A LITTLE TOO QUIET: THE FERNDALE LIBRARY PODCAST

Josh Malerman on Maintaining Motivation

Josh Malerman knows how hard it can be to get started. With the winter upon us, it might be more difficult than it had been, even during a year such as 2020, to stay motivated! Malerman, a former Ferndale resident (and now world-famous author), shares some insights with us on what worked for him during a particularly challenging year! Along with providing his own words of encouragement on how to stay motivated, Malerman also discusses his most recent works, including the online novel CARPENTER'S FARM and recently-completed-but-not-yet-published work, FOREVER SINCE BREAKFAST. 

https://joshmalerman.com/ 

Follow the Ferndale Library ON YOUTUBE to see a video version of this conversation. 

Reading Goals & The Wider Perspectives Found in Fiction for Kids

Youth Librarian Ms. Elissa develops the collection of fiction for middle-grade readers. And over the last several years, she has set "reading goals" for herself. It started at 50 in her first year and she almost made it. Then the number got higher, and higher. This year, the original plan was to cross the 160-mark and she made it to 174! Today, she's talking about just some of the many books she completed; elaborating on how valuable these books can be to the emotional development of young readers, specifically books released within the last by a diverse group of modern authors. 

http://tiny.cc/fadlcatalog 

www.facebook.com/ferndalekids 

 

Local Author Series: John Jeffire Reads 'Broke'

John Jeffire is an esteemed author & poet, born and raised in Detroit. He has two novels, and two works of poetry published--along with several short stories (like the one featured on this podcast!). Jeffire has a deep reverence for the city of Detroit and its history. While Jeffire has a literary background, he's also a teacher / wrestling coach. And today's story taps into the sport of wrestling--while also illuminating a piece of Jeffire's family history. 

http://www.writeondetroit.com/

"A few months ago I learned of an ancestor named George Riley Meadows. I took some of the basic foundational details of his biography and relocated the setting to Detroit at roughly the same time period (for "Broke"). I have learned that a number of my ancestors ended up in Eloise, so writing "Broke" was a way for me to tell many of their stories at once. I've attached a picture of George and his wife Matilda as well.

 

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George Riley Meadows' life was short and tragic. He married Mary Malinda Totman in 1878, and they were living together with six children when he was involved in a mishap. A miner and farmer, he and some work friends were trying to see who could lift the most weight when something "broke in his head." After this, he was the victim of seizures and his mental faculties were never right again. His condition became so bad that on 21 November 1898 his wife divorced him, almost unheard of at the time, and he was confined to the Osawatomie State Hospital (originally the Kansas State Insane Asylum) where he resided for two years. Listed as a farmer and a Protestant, his diagnosis read that he suffered from grand mal seizures. This diagnosis included "incomplete dementia" and "insanity."

 

At age 45, he was transferred to the Kansas State Home for Epileptics in Parsons, Kansas, on 19 Oct 1903, which received most its patients from Osawatomie and the Kansas State Asylum for Idiotic and Imbecile Youth in Lawrence. He was patient #79 of the 110 admitted that day. His former wife Matilda continued to visit him; she did not mention her former husband to family members but they recall her returning from a visit she made by wagon to "someone" in an institution inconsolable and in tears. He died at the institution and was buried in Row 1, Space 7 in its cemetery. It seems that the lifting accident he suffered likely caused a brain aneurysm from which he never recovered and there was no treatment at the time but to lock him up in an institution.

Local Author Series: Laura Hulthen Thomas Reads "Underlying Conditions"

Laura Hulthen Thomas is the author of STATES OF MOTION, a collection of short stories http://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/states-motion. 

 

 

Thomas also teaches fiction and creative non-fiction for the University of Michigan, as program head for the Residential College’s creative writing program. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Cimarron Review, Nimrod International Journal, Epiphany, Witness, Midwestern Gothic, and other literary journals.

 

"Underlying Conditions" is a very new piece (composed during quarantine) that resonates with our current moment/reality; excerpted for this podcast. 

https://www.pw.org/writers_recommend/laura_hulthen_thomas 

Trailer for A Little Too Quiet

No matter what, though, we promising you compelling conversations with lots of creative people, including creative librarians, discussing what inspires them and keeps them motivated

Our original tag line referred to the prevailing 20th-century perception of libraries as quiet places where people just read books....that perception, frankly, portrayed us as a little too quiet.... libraries are different, libraries are adventurous, experimental, engaging, inventive, imaginative....they're often not so quiet... and this is a podcast that looks at all the ways in which libraries, including ours, continue to serve their communities.

Local Author Series: Kelly Fordon' Reads 'Jungle Life'

Kelly Fordon is the author of an award-winning short story collection, Garden for the Blind (Wayne State University Press, 2015); a poetry chapbook, The Witness, which won the Eric Hoffer Award for the Chapbook; and a poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House. The Metro Detroit-based author/teacher recently released a new collection of short stories, "I Have The Answer." Today's story is selected from that 2020 book and it's titled "Jungle Life."

https://kellyfordon.com/