Podcast appearances and mentions of Amanda Jones

(Episode 389) On this show, Amanda Jones and Mason Dixon join host Rob Byrd in the studio to talk about attending Donut Fest, The CR 689/ Blueberry Chicks 4th of July PBS Special, Father's Day,  Mom's Motorsports Mud Run and the California Voting Enterprise. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, Tim Dibble from The Hartford Motor Speedway calls in to talk about tonight's Night of Destruction. Gina Johnston-Small comes to the studio to talk about an amazing piece of vacant land that's hitting the market. Joins us as we discuss this and everything under the Moondog.

(Episode 388) On this show Amanda Jones and Scott T join Rob in the studio to talk about California's voting system and it's potential for fraud. They also talk about County Road 689's next episode and the award Amanda Jones received from the South Haven Legion Post 49. Dr. Max Masters calls in to talk about getting started with Chiropractic work and how chiropractic help with a healthy BM. Chris Siriano from Siriano's House of David Museum comes to the studio to talk about the House of David TV series on PBS, the Amusement Park, the Diamond House Break-in, Mary's City of David and the Trial of David Purnell. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.

In this episode, Amanda Jones sits down with Liz and Josh Powell, founders of Taste of the Screen, the immersive dining experience turning movie nights into unforgettable events. They share how a passion for film inspired them to create interactive dinners where guests enjoy the exact food and drinks featured on screen, all while watching the movie unfold. From hosting friends at home to selling out monthly events at the Padre Hotel, hear the story behind this unique Bakersfield experience, the creativity that goes into every menu, and what's next for Taste of the Screen. Check out Taste of the Screen: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tasteofthescreen/?hl=en TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taste.of.the.scre Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/121116882706  

El 3 de junio de 1873, Amanda Theodosia Jones obtuvo la patente del proceso de envasado al vacío, una técnica revolucionaria que permitía conservar alimentos sin necesidad de cocción previa.

(Episode 387) On this show Mason Dixon, Amanda Jones and Scott T join Host Rob Byrd in the studio to welcome special guest, honorable Judge Richard Ginkowski, Pleasant Prairie Municipal Judge in Wisconsin. The Judge calls the studio to talk about Benton Harbor, The Murder of Janet Uland and the trial that followed. Judge Ginkowski was the WSJM News Director at the time in 1971. Some may remember him by Dick Scott. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, professional vampire (phlebotomist) Tanya Kennedy keeps the studio crew in stitches with her matchmaking dating stories. Gina Johnston-Small talks real estate, AI and background checks. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.

Amanda Jones sits down with Vivian Cao, founder and president of the Kern Asian Chamber, for a conversation about culture, community, entrepreneurship, and the growing presence of Asian-owned businesses in Kern County. Vivian shares the inspiration behind creating the chamber, the importance of representation, and how social media, food, and community events are helping connect people across cultures. The two also discuss Lunar New Year traditions, the Year of the Fire Horse, local restaurants, the rise of Korean BBQ and Asian cuisine in Bakersfield, and how small businesses are shaping the future of the community. From advocacy and networking to food festivals and cultural celebrations, this episode highlights the passion behind building spaces where everyone feels welcome. Check Out The Kern Asian Chamber:  website instagram facebook  

We are so proud to have these two amazing women and authors on this episode.  Barbara is the author of fifteen middle school books including her latest, Nothing to See Here, which will be released in October.  Amanda released her first book, That Librarian, in response to the attacks that librarians are being subjected to in the current book banning frenzy around the country.   They discuss how books and reading shaped their lives, being trained in public speaking, how they talk non-stop to their friends about books, and the importance of internet safety.  You'll have to listen to find out what happened when a very large iced tea spilled onto a surge protector three seconds before going on live tv... ​  

(Episode 383) On this show Mason Dixon, Amanda Jones & Scott T join Rob in the studio to discuss everything under the Moondog. Scott Filbrandt from Bob's Processing comes in to talk about clean healthy meat and their selection of freshly butchered meat products. On Racin' Mason Dixons Front Porch Stomp, Mason invites Lea Dibble from Hartford Motor Speedway to talk about their upcoming events. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.

In this episode, Amanda Jones sits down with Zane from The Soda Crackers, a Bakersfield-based band reviving the classic Bakersfield Sound and Western swing. From their humble beginnings as LA jam sessions to becoming a six-piece band rooted in vintage country tradition, Zane shares the story behind their name, sound, and journey.     They dive into their musical influences, the importance of keeping old-school country alive, and what fans can expect at their high-energy, dance-filled shows. Plus, hear behind-the-scenes stories from life on the road and what it takes to build a band from the ground up.     If you love classic country vibes and live music culture, this episode is for you. Don't miss their upcoming show on Sunday, April 12 at the Fairfax Grange Dance Hall, where they'll be opening for Dale Watson!     The Soda Crackers Facebook Instagram YouTube  

