Schlow Library Podcast

We're in conversation with members of the jury for the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, awarded through the Pennsylvania Center for the Book. We talk about what it takes to choose an award winning graphic novel, and what makes the winner, Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World's Most Infamous Prison by Sarah Mirk, so special.

Listening to us talk about comics, publishing, and specifically Guantanamo Voices is great,  but whatever you do, don't miss the actual Lynn Ward Graphic Novel Prize event with author Sarah Mirk  on Tuesday, November 16, 2021 accessible online right here.

This podcast is brought to you by your friends at Schlow Centre Region Library. 
Thanks for listening!

In this episode we talk about food history with Dr. Marissa Nicosia, who runs the Cooking from the Archives website. You can also connect with her on Twitter @Rare_Cooking, Instagram @Rare_Cooking, and Facebook.

While you are online, check us at Schlow Library to see all the awesome stuff we got going on for you.

Join us for this enjoyable Podcast to look back and then forward!
We take a look back on what it took to turn the page on 2020, and where we can head together in 2021. Molly Hetrick joins us as we dive into all the great services and opportunities Schlow Library offers that you might not know about, and an exciting upcoming event that you can be part of.
After the podcast:

• Please visit the Turn the Page Newsletter 
• Please consider a donation to support Schlow Library Foundation: Now or During Centre Gives May 11 & 12 (links)
• Visit the Schlow Library website to learn more about upcoming programs and opening hours.

We are talking Biking and Sustainability in the Cetnre Region with Trish Meek and Pam Adams.  Our Underwriter from Fiction comes from a darling of Jeff Bezos, and our Poetry Nightcap takes a skeptical look at Spring weather.

After you listen, check out these resources for great information. 

• A great portal of all things biking in our area, with many many resources.
• Learn how to get involved with the Centre Region's sustainability work.
• Come see everything you can do with your friends at Schlow Library.

We are traveling to China to take a look at Chinese Art and Art History. We will be talking to Ashley Yang Liu from  Yang Travel Art.  Ashley will be teaching at a Schlow Labs event on April 24th, 2021. We hope to see you there!

We begin the show talking Chinese Art History with Dr. Tan from Penn State University. Some of the recommendations from Dr. Tan are the works of Peter Hessler, and Xu Bing.

Our poetry nightcap is from Felix Jung, used under the CC BY-NC 3.0 license.

We'd like to draw your attention to the sustainability work going on at the Centre Region CoG. You can do the following here.

• Take local government’s Sustainability Survey by April 30 th for a chance to win a $100 gift card or other prizes.
• Attend the virtual open public forum on Addressing Climate Impacts in the Centre Region on Tuesday, April 13  from 6:30 – 8:30 PM.

For further discussion in Comparative Art History
Compare and contrast the sense of place and belonging depicted in Yang Yongliang's View of Tide (2008), with Chairman Mao And Officials With Children (1983), and that of a western example in Thomas Blink's Unity (1800's; The dogs pictured are an English Setter, an Irish Setter, and the Gordon Setter, a breed from Scotland).

You can hand me a page of paper with dark strokes on it, and when I look at it, my brain transports me to an imaginative place. That's pretty weird, right? We take a loving look at this miracle with author Dr. Nancy McCabe. You can hear a review of Dr. McCabe's latest book Can This Marriage Be Saved?  here.

Mentioned in the episode is the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten Program run by the Children's Librarians at Schlow. If you are keen to sign up, send an email with your child's name and birth date to children@schlowlibrary.org . This and much, much more is going on at Schlow Library. Come check out all the rumpus!

Also in this episode is a poem about language* by the poet Jackson, and our Underwriters from Fiction is sponsored by a transformative figure in scholastic sports.




*licensed under a (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

We talk with Lynnicia Massenburg, Dr. Kristen Lillvis, and Dr. Kendra R. Parker about Octavia E. Butler's dystopian novel Parable of the Sower. This is in advance of a book discussion on the novel hosted by Schlow Library  in collaboration with the Black Graduate Student Association at Penn State.  Come join us!

