Books on the Bed

Jessie van Eerden

This week we visit Jessie van Eerden in Roanoke, VA. Jessie is a native of Preston County, WV and the author of novels "Glorybound", "My Radio Radio", and 'Call It Horses", and portrait essay collection "The Long Weeping". Her new essay collection "Yoke & Feather" is out now, so go forth and read!  Jessie has taught for over twenty years in college classrooms and adult literacy programs, and she directed the low-residency MFA writing program of West Virginia Wesleyan College for seven years. She is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University. For more on Jessie: jessievaneerden.com Jessie's Books on the Bed: The Murmuring Deep by Avivah Gottlied Zornberg Barrabas by Par Lagerkvist Houskeeping by Marilynne Robinson The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day Deepstep Come Shining by C.D. Wright Rose by Li-Young Lee Matt's gifts for Jessie: Fire Sermon and A Life by Wright Morris   Episode timeline: 0:00 - 6:47 — Intro 6:48 - 52:35 — Gifts for Jessie, discussing Jessie's life and work 52:36 - 1:33:09 — Jessie's Books on the Bed    

Charles Baxter

CHARLES BAXTER is the author of the novels "The Feast of Love" (nominated for the National Book Award), "First Light", "Saul and Patsy", "Shadow Play", "The Soul Thief", and "The Sun Collective", and the story collections "Believers", "Gryphon", "Harmony of the World", "A Relative Stranger", "There’s Something I Want You to Do", and "Through the Safety Net". His stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and The O. Henry Prize Story Anthology. He has won the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Baxter lives in Minneapolis. Charles Baxter | Penguin Random House Conversation location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Charles' Books on the Bed: "The Night of the Hunter" by Davis Grubb "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov "If I Survive You" by Jonathan Escoffery  "The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter" "So Long, See You Tomorrow" by William Maxwell "The Widow's Children" by Paula Fox Matt's gifts for Charles: "The Librarianist" by Patrick deWitt "The Mountains Have Come Closer" by Jim Wayne Miller   Episode timeline: 0:00 - 4:05 — Intro 4:06 - 31:47 — GIfts for Charles, Backstory to "The Soul Thief", and discussing Charles' new book "Blood Test" 31:48 - 1:24:51 — Charles' Books on the Bed

Jim Minick

Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books, including Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas (nonfiction), “The Intimacy of Spoons” (poetry), Fire Is Your Water, (novel), and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. Minick’s work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Oxford American, Orion, Shenandoah, The Sun, Conversations with Wendell Berry, Appalachian Journal, Wind, and The Sun. He serves as co-editor of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel. Minick’s honors include the Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian Writing and the Fred Chappell Fellowship at UNC-Greensboro. Minick has also won awards from the Southern Independent Booksellers Association, Southern Environmental Law Center, The Virginia College Bookstore Association, Appalachian Writers Association, Radford University, and elsewhere. His poem “I Dream a Bean” was picked by Claudia Emerson for permanent display at the Tysons Corner/Metrorail Station. He’s garnered grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Augusta University, Georgia Humanities Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. To learn more about Jim:  jim-minick.com Interview Location: Smyth County, Virginia Jim’s Books on the Bed: The Meadow by James Galvin I Am One of You Forever by Fred Chappell Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers by Frank X Walker The Mountains Have Come Closer by Jim Wayne Miller Harper Single Volume American Literature, Third Edition Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier Matt’s gifts for Jim: The Song of Everything by Glenis Redmond The Good Lord Bird by James McBride Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams Jim's Bedside Books: Our Southern Birds by Emma Bell Miles The French Broad by Wilma Dykeman Waking by Ron Rash Divine Right’s Trip: A Novel of the Counterculture by Gurney Norman The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry Suttree by Cormac McCarthy The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje Episode timeline: 0:00 - 6:45 — Introduction 6:46 - 41:10 Matt's gifts for Jim and Jim's story 41:11 - 1:55:05 — Jim's Books on the Bed  

Glenis Redmond

Glenis Redmond is the First Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, and a Cave Canem alumni. She has authored six books of poetry: Backbone (Underground Epics, 2000), Under the Sun (Main Street Rag, 2002), and What My Hand Say (Press 53, 2016), Listening Skin (Four Way Books), Three Harriets & Others (Finishing Line Press), and Praise Songs for Dave the Potter, Art by Jonathan Green, and Poetry by Glenis Redmond (University of Georgia Press).  Glenis was born on Shaw AFB in Sumter, South Carolina. She presently resides in Greenville. She was the founder of the Greenville Poetry Slam in the early 90’s. She received her MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College while touring full-time as a poet and mother-of-twins, Amber, and Celeste Sherer. She is now a Gaga to three grandchildren Julian and Paisley and newborn, Quinn. Glenis has spent almost three decades touring the country as a poet and teaching artist. Since 2014, she has served as the mentor poet for the National Student Poets Program through Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In the past she has prepared these exceptional youth poets to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House. For more about Glenis: glenisredmond.com Interview location: Greenville, South Carolina Glenis' Books on the Bed: Generations: A Memoir by Lucille Clifton The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 Gullah Spirit and Gullah Images by Jonathan Green Kindred by Octavia Butler Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston In Search of Color Everywhere by E. Ethelbert Miller (Editor) & Terrance Cummings (Illustrator) June Jordan's Poetry for the People Matt's gifts for Glenis: Call It Horses by Jessie van Eerden  Searching for Dr. Harris by Margaret Humphreys   Episode timeline:  0:00-4:52 — Intro 4:53-58:19 - Glenis' story 58:20-1:58:28 - Glenis' Books on the Bed

Mandi Fugate Sheffel

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  

Kathryn Savage

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  

Zelda Lockhart

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 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

Remica Bingham-Risher

Remica Bingham-Risher, a native of Phoenix, Arizona, is an alumna of Old Dominion University and Bennington College. She is a Cave Canem fellow and Affrilachian Poet. Among other journals, her work has been published in the New York Times, the Writer’s Chronicle, New Letters, Callaloo and Essence. She is the author of Conversion (Lotus, 2006) winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, What We Ask of Flesh (Etruscan, 2013) shortlisted for the Hurston/Wright Award and Starlight & Error (Diode, 2017) winner of the Diode Editions Book Award. Her first book of prose, Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books and Questions that Grew Me Up, was published by Beacon Press in 2022. Her next book of poems, Room Swept Home, was published by Wesleyan in February 2024. She is currently the Director of Quality Enhancement Plan Initiatives at Old Dominion University and resides in Norfolk, VA with her husband and children. Learn more about Remica: remicabinghamrisher.com Interview location: Norfolk, VA   Remica’s Books on the Bed: If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin Home by Toni Morrison The Book of Light by Lucille Clifton Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion Fast Animal by Tim Seibles Matt’s gifts for Remica: To ‘Joy My Freedom by Tera Hunter Somerset Homecoming by Dorothy Spruill Redford   Episode timeline: 0:00-3:33 — Intro 3:34-28:17 — Remica's family history, new book Room Swept Home, reading poems 28:18-42:10  — Matt presents gifts to Remica 42:11-1:38:59 — Remica's Books on the Bed  

Books on the Bed Trailer

Welcome to Books on the Bed!  Logo design by Nathaniel Roy - nathanielroy.com Theme music: Eliza Edens - "Ramble" (Instrumental) from Time Away From Time (2020) More about Eliza: eliza-edens.com