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express, join the Powerleegirls Host Miko Lee speaks with children's book authors Lorraine Nam, Uma Krishnaswami and Maggie Tokuda-Hall about Library Joy in honor of National School Library Month! To Learn More Lorrraine Nam, illustrator and  author Michael Threet's book: I'm So Happy You're Here: A Celebration of Library Joy    Uma Krishnaswami Her books: Book Uncle Triology   Maggie Tokuda-Hall Her book: Love in the Library  Every Library Authors Against Book Bans   Show Transcript [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:35] Ayame Keane-Lee: Welcome to tonight's episode of Apex Express Celebrating Library Joy. I'm Ayame Keane-Lee the editor of tonight's show, and part of the PowerLeeGirls bringing you the introduction to tonight's show. Did you know that April is National School Library Month and in just 10 days from April 19th to 25th is National Library Week? The theme for this year's National Library Week is Find Your Joy with Honorary Chair Mychal Threets. The first of three interviews you'll hear my mom, Miko Lee have tonight is with Lorraine Nam the illustrator for the newly released children's book written by that very Mychal Threets called, “I'm So Happy You're Here”. You will then hear Miko speak with Uma Krishnaswami about her children's book “Book Uncle and Me,” and lastly with Maggie Tokuda-Hall about her children's book, “Love in the Library,” and the important work of Authors Against Book Bans. As a library kid and current library worker, I have experienced firsthand the transformative power of library access and the importance of inclusive and diverse storytelling. In and out of schools, libraries are vital to nurturing and uplifting the autonomy and sovereignty of children, which always has and continues to be a liberatory practice. We hope tonight's show will inspire you right into your local library to check out some of the great books mentioned here or to put them on hold. Let's listen in.    [00:02:06] Miko Lee: Welcome, Lorraine Nam, illustrator of amazing  children's books. Welcome to Apex Express.    [00:02:13] Lorraine Nam: I'm excited to be here.    [00:02:16] Miko Lee: I wanna start with a question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:02:24] Lorraine Nam: Who are my people? I would say creative people. People who are interested in having an open mind, and looking at the bright side of things, the beautiful things, people who are curious. The type of legacy that I bring I think is just my parents who are creative and then bringing that, to this new generation.    [00:02:57] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I am, I'm looking at your beautiful face, and behind you is this, find your joy and, and it's in lots of colors on this pink banner and in at the top we see opening up of a library door with Mychal Threets, who's the author of this book, “I'm So Happy You're Here: A Celebration of Library Joy.” I'm wondering if you can talk about your collaborative process with Mychal Threets.    [00:03:25] Lorraine Nam: The first impression that you have of writer and illustrator for a picture book is that they work really closely together, and that's actually not the case. We work pretty separately, but I was very excited. Mychal wrote the words to this book and they were looking for an illustrator and my agent called me and she asked me if I was interested. I was very excited about the project. I signed up for it and we worked pretty separately. We connected on Instagram, but he pretty much had no art notes, everything was pretty much whatever I was open to. Then we met for the first time and we got our very first copy of the book and we met in New York.    [00:04:10] Miko Lee: And what was that like?    [00:04:12] Lorraine Nam: Um, amazing. He is exactly who he is in his videos.    [00:04:18] Miko Lee: Can you share for our audience who he is and a little bit more about him, just in case folks don't know.   [00:04:24] Lorraine Nam: The book calls him a librarian ambassador. He describes himself as a reader, a lover of librarians or the number one fan of libraries. This is his first book and he's also the host of Reading Rainbow on PBS. We met at the New York Library, public Library for the first time, and he's just so nice, very kind. Honestly, it felt like we already knew each other just because we had been talking through the publisher about the book.   [00:05:02] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. It's so beautifully illustrated and you have a incredibly diverse,, amount of people in the book, both racially but also physically, and I really appreciate how you encapsulated that. I'm just wondering what inspired you to develop this specific imagery for this book?    [00:05:22] Lorraine Nam: Yeah, so one of the only stipulations in the art notes was that he wanted to have a diverse group of people attending the library. People of all ages of all color, all sizes, all disabilities. That seemed like a no brainer to me because I just know the message that he puts into the world. The only difficult part was narrowing down the cast. There's all these different types of people and just trying to figure out who to focus on. I wanted to make sure that you still see the same group of kids over and over. So it felt like you were following the along throughout the day, while still having lots of diversity and lots of different types of people.    [00:06:11] Miko Lee: Had you set what the cover was gonna be at the beginning or did that come after you had already finished the whole book?   [00:06:19] Lorraine Nam: Oh, that came much later. We pretty much had the art for the interior nailed down, and then we were working on concepts for the cover. I knew from Mychal's social media presence that maybe he didn't want to be the poster cover of the book. He wanted to be about the library goers and the people rather than himself. And so I was kind of towing that line of like obviously people wanna see him, it's his first book. They're such huge fans, and so like how much to put Mychal in and how much to showcase him, as well as showcase like all the other people who go to the library.   [00:07:02] Miko Lee: He definitely does have a joyous kind of ebullient vibe to him. I recommend for audience to check out his socials because he has this, you wanna listen to him. He's so inviting and I love the poster behind you because he is saying, like, “welcome, come into the library. This is my world.” And you also made him look so cute. Really looks like a cartoon version of him. So sweet. In your artistic process, I'm wondering what helps you define the style of art you utilize? I'm thinking about the paper cutouts that you did for a tale of two princes. What is it about the work that inspires you to select that type of style?   [00:07:43] Lorraine Nam: I actually had a very winding path to the style that I have today. So the style that I have today is very much layered. It's painted, a lot of it is painted. And then I cut it out and then I glue and collage different elements, and then I scan everything in and enhance certain aspects through Photoshop. But a lot of it started actually in wanting to make a physical book. So it was with book binding and then with book binding, because that's just a technique to produce a product, it was what goes in those pages and that's when I started doing cut paper. So just silhouetted, cut paper. And I was doing that for a long time, just cutting out rice paper to make silhouettes. I wanted to tell more of the story and depict people. So then I started making paper cut [laughs] sets. So I would build —almost like Legos— a whole set of paper buildings and paper people and paper objects that are three dimensional. And then I would photograph them. And then from there, I landed in this more 2D, but playing with still technique and texture and layers.    [00:09:10] Miko Lee: Wow, that's so interesting. Can you share a little bit more about your artistic process? Do you start at a certain time of day? Do you only work at night? Do you have a whole studio set up?   [00:09:20] Lorraine Nam: well, For the book projects because there's such a timeline to 'em and they're very specific. I'll do very loose sketches on Post-it notes. They're readily available and then you can stick two of them next to each other to make a full spread. I use these post-its, and then I would just fold them in half and use that as like very quick pencil drawings. And then if I had something that I liked, I would just go in and pen. But they were still very small. So it was more about looking at silhouettes and composition. And then I would print, it's a very old school technique, but I would print out all the text for the book and cut 'em out. And double sided tape and just stick them on to see where the text should be on the page and where it could fit. I would just do that manually until I had something that I liked a little bit more. Then I would start creating digital, like line drawings.    [00:10:21] Miko Lee: And are you lining this all up on a wall or putting it on the desk?   [00:10:26] Lorraine Nam: Um, so they're in like a notebook.    [00:10:29] Miko Lee: Oh, you put 'em in book format?    [00:10:31] Lorraine Nam: It's all the spread. So it should take about two pages basically. You should be able to look at it and look at it from like an eagle eye perspective of what the entire book will look like and what the flow will be like, and if there's closeups or this is like a far away saying, you get more of the like, setting of the library.   [00:10:52] Miko Lee: And with the font printed out really small so that it's on the bottom of that Post-it note.    [00:10:56] Lorraine Nam: Mm-hmm.    [00:10:57] Miko Lee: Wow, that is so fascinating. And what is it when you're eagle eye-ing, what are you looking for?    [00:11:04] Lorraine Nam: I'm pretending that I'm a kid looking at a book for the first time, with zero context and maybe zero reading level skill and just looking at the pictures and seeing if I can spot the same character and if there is a story that follows along, because this is a library book where it doesn't talk about specific people. I wanted to be able to follow each character in the book and see what their day was like in the library. So when they first came into the library, what they were doing during the day, what friends they made, and then maybe them leaving or, you know, a resolution of some kind, like their parents are checking out symbols at the library.    [00:11:52] Miko Lee: the concept of having the character go throughout the book. Was that in the instruction or was something that you created.   [00:11:59] Lorraine Nam: That was something that I wanted. Because I know looking at picture books, the pictures can also tell a story where, the words, it might not be in the words. So I wanted there to be more of a layered storytelling through image.    [00:12:18] Miko Lee: I appreciate that as a mom. I remember when my girls were little, they would always say, where is that rabbit on the page? Or where is that thing? And so being able to track a character all the way through, is quite delightful. It adds another dimension for the multiple readings. You mentioned before about how you didn't really meet Mychal, the author of the book until the very end, and I guess that's common as an illustrator and you've worked with so many different experts in their fields from, physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson to Skater Nathan Chen. How is their very different fields, how does that impact your art making?    [00:12:57] Lorraine Nam: It's actually the most fun. It's what drew me to illustration in the first place. I love being able to do like a deep dive and a specific subject that I wouldn't necessarily have gravitated towards and do that research. I actually do go to the library. I start the process at the library and I look at all the books about that particular topic, and then see what other people have done. And so working on the book for Neil deGrasse Tyson, it was so much fun looking at different how space is depicted the idea of galaxies and making that tangible and real for kids. And then for Nathan Chen, I was already a fan before I got the project, so it was very easy. But watching the videos, seeing all the different techniques and for his book it was more looking at sports books. Because he's such a unique person in his specific field in figure skating that there weren't very many books on figure skating and most are of a female portrayal. I was looking more at sports and how people show different types of movement, , and show like form. And the more technical aspects that are very, very, very specific and very critical to those things.    [00:14:32] Miko Lee: And how did that manifest into your book?    [00:14:35] Lorraine Nam: Um, a lot of drawings of like, the breakdown of his jumps and trying to figure out can a child do this jump [laughs]? And also doing a lot of research 'cause he's a very private person. His book is not about him, it's not a biography, but it's also loosely based off of him. You know, I have two other siblings. If I had a book based off of me, I want my siblings to be involved and represented in that as well. So I included his family, even though they're not a huge part of the book, his siblings are not like big characters. But they're still represented in there. So he can still be like, oh that's my family. This is based off of my story.   [00:15:32] Miko Lee: So when you're doing these approaches, like including Nathan's family or in the library book, making sure characters go all the way through, is that something you have to check in with the writer about, to see if they're okay? Or is that something that you just do and then you submit and you see if they like it?   [00:15:50] Lorraine Nam: That's something that I do, that I find joy in and see. Usually the first eyes on my sketches are the publisher and the art director. And I actually have no idea what, at what stage they really share the sketches, if it's like at a more finalized stage or if it's an early on one, but I usually just go with my own ideas and see what they think about it.    [00:16:20] Miko Lee: Wow. I didn't know that you could have that much say into it. That's lovely. You talked a little bit about using the library for research. Gosh, I imagine that Neil deGrasse Tyson, there's so much research on it, that must have been a deep dive. I'm wondering what the library meant to you as a child.    [00:16:38] Lorraine Nam: Yeah. I grew up as a big reader. The library for me it was a magical space that I wasn't really sure what it was. My parents, because they grew up in Korea and moved here to the States, there was a big language barrier between us and they're also very not talkative people. They just took us to this place one day and it was our local public library and it was right before closing and we were able to check out as many books as we wanted in whatever type of book that we wanted. I felt like that was magical, that there was no limit to it.    [00:17:19] Miko Lee: My last question is, what are you working on now?    [00:17:22] Lorraine Nam: I'm working on a few books, actually. I'm juggling a few, but they're all very fun and different. I'm doing a book about a boy dreaming of flying, being a pilot. So I think that will be a really fun imaginative book.    [00:17:43] Miko Lee: What is one of your books that you would've liked to read to your younger self?    [00:17:50] Lorraine Nam: Mm, I probably Wei Skates On, the book with Nathan Chen. ‘Cause his story is about overcoming obstacles and being disappointed. And just feeling frustrated and upset. And I feel like that's an important lesson even in adulthood. It's not really resolved through words. It's more of like the, everyone is there for him, his family is there for him, and they all just want him to enjoy what he's doing and to not care about winning or losing.    [00:18:33] Miko Lee: Lorraine Nam, thank you so much for chatting with us about your work and about the library as a magical place, appreciate talking with you.    [00:18:42] Lorraine Nam: Thank you so much. I had so much fun talking with you.   [00:18:45] Miko Lee: Welcome, amazing award-winning children's book author Uma Krishnaswami, I'm so happy to have you here on Apex Express.   [00:18:54] Uma Krishnaswami: Miko, it's my pleasure to be here.    [00:18:57] Miko Lee: I wanted to start with a question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:19:05] Uma Krishnaswami: What a wonderful question. Who are my people? My people are children who are, my ideal readership is the eight to 12-year-old group. I write for children. I'm not particularly thinking about audience when I begin writing. But at some point I want my readership to feel validated, whether they recognize themselves as being in my stories or my stories are offering them a window into a world that they are not immediately familiar with. So I would say those are my people.    [00:19:45] Miko Lee: And what is the legacy that you carry with you?    [00:19:48] Uma Krishnaswami: I grew up in India. The year that I was born India had been independent for all of nine years. So I carry very much that colonial legacy. I also am an immigrant to two countries, early in my adulthood to the United States and about 12 years ago to Canada. So my legacy is one of moving and finding new roots, finding community. Those are the things that I try to carry forward in my stories. When I began writing, I lived in the US and I started writing when my son was born. So there I was with a little brown baby and I went looking for books that would represent him and I didn't find them. And I think that is what made me think in my early thirties that, real life people could write children's books because of course the books I had read as a child were all written by people from England and many of them were dead. I kind of thought you had to be dead and British to be a writer. So yeah, it's complicated, isn't it? All of that works into, what you think of as, as your legacy. Having done this for 30 plus years now.    [00:21:03] Miko Lee: And you've written so many beautiful books. Tell us about a little bit more about that first book.   [00:21:09] Uma Krishnaswami: So the very first book, it was called Stories of the Flood. I realized very quickly that I didn't really know what I was doing. I looked to folk tales and traditional tales as a way to teach me about story. My second book called The Broken Tusk Stories of the Hindu God Ganesha. That is the one that I consider as the book that taught me how to write. I had a wonderful editor [unintelligble] Thorpe at a small press in Connecticut, Linnet Books. She told me to lean into story and to see myself as a storyteller. In a way, every book I've written has taught me how to write.   [00:21:47] Miko Lee: Can you tell us about your favorite book as a kid?    [00:21:52] Uma Krishnaswami: My favorite book as a kid, it would have to be Winnie The Pooh.    [00:21:58] Miko Lee: And what was it about Winnie the Pooh that enamored you?    [00:22:01] Uma Krishnaswami: I came to it very early and aunt had traveled to England and she brought me my copy of winnie the Pooh in the House of Poo Corner. And I read them, sitting in very Indian gardens, sometimes up in trees. I spent lots of time up in trees and I took my own geography and placed it over the geography of the book. , So that for me, the a hundred acre wood had lime trees and banyan trees and possibly mango trees. It didn't occur to me, until much later when I read an Enid Blyton reader. I had my moment of disillusionment with Enid Blyton and that's when it really occurred to me that there was an us and a them in, in some of the storytelling I was consuming.   [00:22:49] Miko Lee: What age was that where you recognized that?    [00:22:51] Uma Krishnaswami: My post-colonial moment?    [00:22:53] Miko Lee: Yes.    [00:22:54] Uma Krishnaswami: I might have been a 11.    [00:22:56] Miko Lee: Oh, wow. And were you still living in India at that time?    [00:22:59] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah, yeah. 11 was a very formative year for me. My grandfather passed away, so it sort of brought mortality , into the framework for me. Also that was my year of disillusionment with Blyton. 'cause I read The , river of Adventure. And the villain in it had my name. He was called. Uma, Raya or Raya Uma or something like that. And yeah, I was just shocked. Just totally shocked. It was pure coincidence, I'm sure. She probably just, pulled the name out of the air and plunked it in. But. I began to notice that he was described as dark skinned and he was described as cunning. All this language that had slid right past me before began to be apparent. So, yeah,    [00:23:47] Miko Lee: I love that. That is so amazing. This name, like what? That's my name as the villain.    [00:23:53] Uma Krishnaswami: I'm the Bad Guy. No, I'm not.    [00:23:56] Miko Lee: And all of your books are such a wonderful clap back to that because you have a multitude of characters and so many different worlds. Initially reached out to you because I started reading book Uncle this trilogy of books that are so lovely. Can you first share a little bit about what the Book Uncle's Trilogy is about.    [00:24:16] Uma Krishnaswami: Okay, so it didn't start out as a trilogy. It didn't even start out as a book. It started out as a short story and then it didn't quite fit. It wasn't a picture book. It seemed to have more layers than that, so it kind of grew. But what started Book Uncle and Me was I was visiting my parents in India. At the time, and I was on this very busy urban street and there was this kid sitting on this on the, on the sidewalk. Um, it was kind of a broken brick sidewalk, and she was sitting cross-legged right in the middle and she was reading book and she was just oblivious to the crowd going around her and the. Buses on the road and there were, you know, random goats and dogs running around and she just was ignoring everything and she was absorbed in her book. And I remembered that I had been that kind of reader as a child. There was an election going on at the time as well, and I thought, I wonder what would happen if I put those two things together. And that is how Book Uncle came to be.    [00:25:14] Miko Lee: And then there was just, you wanted to live in those characters more, so you ended up writing additional books?    [00:25:20] Uma Krishnaswami: Hmm and that's a very good question. And actually no, I didn't, I thought I was done. I wrote Book Uncle and Me back in, I'm say 2009, 2010, something like that. I probably started it in 2010. Um, it got published originally in India in 2012, I believe. And then it was picked up by Ground Wood in Canada and published in Canada and the US so North American edition in 2016. And I thought, you know, I'm done. I'm writing other things. And then come the pandemic and we're all in lockdown. And like a lot of writers, I was doing, um, many, many, virtual. Presentations and programs. Um, and I did something through the North Vancouver Public Library and, there were kids zooming in from, you know, some from home, some from their bubbles, some from classrooms, whatever. And we were talking about book uncle and one of the kids, I think in third grade maybe, she said, Are you gonna write a sequel? And I am just joshing, right? I am. I said, yeah, should I? And they're all going, yeah, you should. And you should write three because you've got three characters you should give them each a [story]. And I'm like, all right guys i'll think about it. I absolutely will but not really taking it seriously. And then as often happens. the session ended and, you know, there we were all in lockdown going nowhere. And I thought maybe, maybe there's something there. Maybe I could return to that. And in a way I was kind of intrigued because I hadn't, had never thought about a trilogy and I was interested in how that would play out. Um, and it was kind of a writing challenge to myself, but honestly, once I started writing Birds on the Brain, which was book two it just kind of, I hesitate to say wrote itself 'cause I, that just seems, you know, so kind of woo woo. But, um, it did, it did. Uh, the, the kid came in and she took over and then a bird flew onto the rooftop and there I was on my way. So that's the story of, of how that that happened. In retrospect, I'm really sorry I didn't ask that child's name because I would've absolutely loved to have acknowledged her in the book. But thank you child from North Vancouver, whoever you are.    [00:27:40] Miko Lee: That is so amazing. That's by request, by audience request. You fulfilled this goal of a trilogy and and I I love that they even said, not just a sequel, but a trilogy.    [00:27:52] Uma Krishnaswami: Oh, they were. Yeah. They had it. I mean, they had, then they, they figured it out, which was really lovely.    [00:27:58] Miko Lee: And those, that trilogy is really geared, as you were saying to the second and third grade audience and I So many of your books are written around kids that can make a difference. What is it about that age that appeals to you and that motivation to show them how they can change the world?    [00:28:16] Uma Krishnaswami: I think they have this really, strong sense of what's fair. It's the age at which, you know, you start pushing back against what you see as small unfairnesses in your life. Parental restrictions quite often, or older siblings. You're pushing back. You're doing a little bit of finding who you are. And I think that uh, you begin to get a sense of awareness of the big world outside your small circle. And I think also one of the things that drives me, with writing to this age is that, I feel that it is so unfair that grownups, the adult world, has created so much injustice. And we just kind of expect the next generation to step up and step into it and, and do the best they can. and it just, it doesn't seem right not to at least give them the wherewithal to think about that. And they do, they have children have voices and their voices matter. As we found out with, the climate strikes. I mean it really was young people who brought those messages out into the world and forced us to think about them and talk about them. So, I think that we owe children that.    [00:29:34] Miko Lee: So which of your books would you want to read to the second or third grade Uma?   [00:29:43] Uma Krishnaswami: [Laughs] Maybe Book Uncle and Me. Because I think there's a lot of second and third grade Uma in that book. I was a compulsive reader like Yasmin. I would've absolutely read a book every day for the rest of my life if I'd had that many books available to me. I didn't. So I read the ones I had over and over again. I lived in an imaginary world, quite a bit of the time.   [00:30:06] Miko Lee: Speaking of having access to lots of books, I'm wondering what your relationship was like to libraries, both as a child and then now.    [00:30:15] Uma Krishnaswami: I'm a proud and inveterate library goer. I put holds on things. I go browse on shelves. I download eBooks and audio books. I always have a pending list. I'm very, very grateful for libraries and also for librarians whom many of whom I have come to know over my life and am immensely grateful for. I did not have access to libraries much as a child. We didn't have a public library system that was free and available and open to everybody. There were the kind of unofficial lending library types that I feature in Book Uncle and Me. There are sadly fewer of them now, but you still find them on street corners in India. I remember taking a book and giving one and then getting one back in return. That was, that was part of my life in some of the places we lived.   [00:31:07] Miko Lee: Did you know an actual book uncle?   [00:31:10] Uma Krishnaswami: I didn't actually pay much attention, to the people who handed those books out. I was much more, focused on the books I was getting. There are characters who I've seen who have run these things. I once had somebody email me and say, I'm a book uncle. This is what I do. So that was really nice.    [00:31:31] Miko Lee: That's sweet. I wanna roll back and talk a little bit more about your artistic process. I'm wondering if you, as a writer, as illustrator, you can sometimes be in your own world, and I'm wondering what your process is.   [00:31:43] Uma Krishnaswami: My place is right here. This is my office room, and I'm standing at a treadmill desk, and usually what I will do, is when I'm writing, I will turn that on very, very slowly. I usually start out at the idea stage with a notebook and a pen. I have fountain pens with very varied colors of ink, and I use those always to write my initial notes and questions about a new story idea. I don't go to the computer and the keyboard until the idea has started showing up quite a few times. In, perhaps in a few iterations, almost as if I'm actually pushing it away at first, you know, saying, don't scratch up my window until you are developed a little bit more. I'm not going to, indulge, the initial shallowness that usually the first idea is often not what it's gonna end up being. I question that, and sometimes this is gonna sound really crazy, but, if I write those questions many times over in different colored inks, the answers begin to break out in clumps. Once I've begun to think, okay, well maybe I, I know what I could do with this. That's when I open up a file.    [00:32:56] Miko Lee: Ooh share a little bit more about the different colored inks. How does that work?    [00:33:00] Uma Krishnaswami: Um, right over there, there's a whole row of inks, and right over here is a fountain pen, and I have several of them. I change the ink colors, and when I get stuck with something, it really does help to write those questions to myself, in a journal notebook. I have a terrible handwriting, so I used to really worry about when people gave me nice notebooks. Little empty notebooks with beautiful glossy pages. I used to think, God, my writing is so awful. I feel like I'm desecrating this beautiful book. I've gotten over that and it's actually really helpful to physically write that thought for me is very, very useful.   [00:33:39] Miko Lee: And when you see the different colors, is it like words that stand out to you, that you piece together? Yeah.    [00:33:44] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or sometimes I'll write something, in a paragraph, and then I'll break it up and write it in a lineated way, maybe in a different color. You just start seeing things differently when you try different ways of thinking about the same thing. It's all a trick to get the kind of managerial editorial mind out of the way. You need her later, but I don't need her when I'm trying to shape something.    [00:34:13] Miko Lee: The, for the creative process. Mm-hmm. The multiple colors just helps    [00:34:16] Uma Krishnaswami: Right.    [00:34:16] Miko Lee: Pull you into that.    [00:34:17] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah. It just loosens, it loosens my mind up so I don't feel so focused on the objective. I often tell myself, I think Linda Sue Park used to say this. You don't have to write a whole novel. You just write a scene. And so that's what I tell myself, I'm a sceneist. I'm not a novelist. I'm just a sceneist. I write one scene. And that's all I need to write. Then I will write another one and so forth.    [00:34:38] Miko Lee: And do you use sticky notes or something to keep those scenes separately or    [00:34:42] Uma Krishnaswami: just all kinds of things? I use sticky notes. I use little boards on which I draw plot lines, and then I write, notes to myself. I use the journal notebooks. I've started using Scrivener and I actually have found that helpful but not until I've got something, in enough shape to plug things in.   [00:35:01] Miko Lee: Oh, I love hearing about artistic process. That's so fascinating. I appreciate you and you're showing your beautiful pen and everything. It's so great.    [00:35:08] Uma Krishnaswami: It's messy, right? One of the things I've learned is to lean into the messiness and not try to organize things too fast, too early.    [00:35:16] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm. Giving yourself the time for the creative juices to flow.    [00:35:20] Uma Krishnaswami: Yeah. Yeah.    [00:35:21] Miko Lee: So my last question is, what are you working on now?    [00:35:25] Uma Krishnaswami: I've actually just got done with edits on a picture book, which is going to be called Mango Sun. And then I'm working on another picture book. That's just gone to my agent. It's got to do with wildlife rescue and conservation in the Himalayas. It's an Indian setting, but a very different setting from Mango Sun.   [00:35:44] Miko Lee: And most of the ideas from your books are just coming from your imagination or something you read or where are you pulling from to get your inspiration?    [00:35:52] Uma Krishnaswami: Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. I have a picture book that came out of a trip that we took to Galapagos and will it ever take form? I don't know, it's about the rewilding of an island , and how when you bring one species back, the other one follows. Some of it's from my childhood. I have two picture books that came out of a memory of planting a mango seed and watching it grow.   [00:36:21] Miko Lee: Sounds lovely. Two of my favorite things, mango and Sun [laughs], appreciate you joining us and sharing about your artistic process and your amazing book. And I'll put a link to your website in our show notes. And thank you so much for joining us and talking to us about Book Uncle and your work.    [00:36:37] Uma Krishnaswami: Miko, thank you so much. It's really a delight.    [00:36:41] Miko Lee: Welcome, Maggie Tokuda Hall to Apex Express.   [00:36:45] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Thank you so much for having me.   [00:36:47] Miko Lee: I'm so happy to have you talking about, your wonderful book, love in the Library. But first I wanna, ask you a question I ask my guest, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   [00:37:01] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Oh man. I feel like I have so many tribes that I identify with in different ways. , Gosh, who are my people? I mean, generally speaking, angry queer teenage girls very much my people. Tired Jewish aunties also my people. Exhausted Asian mothers also my people, [laughs] librarians and book people are my people. I, I, I don't know. I feel like I have so many people that I feel an affinity toward and an affection for, and kinship with.    [00:37:38] Miko Lee: I like you naming all of those because we're multifaceted people and there's many different things that make up who we are. Yeah. And what is the legacy that you carry with you from all these tribes you're a part of?   [00:37:50] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: From my mother, I carry a legacy of honoring the truth, like really believing that children are owed the truth and that part of being an adult is being courageous enough to tell it. but I also come from like a vibrant family of Jewish storytellers and I feel like I have that, that I carry with me as well.   [00:38:17] Miko Lee: Thank you. So you've written the book Love in the Library about Tamma, a woman who works at a library in the Minidoka concentration camp during World War ii.    [00:38:28] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Mm-hmm.    [00:38:28] Miko Lee: And she meets George and falls in love. Can you tell me about how you very first heard this true love story of your grandparents?   [00:38:40] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I can't actually, I don't remember the first time I heard this story. It is a story that I've just always known. like for me it's very much a fabric of how I came to understand the world and my place in it. Like sky is blue, grandma and grandpa met in a prison camp, you know, normal stuff. And so, um,    [00:39:00] Miko Lee: so it's just part of the family lore?   [00:39:03] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. Like, it's not something my mother was ever shy about telling us. And I truly do not remember the first time she talked to me about it because I remember being very small and already feeling like I knew that story.    [00:39:15] Miko Lee: Okay. Then how did you decide to turn it into a children's book?    [00:39:19] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah, so, in 2017 when President Trump took office for the first time, in his very first executive order was to sign the travel or Muslim ban where he was banning people from Muslim majority countries from coming to the United States. It was clear immediately that he was gonna be using his time and power to enact a white supremacist agenda. I knew I needed to do all the things that we're supposed to do. Like I called my representatives and I wrote my postcards and I marched and I did all those things. But I really did try to audit what I had to offer, particularly children in that moment. That was unique to me. And I realized I had this beautiful story in my own family, not just about the cruelty of those sorts of policies, but also the resilience and power of the people who they target.    [00:40:05] Miko Lee: Ooh. Fired up the, that truth teller part of you just became ready to go.    [00:40:11] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah.    [00:40:11] Miko Lee: Um, speaking of the impact of politics and what's going on and how that relates to books, I know that in April, 2023, Scholastic wanted to include love in the library in a collection around AANHPI folks, but they wanted to edit your amazingly fierce author's note. Can you share with our audience what happened?   [00:40:34] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, first of all, thank you for calling it amazingly fierce. In my author's note, I talk about how what happened to my grandparents wasn't an isolated moment in American history and that it was racist, which I think is a, a reflection of a very basic understanding of that history. It, it's not, a creative extrapolation and. Scholastic offered to license the book, but my licensing offer came with a caveat, which was that I had to remove that entire paragraph. Um, and I had to remove the word racism from the text altogether. And so I decided to say no and say no publicly. And for about three months, my full-time job was talking about Scholastic, but also about our obligation to tell children, American history, honestly.   [00:41:19] Miko Lee: And they wanted you to get word of the word racist. Did they say why?    [00:41:24] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes, they basically said, the language is too strong and we fear that some teachers won't bring it in for fear of this political climate, which is the nice way of saying like, we have to sell into places where book bans are happening and we think that this language is too incendiary for people who would ban books, which to me was always really, Unsatisfactory logic, because books about Japanese American incarceration are banned all the time and they don't use as strident of language as I use in that author's note. baseball saved us, gets banned. They called us, the enemy gets banned. This story is already considered dangerous by the people who would ban books, so they were trying to hold a center that just doesn't exist.   [00:42:04] Miko Lee: And so what did you end up doing?    [00:42:07] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I said no and said no publicly, just with like, sort of the hope of, sparking some intra community conversation among kid lit creators about what sort of edits are appropriate to offer people. I would, I still posit, that that's a completely inappropriate edit and that's about sanding down people of color's, history and perspective to cater to a white audience. And I was unwilling to do it. and Scholastic initially released like a very, incomplete apology. And then when they received a lot of pushback about that, they offered a much more full apology. They offered to meet with me and my publisher, the CEO of Scholastic and the head of their education divisions, which is the division that made me this offer. And then they also had me work with a restorative justice consultant, for like a year to try to figure out what they could do better. But what I said to them at the end of that time that I told them, I was extremely transparent that I would be talking about this publicly. So I don't feel bad saying exactly what I said to them here is, I think the exact same thing would've happened. It just would've happened more politely.    [00:43:17] Miko Lee: Wow.    [00:43:18] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I don't think that they actually reexamined what their role is as a publisher of Books for Children under Unconsolidated authoritarianism. They just figured out how to ask people to make racist edits more, more, uh, gently.    [00:43:33] Miko Lee: And you worked with them for one year with an RJ consultant.   [00:43:36] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, like, not every day, but we had, you know, meetings over the months. And she was a smart lady. Like I don't think that she, you know, did nothing. I think she was trying her best, but I think that, you know, big institutions are very slow to institute cultural change and that that on the one hand has to happen from the top down, but also can't happen from the top down.   [00:43:56] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:43:56] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: And so I genuinely believe that there CEO was trying his hardest to, to make a meaningful change, but without them really stopping and examining and questioning what their own role in this moment is in a critical way. I don't think that they are going to be able to have answered what I would've required for them to, for me to then accept their licensing offer. ‘Cause they made it again.    [00:44:25] Miko Lee: So at the end of the one year long, they made the licensing offer to you again?    [00:44:29] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. I think just to be kind, just as like a gesture of like, listen, we know we messed up. We'd love to license your book and I still said no because I don't think that they made meaningful enough change.   [00:44:40] Miko Lee: Hmm. Wow. I love this. What did you learn from this experience?    [00:44:47] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: That it is very unusual for people to blow the whistle within publishing, even when the examples are egregious.    [00:44:54] Miko Lee: Tell me about your connection with Authors Against Book Bans. Did that come out of this experience with Scholastic, or were you involved actively involved in this prior to that?    [00:45:05] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: No, it absolutely came as a result of my experience with Scholastic. Authors against Book Bans is an organization that I'm currently the president of. We're over 5,000 book creators across the country who are united under a single point of view, which is that the government shouldn't be allowed to tell us what to read. That's what we believe and that's what we fight for. And I got involved in founding the group along with specifically David Levithan, who's a really wonderful young adult and middle grade author, who had put together most of this group before I even came on board. Cause we realized that authors needed a central place to fight. There was no one organizing specifically us. And so Authors Against Book Bans was born out of necessity and, the dearth of a place that existed for us. Everyone would call on us to come speak, but it was extremely ad hoc. We weren't making any kind of unified movement, even though we all so passionately agree that, you know, book bans are anti-American and in violation of our First Amendment rights. And, you know, the freedom to read is a necessary freedom for a free and democratic society. and the reason I'd reached out to David initially was because I was hoping to put together something like Authors Against Book Bans, but just by myself, which is, maybe a testament more to my own personality [laughs] problems than anything else, but I was like, I'll just figure it out. And he was like, you know, I'm actually assembling a group that's trying to do this. Would you like to be a part of it? And that's how I came aboard. But I had gotten interested in it because as a result of the Scholastic fiasco, I was invited to give the keynote speech at the Idaho Library Association in 2023. I gave my little speech that I'd been giving a lot then, um, about how we have an obligation to tell American history honestly. And, people were like, the reaction was so emotional to it and so profound and like, I thought it was a good speech. I'm proud of the speech, but like it, something else was going on and I could feel it. And I started talking to the people who were there and when these librarians started telling me what they had gone through, just for making books like mine available to children, stalking, harassment, death threats. One of them had been followed home, like really frightening, scary things happening to them on like, in some cases a daily basis. I realized like I was gonna be a part of this fight. That was that. I wasn't gonna let them fight alone. And so, you know, in, in my advocacy work now, Idaho still holds like a very precious place in my heart because I think that it's a very forgotten state. When we think about places that need help, when we think about places that have been gerrymandered, when we think about places where there are so many good people who are disenfranchised and unable to affect meaningful change in their state level, governments. That have just been absolutely run roughshod over by Christian nationalists. We should be thinking about Idaho. They have, I think, like the highest neo-Nazi population in the United States. so it's a very direct line between my grandparents being incarcerated to the activism that I do now. And it wouldn't have happened without Scholastic's offensive offer.   [00:48:22] Miko Lee: I did not realize that librarians were personally being assaulted or attacked or followed. For books.    [00:48:29] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: You should watch, the librarian's documentary that's now streaming on PBS. Okay. Um, it's common across the country. Amanda Jones, who's an Authors Against Book Bans member no big deal, is a librarian in Louisiana that can't go grocery shopping in her own hometown anymore for fear for her own safety because she has taken a stand to like refuse to remove lgbtq plus books from her school library shelves. It's really dire. And I think people understand objectively that book bans are a problem in our country. I do not think that they understand how violent that this fight is. It's a really dark and hard time to be a librarian. So if you're a person who supports libraries, you should be thanking your librarians and letting them know one-on-one and in person face-to-face that you appreciate the work that they do, because there are people who are making their lives really difficult.    [00:49:25] Miko Lee: Can you talk about what the library meant to you as a child?   [00:49:30] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, honestly it was like a part-time babysitter. You're a kid, there's a library. Entertain yourself, you figure it out. I think the first time I really felt like a sense of belonging in the library was in middle school. We moved from LA to Northern California and I had to start a new school in seventh grade. I didn't really know anyone and it was embarrassing to not have people to eat lunch with and things like that. So I would eat lunch in the library. And the librarian was really kind about it. Like she never called attention to it. She never embarrassed me about it. She would let me sneakily eat in there, even though there was a very specific rule that you weren't allowed to eat in the library. she put, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles on an end cap once, and that's how I found them and ended up reading the entire series and that was really when I became a fantasy reader and you know, my debut novel was a fantasy novel. I still feel very much like a fantasy reader kind of at heart, and that started there. I mean, we never know when libraries are going to save a kid's life.    [00:50:39] Miko Lee: Can we go back to how you ended up writing this book about your grandparents' experience? Sure. And what was the first spark for you to say, I wanna turn this into something. It's a family lore, but I want more people to know about it.   [00:50:54] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: I mean, the Trump administration thing,    [00:50:56] Miko Lee: it was truly that. You said it was    [00:50:57] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yeah. Trump was it    [00:50:58] Miko Lee: Trump got elected. People should know this happened.    [00:51:00] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes. What do you have to tell children in this moment If they're Muslim, they're scared, and if they're not, they need a way to understand what it means to feel afraid. Both of those things need to happen at the same time of like, you have to offer comfort to the children of the marginalized. You have to offer perspective to the children who have the privilege not to feel that fear. And so I have this story and what I love about this story is. I know that children are capable of holding the complexity of this story is both very romantic and very sweet, and also the circumstances it happened under were completely unfair. That's the kind of logic children are able to hold, and they should be given the opportunity to hold that kind of complexity because it'll serve them for the rest of their life because most of most situations we confront are complex.   [00:51:57] Miko Lee: And how were you able to eke out more details of that story? Did you do family interviews or was it more from your imagination?    [00:52:05] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: My mother is a journalist and she kept my grandmother's journals from the time she was in Minidoka. So some of it comes from my grandmother's journals. Some of it comes from working with my mother to make sure that it felt accurate, tonally and factually. ‘Cause she was not gonna let me publish a book that was nonsense. I always say it's Truman Capote true. ‘Cause the situation, the sensory details, all that stuff real, but the dialogue is made up. The dialogue is art. The dialogue is a way for children to understand how they might've been feeling. They never had succinct, quick conversations like this about their humanity and how they felt about each other. It was a long courting process, and so, you know. That part is made up for children,    [00:52:49] Miko Lee: but you, but you did include actual quotes from her journal too, right?    [00:52:53] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Yes. The book closes with her words, not mine.    [00:52:57] Miko Lee: Can you give us those final words?    [00:53:00] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: The miracle is in us as long as we believe in beauty, in change, in hope. Which are words she wrote while she was imprisoned in Minidoka.    [00:53:11] Miko Lee: And how does that resonate with you in the time of now?    [00:53:15] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: They are words that I desperately cling to in the hope that I can see them become manifest.    [00:53:23] Miko Lee: And what are you working on now?   [00:53:26] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Making Authors Against Book Bans as operational as possible.    [00:53:31] Miko Lee: And what does that look like?    [00:53:32] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: In late 2025, we became a nonprofit corporation. We have fiscal sponsorship under EveryLibrary, which is a really wonderful advocacy group that's a combination [501](c)3-(c)4, which means you can make tax deductible donations to them, but also they do overtly political work. And so now we can receive tax deductible, donations and continue to do the overtly political work that we do. We are an unapologetically political organization. We are more than happy to help get people elected who fight for the freedom to read, and we are delighted to show the door to people who would stand in our way of that freedom.   [00:54:09] Miko Lee: And how can people get more involved in your work?    [00:54:13] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: They could absolutely go to authorsagainstbookbans.com and make a donation. We need it [laughs]. We are one of the only organizations that receives donations that exists for the sole purpose of fighting book bans. Most every other group in our space have an angle that book bans affect them, and so they fight against them, but that's not their only purview. It is our only purview. So if it is something that you were interested in fighting, then you could make a donation to us. I would suggest signing up to be on the email list from EveryLibrary because they mobilize everybody, not just authors and book creators. And if you are a book creator, self-published, traditionally published, we don't care. Then you should sign up to be a member of Authors Against Book Bans and you'll get calls to action every Friday.   [00:55:07] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing with us about your book and educating us about the work you're doing and appreciate hearing from you. Thank you for joining us.    [00:55:16] Maggie Tokuda-Hall: Thank you for having me.   [00:55:28] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night..    The post APEX Express – 4.9.26 – Library Joy appeared first on KPFA.

