Books on the Bed

By: Matt Sawyer
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  • Summary

  • I'm traveling through the country asking our hosts, "If I came to your town and stayed at your house, what books would you put on my bed?" Each host will share 6 books for me to carry with me on the journey of my life. As we go, we'll build a digital library for you to explore and find the stories that will part a curtain between us, make your heart shift, and change your life.
    2024
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Episodes
  • Mandi Fugate Sheffel

    Mandi Fugate Sheffel
    Sep 27 2024

    Mandi Fugate Sheffel was born and raised in Red Fox, KY. She owns and operates Read Spotted Newt, an independent bookstore in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky, and is currently the Sycamore Fund Project Coordinator at The Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky. She is the board vice chair of the Appalachian Arts Alliance and a Mountain Association board member. Mandi is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University.

    Visit Read Spotted Newt! readspottednewt.com

    Read some of Mandi's recent writing:

    Appalachia deserves more than coal or cages. - Lexington Herald Leader

    We will rebuild in EKy. Then we must ask why 100-year floods are happening so often.

    Interview location: Hazard, KY

    Mandi’s Books on the Bed:

    The Beatinest Boy by Jesse Stuart

    Christy by Catherine Marshall

    Clay’s Quilt by Silas House

    Trampoline by Robert Gipe

    Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith

    Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories by Gurney Norman

    Matt’s gifts for Mandi:

    O Pioneers! By Willa Cather

    Outlawed by Anna North
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    1 hr and 48 mins
  • Kathryn Savage

    Kathryn Savage
    Sep 20 2024

    Kathryn Savage’s Groundglass: An Essay (Coffee House Press), explores topics of environmental justice and links between pollution and public health. Groundglass was named a best read of the year by the Sydney Morning Herald, a Yale Review Favorite Cultural Artifact of 2022, and was showcased in Orion Magazine, Lit Hub, and selected by EcoLit Books as a Best Environmental Book of 2022.

    Recipient of the Academy of American Poets James Wright Prize, her writing across forms has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Ucross Foundation, and Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Savage has studied creative writing at The New School, holds an MFA in fiction from Bennington College, and an MFA in poetry from the University of Minnesota.

    Recent writing appears or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, BOMB Magazine, Ecotone Magazine, Guernica, VQR, World Literature Today, and the anthology Rewilding: Poems for the Environment.

    Currently she is an assistant professor of creative writing at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). She is at work on a collection of short stories.

    To learn more about Kathryn: kathrynsavage.com

    Interview location: Minneapolis, MN

    Kathryn's Books on the Bed:

    Escapes by Joy Williams

    The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg

    An Ideal Presence by Eduardo Berti

    What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

    Fixer by Edgar Kunz

    Dear Memory by Victoria Chang

    Second Stack:

    Sing to It: Stories by Amy Hempel

    Wonderlands by Charles Baxter

    Matt's gifts for Kathryn:

    A History of Half-Birds by Caroline Harper New

    Return the Innocent Earth by Wilma Dykeman

    Episode timeline:

    0:00-5:29 — Intro

    5:30-29:22 — Kathryn's story, history in Minneapolis, & Groundglass

    29:23-1:59:47 — Kathryn's Books on the Bed & Second Stack
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    2 hrs
  • Zelda Lockhart

    Zelda Lockhart
    Sep 13 2024
    Dr. ZELDA LOCKHART holds a PhD in Expressive Art Therapies, an MA in Literature, and a certificate in writing, directing and editing from the NY Film Academy. Her work as an author and expressive arts consultant and educator centers on the power of story and nature to connect us across barriers and to heal our generations. She is winner of the Lambda Literary Foundation 2024 Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-career Novelist Prize. Her books include HarperCollins 2023 release Trinity (a novel) translated and released by HarperCollins France 2024 as Entends ma voix. Her other works include The Soul of the Full-Length Manuscript: Turning Life’s Wounds into the Gift of Literary Fiction, Memoir, or Poetry. Her other novels are Fifth Born which was a Barnes & Noble Discovery selection and a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award finalist, Cold Running Creek a Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Fiction award winner, and Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle a 2011 Lambda Literary Award finalist. Lockhart is Director at Her Story Garden Studios: Inspiring Black Women to Self-Define, Heal, and Liberate Through Our Stories & Nature. To learn more about Zelda: zeldalockhart.com Interview location: Durham, NC Zelda’s Books on the Bed: The Mimosa Tree by Vera and Bill Cleaver The Black Notebooks by Toi Derricote Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison Beloved by Toni Morrison Trinity by Zelda Lockhart Matt’s gifts for Zelda: The Last Children of Mill Creek by Vivian Gibson Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine Episode timeline: 0:00-4:07 — Intro 4:08-9:08 — Matt presents gifts to Zelda 9:09-14:32 — Eliza Edens song "Garden of Sound" and ecology metaphor 14:33-1:49:35 — Zelda's Books on the Bed
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    1 hr and 50 mins
Art Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
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