A LITTLE TOO QUIET: THE FERNDALE LIBRARY PODCAST

Author Interview: em dickson ~ Beyond They/Them

This week, we're chatting with em dickson, author of Beyond They/Them: 20 Influential Nonbinary and Gender-Diverse People You Should Know, illustrated by Cameron Mukwa. 

Turns out em went to college with our Podcast's cohost Mary Grahame, over at Simmons University in Boston; you'll get a lot of their charming history together, including Mary Grahame's path to becoming a Youth Librarian and em's journey to become a published Children's Author!

em dickson (e/em/eir/she) holds an MA in Children's Lit, along with an MFA, both earned from her time at Simmons; along with er recently published book, e is a school librarian, authenticity reader, competitive sailor, and sea shanty enthusiast. Like Peter Pan, e has a strong emotional attachment to eir shadow, a fluffy black muppet of a dog called Luna. When not reading or writing, e can be found harmonizing to random sounds, collecting trinkets in eir pockets like a dragon, or promoting the color teal. E feels most at home by the sea, which is convenient, since e spends most of eir time in coastal Massachusetts. You can find em on Instagram @mlereads

Along with some overdue catching up, em and Mary Grahame mention another excellent book that em contributed to, Athlete is Agender. We also discuss a lot of other noteworthy authors, including ND Stevenson, Esme Symes-Smith, Maia Kobabe, and more! We also give some shout-outs to our librarian programming, including our Reading Rainbow social-hour/book club, and our Rainbow Club at Ferndale Middle School! Tune In!

 

Why We Literally Love Romance

This week, we have an energized panel discussing a wide range of topics related to the romance genre! This is all building up to some big news, actually: we're start hosting monthly Romance Book Club meetings beginning in October! Also, for the first time, we'll be assembling a separate section of fiction dedicated entirely to the genre! Tune in! 

Fiber Arts + Painted with Silk Recap: Detroit Institute of Arts

Here are some things we know to be true:

1.) The Detroit Institute of Arts is simply a gem of a cultural destination and community resource that enlightens, educates, enriches, and entertains the tri-county Metro area and beyond!

2.) Their incredible exhibition, Painted with Silk, just closed last week, spanning the art of early American Embroidery from the 1600s up into the 1830s, just one of many special exhibitions curated by the DIA and open to the public year-in and year-out!

3.) We have two podcast cohosts, Erin & Mary Grahame, who are enthusiastic practioners and appreciators of the Fiber Arts, so they thought a field trip TO the D.I.A. with our library mascot, Fern the Frog, could prove to build a budding partnership between the museum and our library! They were right! Tune in for our conversation! 

Oh, and stay tuned for updates, coming later in the Fall, when the Ferndale Library partners with the D.I.A. to coordinate guided tours, including free shuttle transportation (from the library) down to the museum! 

https://dia.org/ 

IG: @diadetroit 

Interview with Singer/Songwriter Carolyn Striho

Award-winning singer/songwriter, musician & poet Carolyn Striho will be here at the Ferndale Library on June 18 for a live performance in our courtyard to kick off our annual Summer Concert Series! Visit https://www.carolynstriho.com to find more information about this incredible artist, previous albums, songs, and her poetry collection , Detroit Maiden Energy. 

Featured music in this episode, by Carolyn Striho:
I Will Rise

Piano Moon

Ferndale Library's Summer Reading Spectacular

This week, we're getting nostalgic AND providing some reading recommendations! It's our podcast's annual Summer Reading Spectacular! We're talking about books that we have fond memories of reading during the summers of our past, as well as particularly fond memories tied to the Summer Reading Programs hosted by the public libraries we attended as kids/teens! 

 

Correction: We discuss the 2024 book Bitter Water Opera by Nicolette Polek, because we're huge fans and it's a fine novel to read during the summertime, HOWEVER, we mention that Polek graduated from Harvard, but she in fact graduated from the Yale Divinity School ~ and currently teaches creative writing at SUNY Purchase. Hopefully Polek will be a guest on this podcast some day soon! 

 

Also, mark your calendars for our Kickoff Party happening here on Saturday, June 7, from 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm: www.fadl.org/summer 

 

 

Linda Nemec Foster - Poetry Month & The Lake Huron Mermaid

Michigan Author and poet Linda Nemec Foster joins us to cap off Poetry Month and discuss her latest book, The Lake Huron Mermaid, with Anne-Marie Oomen; recently released on WSU Press.  

https://wsupress.wayne.edu/9780814347416/ 

https://www.lindanemecfoster.com/works/the-lake-huron-mermaid/ 

https://anne-marieoomen.com/ 

https://lafontsee.com/artist/meridith-ridl