Books on the Bed

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’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  

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, 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  

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