If you'd like to read Parable of the Sower, we have it in print, ebook, audiobook, and comic form.

Also in this episode,  our Underwriters from Fiction comes from Pawnee, Indiana's largest Internet Service Provider, and our prose nightcap is a selection from Nancy McCabe's memoir Can This Marriage Be Saved?

Further reading & listening 

• Lavender III, I. (2019). Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement. United States: Ohio State University Press.
• Womack, Y. (2013). Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-fi and Fantasy Culture. United States: Chicago Review Press.
• Eshun, K. (2003). Further Considerations on Afrofuturism. CR: The New Centennial Review, 3(2), 287-302. Retrieved February 2, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41949397
• The Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler. (2020). United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Parker, K. R. (2018). Black Female Vampires in African American Women’s Novels, 1977–2011: She Bites Back. United States: Lexington Books.
• Lillvis, K. (2017). Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination. Greece: University of Georgia Press.
• Rhee, M. (2017). Love, Robot. United States: Operating System.
• Shaw, K. (2019). Too Numerous. United States: University of Massachusetts Press.
• Bertram, L. (2019). Travesty Generator. United States: Noemi Press.
• Adrienne Maree Brown & Toshi Reagon (2019-2020). Octavia's Parables. Retrieved February 2, 2021
• Shankar Vedantam, et al. (2019). Where does religion come from? One researcher points to 'cultural' evolution. Hidden Brain. Retrieved February 2, 2021

Additional info on BGSA's Black Business Week coming up in Feb. 2021.

In this one we  we go on a tour through time with Matt Maris of Local Historia to discover the surprising history of Centre County. Local Historia's mission is to  shine light upon the past, connect with community in the present, and preserve local history for the future.

You can connect with Local Historia for a themed walking tour and much more through the Local Historia website, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

No mention of local history research would be complete without also mentioning the excellent resources of the Centre County Historical Society and the Centre County Library and Historical Museum.

Also in this episode we continue our Underwriters from Fiction, DJ Lilly gives us a 6 word book-review for Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich, and our Poetry Nightcap revitalizes the tired poetry trope of alligator-wrestling.

We talk with Dr. John Gastil about role-playing as a feature in his new novel Dungeon Party, as well as with Hansen Bergamini to see what effect role-playing has had in his life.

Our Underwriters From Fiction is from a pharmaceutical giant dedicated to  maximizing medication side effects in order to provide new marketing opportunities.

Our Poetry Nightcap is from the very talented Karine Polwart.

If you are keen to checkout what role-playing groups are meeting through Schlow Library, you can email refdesk@schlowlibrary.org for more information.

That and much more is going on with your friends at Schlow Library, come join us for something fun!

We talk with Maria Burchill, the head of Schlow's Adult Services, on the various ways we can stay connected together through the winter.  Some of the resources discussed include:

All the virtual programing and services Schlow offers
Schlow's Zoom rooms open to the public for your event or meeting
Schlow's portal to StoryCorps Connect
Centre County Memories on the StoryCorps Archive
All the free tools Google has to help you in a variety of ways
Tabletop Simulator
WPSU's Community Calendar

Our Underwriters from Fiction  comes from everyone's favorite vampire TV show of the 1990's; and guys, our Poetry Nightcap is a piece by NEIL GAIMAN! The good times never stop with your friends at Schlow Library.

We explore the ways we can create a more deliberative democracy with Dr. John Gastil. Local engagement in a deliberative process can help us overcome factionalism and empower future political participation. Come see what it can do for you!

Our Underwriters from Fiction has a promo that.... well, it has a promo for its time and place.

We conclude with a poetry nightcap by way of Ewan MacColl.

Lots of stuff is going on at Schlow Library, come join us!

Professor Scott Smith joins us as we take a deep dive into the fantasy works of JRR Tolkien.

