step back and realize that their safety is the most important and the gifts could weigh the travel if it takes an extra few minutes to get to your destination. So be it. Take an extra minute, take a deep breath, and get where you're going safely, “said Reed.

Reed says one of the biggest causes of crashes he sees is speeding.

“Two of the biggest causes of crashes that we see, number one is speeding. And number two is follow too closely, especially when a driver is doing both of those things at once. It's a recipe for disaster, really. So even things that that might seem mundane, like don't speed, don't follow the car in front of you too closely. Going back to the last topic there, it's easy to forget about. It's easy to have that get lost in the in the rush of the holiday season. So slow down and leave some distance between your vehicle and the car in front of you, “said Reed.

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week more people will be out shopping and spending time with their loved ones. ABC 27 Meteorologist Dan Tomaso says Thanksgiving may be a little damp, and more chills this weekend. Meteorologist Dan Tomaso also shares more about where we stand in the drought season. Listen to the podcast for more information.

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Southern Market in Lancaster has undergone renovations in 2015 and reopened in 2022. With the help of Assets, a non-profit organization focused on transforming the community through ethical and inclusive businesses. For the last eight years, the historic southern market has been home to assets. The historic landmark now contains a food hall, retail shops, community space and more. CEO of Assets Jamie Arroyo and Chris Balentine, Community Relations Manager of the Southern Market, joined The Spark to share the history of market.

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s no surprise we can feel stressed during the holidays, especially since they come post-election. Dr. Tim Riley from Penn State Health says this is often a hard time for many people.

“First off, there's a lot more that we have to do on top of our already full plates. And then there's also often a lot of expectations about the way things should be. And a lot of family dynamics that get surfaced that have often kind of been in the background and not a big deal during the rest of the year.”

However, Dr. Riley says even though the holidays can be challenging, there’s things we can do to try to limit the stress.

“If we do wind up in a conversation that begins to feel uncomfortable, I think the first step is to identify our own reactions and own them as ours. No one else can make us feel anything. So, the reaction that I'm having about a particular conversation is about me so I can own my feelings as my own.”

For those struggling with grief, Dr. Riley suggests allowing the grieving process to take space.

“I would also say if we're approaching a holiday and we recently lost a loved one, it's just really important for us to give ourselves a little bit of extra tender loving care, give ourselves some extra support. Find things that we know will be supportive for us that will allow us to navigate the challenges of the holiday season with a little bit less turbulence.”

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center is an open-air folklife museum and research center dedicated to preserving and celebrating Pennsylvania German folk culture, history, and language in a unique educational setting at Kutztown University.

Patrick Donmoyer is the Director of the Center and has been involved since 2006 when he was a student.

“I had gotten involved back then because I was interested in textiles and the history of historic textile looms, and the center happens to have a number of significant artifacts. I started working on a student project. One thing led to the next, and I was hired on after I graduated and eventually, over time, worked my way up to being director of the center and have been in this role now for 12 years.”

Today, the Pa German Cultural Heritage Center has an extensive research library available for those who wish to study genealogical, historical, and cultural research.

“If people come to our new headquarters today, they can come in to do research any time between 10 a.m. and noon and one and four on Monday through Friday during our normal operation hours. They can also come in and let us know if they're researching something in particular and we can connect them with those resources to do that research.”

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ambassadors for Hope is the only organization in Lancaster County with the sole function of supporting children as soon as the parent of a child is incarcerated.

“In addition to having a website with some educational resources, we are also reviewing children's book books that deal with parental incarceration so that we can make recommendations to school counselors, folks that are working with kids that have experienced parental incarceration. The family services advocate can give each child that she works with an age-appropriate book that deals with this subject. And the books all have a message of competency and resiliency so that the child knows I'm not alone in dealing with this, “said Mary Glazier, Vice Chair of Ambassadors for Hope.

The program also offers teddy bears for children of incarcerated parents with their parents’ voices in them. Ambassadors for hope have gifted over 300 teddy bears to children in the past five years.

“And let me tell you, children of all ages love a teddy bear that has their parents voice in it. And, you know, that's one of the most popular things, “said Glazier.

Ambassadors for Hope also collaborate with other local organizations to advocate for children of incarcerated parents in Lancaster County. One of those organizations is Compass Mark. A program based on federal and state strategies for substance use and gambling prevention and follow a public health model of balancing risk factors with protective factors, or strengths.

Terry Miller- Landon, Director of Programs for Compass Mark says they conduct research of that shares that will best support families dealing with incarceration.

“We know that parental incarceration can impact behavior, for example. So, we're available to consult with schools. And we do we do try to make sure that school social workers are aware that we're here so that they are kind of keeping that extra eye if they know that a child's parent has been incarcerated and if that child needs to get referred to counseling or something, because there are some predictable things that happen when they're feeling that family fracturing, “said Terry Miller-Landon.

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.