244: The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

August 2, 2023August 1, 2023 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, authors of The First Ladies, about their thoughts on libraries as professional writers, why readers are fascinated by Marie’s and Victoria’s friendship and writing partnership, how the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune developed, and what Marie and Victoria have learned from each other as friends and authors.

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Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator. A graduate of Boston College and the Boston University School of Law, she is the New York Times and USAToday bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, Carnegie’s Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. All have been translated into multiple languages. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Victoria Christopher Murray is an acclaimed author with more than one million books in print. She has written more than twenty novels, including Stand Your Ground, a NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Fiction and a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

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The First Ladies
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
CI204: The Personal Library by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

238: Storm Watch by C. J. Box

March 28, 2023May 1, 2023 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with C. J. Box, author of Storm Watch, the 23rd book in his bestselling Joe Pickett series, about his early experiences with libraries, how he gets started with a new book, how his characters have changed over the years, and what it’s like to see his creations adapted for the screen.

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C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 30 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. He was recently awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum as well as the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel by the Western Writers of America in 2017. Over ten million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad and they’ve been translated into 27 languages. Two television series based on his novels are in production (BIG SKY on ABC and JOE PICKETT on Spectrum Originals and Paramount+). He is an Executive Producer for both series.

Box is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, a small town newspaper reporter and editor, and he owned an international tourism marketing firm with his wife Laurie. In 2008, Box was awarded the “BIG WYO” Award from the state tourism industry. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He served on the Board of Directors for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo and currently serves on the Wyoming Office of Tourism Board. They have three daughters and two grandchildren. He and his wife Laurie live on their ranch in Wyoming.

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Storm Watch

236: Promoting African American Writers by Grace M. Jackson-Brown

February 28, 2023May 1, 2023 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Grace M. Jackson-Brown, author of Promoting African American Writers, about her path to librarianship, her involvement with the African American Read-In program, why libraries should include programs promoting African American writers, teaching critical thinking skills through reading, and how writing the book was beneficial for her.

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Grace M. Jackson-Brown is a professor for research and instruction at Missouri State University Libraries in Springfield, Missouri. She is chairperson of the Springfield African American Read-In and recipient of the 2014 Zora Neale Hurston Award for promoting African American literature and the Educational Partnership Award of the NAACP Springfield Chapter. Her career spans more than twenty-five years as an academic librarian, much of it devoted to library outreach diversity programming. She holds a master’s degree in library and information management from Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, and a PhD in mass communication from Indiana University–Bloomington.

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Promoting African American Writers: Library Partnerships for Outreach, Programming, and Literacy

235: Romance Novels, with Falon Ballard and Robin Bradford

February 14, 2023May 1, 2023 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve first chats with Falon Ballard, author of Not My Type and Lease on Love, about her experience with libraries, her writing process, her two novels and her podcast, and which Marvel romance she would love to write. Then, Steve gets the rundown on the romance genre with Robin Bradford, author of the Readers’ Advisory Guide to Romance!

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Falon Ballard is the author of Just My Type and Lease on Love. When she’s not writing fictional love stories, she’s helping real-life couples celebrate, working as a wedding planner in Southern California.

Robin Bradford has earned a BA and MA in English, an MS in Library Science, and a JD, but has found a home in building reader-focused, popular collections in public libraries. She was recognized as RWA’s 2016 Librarian of the Year, and Emerald City Library Conference’s Librarian of the Year in 2022. She is addicted to books and dedicated to helping others discover a love of reading. She has worked with authors to help get their titles into these collections, and wrote the forthcoming ALA’s Guide to Romance Fiction to further help libraries with their romance collection. She also worked with libraries to push for equal treatment of genre fiction, and worked with readers so that they can find their favorite authors on their library’s shelves.

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Just My Type
The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Romance

229: The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin

November 8, 2022May 1, 2023 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Madeline Martin, author of The Librarian Spy, about her childhood experiences with libraries, her love of history and historical fiction, how she does her research, and the wonder of visiting the Library of Congress!

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Madeline Martin is a New York Times and International Bestselling author of historical fiction and historical romance.

She lives in sunny Florida with her two daughters (known collectively as the minions), one incredibly spoiled cat and a man so wonderful he’s been dubbed Mr. Awesome. She is a die-hard history lover who will happily lose herself in research any day. When she’s not writing, researching or ‘moming’, you can find her spending time with her family at Disney or sneaking a couple spoonfuls of Nutella while laughing over cat videos. She also loves to travel, attributing her fascination with history to having spent most of her childhood as an Army brat in Germany.