Our Underwriters from Fiction continues with one of the best comedies of all time, and we end with our prose nightcap focusing on some beautiful and chilling selections from The Lord of the Rings.

Come checkout all the cool stuff going on at Schlow Library. 

We talk with the judging panel from the Pennsylvania Center for the Book on their awarding the Lynn Ward Graphic Novel Prize to King of King Court by Travis Dandro. We also get a lot of book recommendations at the end, including a bunch of comics to check out.

Also, our Underwriters from Fiction breaks new barriers in retro-nerdism, and we end with a poetry nightcap from local author Katherine Bode-Lang.

Come see all the cool goings-on at Schlow Library!

We discuss wrongful convictions with Tim Robicheaux, an Associate Teaching Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Penn State. You can learn more about wrongful convictions at the The National Registry of Exonerations.

Our poetry nightcap is from local author Jim Colbert from his book, Defiantly Blue Sky.

All sorts of stuff is shaking at Schlow Library, come see for yourself!

Professor Margaret Brittingham talks with us about what we can do to build wildlife habitat on our own lawns. All sorts of useful information on building habitat can be found on the Penn State Extension website.

Our poetry nightcap is from local author Jack Troy, from his book Calling the planet home.

Lots of great programming is going on at Schlow Library, come check us out.

Author Mermer Blakeslee talks with us about creativity and writing, and we have an epiphany about why fiction is so important.

Underwriters from Fiction continues, if you have an underwriter from fiction that you would like to see sponsor the show, send your advertisement copy to bdrain@sachlowlibrary.org.

All kinds of cool events and virtual programming are happening at Schlow Library, come check us out.



If you are an eccentric billionaire and would like to purchase us an ASCAP license, please hit me up. In the meantime, we'll be piecing together free CC music. The credits of the music in this episode are found bellow.

_____
Laying Low by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/61081 Ft: Apoxode

Je suis un Phoenix by Bluemillenium (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Bluemillenium/61325 

The Vendetta by Stefan Kartenberg (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/58628 Ft: Apoxode

Bossa Noir for Nights by Stefan Kartenberg (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/61806 Ft: Martijn de Boer (NiGiD),  Javolenus

Pipes of a Stranger byEsencayEnis (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://ccmixter.org/files/EsencayEnis/61926

Loopster by Kevin MacLeod (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (4.0) license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Right Voice by Sackjo22 (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://ccmixter.org/files/SackJo22/33699

Afternoon Walking Pleasures  by EsencayEnis c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://ccmixter.org/files/EsencayEnis/61887

We talk with Linda Littleton and Karen Hirshon of the band Simple Gifts about how you can be playing music with others during the pandemic.

We begin our Underwriters from Fiction spots. If you have an underwriter from fiction that you would like to sponsor the show, send your advertisement copy to bdrain@schlowlibrary.org .

We end with a prose nightcap by local author Andrew Bode-Lang from his book Field Trips with Exceptional People.

You can check out all the happenings at Schlow Library here.

David Pencek, former Communications Manager of Schlow Centre Region Library, bids farewell, and also talks about the future of the Schlow Library Podcast!

Lee Stout was Penn State's University Archivist for 27 years and retired as Librarian Emeritus for Special Collections. He has numerous articles and authored or co-authored several books on Penn State's history, including Ice Cream U: The Story of the Nation's Most Successful Collegiate Creamery and Lair of the Lion: A History of Beaver Stadium. 

In this episode, Lee talks about the Creamery, as we celebrate National Ice Cream Month, and Beaver Stadium, as many wonder what will happen this football season amid COVID-19.

BookFest PA is online this year and will run over three days July 8-10. The final event is an evening with best-selling authors Lisa Scottoline and her daughter, Francesca Serritella. Francesca's debut novel, Ghosts of Harvard, was published this spring.

In this episode, we chat with Francesca about her book, her relationship with her mom, and more!

Francesca Serritella: https://www.francescaserritella.com/

BookFest PA: https://bookfestpa.schlowlibrary.org/