SPONSOR:

To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community. Again, that’s Syndetics.com, to learn more about today’s sponsor, Syndetics Unbound.

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The Librarian Spy

225: The War Librarian by Addison Armstrong

August 9, 2022May 1, 2023 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Addison Armstrong, author of The War Librarian and The Light of Luna Park, about her experiences with libraries, what she likes about writing historical fiction and dual timelines, finding story ideas in her historical research, and how her love of school supplies and ants fueled her writing life as a young girl!

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Addison Armstrong graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2020 with degrees in elementary education and language and literacy studies and received her master’s degree from Vanderbilt in Reading Education in 2021. The Light of Luna Park was her first novel. She lives with her husband in New York, New York, where she teaches elementary school.

SPONSOR:

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community.

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Addison Armstrong
The War Librarian

212: The Privatization of Everything by Donald Cohen

November 16, 2021May 2, 2023 ~ circideas ~ 1 Comment

Steve chats with Donald Cohen, co-author of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back, about how he defines privatization, why public goods are vital to a functioning democracy, public-private partnerships that work, and what individuals can do to fight back against privatization.

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Donald Cohen is the founder and executive director of In the Public Interest (ITPI,) a national research and policy center that studies public goods and services. His opinion pieces and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The New York Daily News, The New Republic, The American Prospect, The Nation and other online and print outlets. He’s the co-author of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back, out November 23, 2021.

SPONSORS:

EveryLibrary
This episode is sponsored today by EveryLibrary, the national political action committee for libraries. EveryLibrary helps support the funding formula for public and school libraries so our public institutions can employ great people. You can see more about their pro-bono support for libraries on the ballot and school librarians in crisis at everylibrary.org and SaveSchoolLibrarians.org.

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing
Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

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The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back

204: The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

July 27, 2021May 2, 2023 ~ circideas ~ 1 Comment

Steve chats with Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, authors of The Personal Librarian, about their early childhood experiences in libraries, why they found Belle da Costa Greene’s story so compelling and relevant to our modern times, and why they’re writing soulmates.

Read the transcript!

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator. A graduate of Boston College and the Boston University School of Law, she is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, Carnegie’s Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. All have been translated into multiple languages. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Victoria Christopher Murray is an acclaimed author with more than one million books in print. She has written more than twenty novels, including Stand Your Ground, an NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Fiction and a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Subscribe (FREE!) to the Circulating Ideas newsletter!

Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

SHOW NOTES:

The Personal Librarian
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray

202: Library Comic by Gene Ambaum and Willow Payne

June 29, 2021May 2, 2023 ~ circideas ~ 1 Comment

Steve chats with Gene Ambaum and Willow Payne, the writer and artist of Library Comic, about the transition from Unshelved to Library Comic, integrating spiders into the strip as much as possible, creative Kickstarter merch ideas, and Gene’s terrible taste in books and movies (according to Willow).

Gene Ambaum is a library guy who lives in the Pacific Northwest. In his spare time he reads and dreams of having more spare time. He co-created and wrote Unshelved.

Willow Payne is a Florida-based artist who has worked with Gene on Unshelved Book Club comics and their as-yet incomplete epic Barbarian Girl: The Burning Blade of the Badlands. She graduated from The Center for Cartooning Studies in 2014 and will inevitably take over the comics world. Her favorite authors include Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, and Philip Pullman. She took over as the artist for Library Comic in June of 2019 with strip 581.

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Library Comic
Barbarian Girl
Fiends of the Library
Bookstabber podcast

198: How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

April 6, 2021May 2, 2023 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Imbolo Mbue, author of How Beautiful We Were and Behold the Dreamers, about how a library display helped inspire her to start writing, the characters and themes she tackles in her work, writing as catharsis, and what it’s like to get a phone call from Oprah.

IMBOLO MBUE is the author of the New York Times bestseller Behold the Dreamers, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. The novel has been translated into eleven languages, adapted into an opera and a stage play, and optioned for a miniseries.

Her new novel, How Beautiful We Were, was published in March 2021.

A native of Limbe, Cameroon, and a graduate of Rutgers and Columbia Universities, Mbue lives in New York.