In this episode, we sit down with Amanda Jones, coordinator of the Richland County Ag + Art Tour in Richland County, South Carolina.Amanda helps organize this free, self-guided tour that connects the community with local farms, artists, and makers. We talk about what goes into running the tour, why it matters for local agriculture, and how it brings thousands of people out to experience farm life each year.We also dive into Amanda's own experience as a farmer, what day-to-day life looks like on her farm, and the realities of working in agriculture today. From livestock to land stewardship, she shares honest insight into both the challenges and rewards.If you're interested in farming, local food, or supporting your community, this is a great conversation you won't want to miss.Thank you so much for listening! If you would like to see more from Richland County Ag + Art Tour, you can find them here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agandarttourrichlandcounty/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agandartrichland/Website: https://www.agandarttour.com/richlandThis episode is sponsored by Columbia Family Chiropractor: https://www.cfcforhealth.comhttps://www.instagram.com/columbiafamilychiropracticIf you would like to follow us, we are on everything at Here For The Health Of It Podcast:https://www.instagram.com/columbiashottestpodcast/https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hereforthehealthofit

In this episode, we sit down with Amanda Jones, coordinator of the Richland County Ag + Art Tour in Richland County, South Carolina.Amanda helps organize this free, self-guided tour that connects the community with local farms, artists, and makers. We talk about what goes into running the tour, why it matters for local agriculture, and how it brings thousands of people out to experience farm life each year.We also dive into Amanda's own experience as a farmer, what day-to-day life looks like on her farm, and the realities of working in agriculture today. From livestock to land stewardship, she shares honest insight into both the challenges and rewards.If you're interested in farming, local food, or supporting your community, this is a great conversation you won't want to miss.Thank you so much for listening! If you would like to see more from Richland County Ag + Art Tour, you can find them here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agandarttourrichlandcounty/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agandartrichland/Website: https://www.agandarttour.com/richlandThis episode is sponsored by Columbia Family Chiropractor: https://www.cfcforhealth.comhttps://www.instagram.com/columbiafamilychiropracticIf you would like to follow us, we are on everything at Here For The Health Of It Podcast:https://www.instagram.com/columbiashottestpodcast/https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hereforthehealthofit

In this episode I'm joined by the illuminous Amanda Jones! We explore the fear that so many of us experience: "what if what I love doesn't love me back?"Find Amanda at:https://www.uncoveryspace.com/instagram: @amandajonesuncoveryJoin Soul Huddles!www.bekaelle.com/coaching#soul-huddles

Support The Volley Pod by engaging with us on Patreon at:⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/thevolleypod⁠This episode features insights from volleyball coach Tod Mattox and Davis Ransom on overlooked and high value volleyball "soft skills" like enhanced awareness.The two coaching buddies discuss how to start matches strong and get momentum then share a great mental performance resource from Zach Brandon at MVP Mindset.The Art of Coaching Volleyball Videos of the Weekhttps://www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/team-chemistry-how-to-mold-a-good-team-into-a-great-team/ Stephanie Schleuderhttps://www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/positive-self-talk/Amanda Jones https://www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/using-journals-in-practice-to-improve-culture/ John DunningResource of the WeekMVP Mindset Consulting is Zach Brandon's mental training business. Zach is a Certified Mental Performance Coach who works with the Arizona Diamondbacks and many other youth and higher level teams to help them achieve peak performance more consistently while also enhancing their love and enjoyment of their sport.https://mvpmindsetconsulting.comCheck out our host Tod Mattox's books! Available on Amazon! Get them in your parents' hands!The Volleyball Journey: A Handy Guide Book for Players and Parents by Tod Mattox⁠The Volleyball Journey⁠&The Volley Coach's Book of Lists by Tod Mattox⁠VB Coach's Book of Lists⁠  Find The Art of Coaching Volleyball at:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Art of Coaching Volleyball is a comprehensive resource designed to help coaches of all levels to improve their skills, teaching methods, and enhance their knowledge of volleyball. It offers a mix of instructional support, tools, and resources to support coaches in developing athletes and running effective practices.Check out Hudl at ⁠Hudl.com⁠Hudl empowers volleyball coaches to teach more effectively by providing clear, visual feedback. Through organized video clips and tagging, coaches can highlight successful execution, reinforce team systems, and guide player development in a constructive, efficient way that enhances communication and accountability.Check out The Volley Pod on Instagram at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aoc.thevolleypod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email us at ⁠⁠⁠thevolleypod@gmail.com

(Season 8, Episode 376) Amanda Jones, Mason Dixon and Rob Byrd talk about the new Star of The Lake Music Series, the Blueberry Chicks' St. Patrick's Day Special, the threat of Ai destroying humanity, terrorism, and everything under the Moondog. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, Princess Gone Wrong  talks about her grandfather's moonshine operation,  laundering money for the Newton Boys and building her castle on a handshake deal with the bank. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.

(Episode 375) On this episode of The Moondog Show, host Rob Byrd and Amanda Jones kick things off by talking about our upcoming PBS shows, including the Blueberry Chicks Chili Cook-Off and this month's County Road 689 episode featuring live music from Bandits on the Run from New York City and Keith Scott Blues from Chicago. We also discuss the viral story surrounding Afroman and the music videos he created following a situation involving his local sheriff's department.  Gina Johnston Small joins the conversation to talk about the warming South Haven real estate market.  Then Anthony McNair from Youth Development Company PAL joins and we discuss the great programs and positive impact happening at YDC locations in South Haven and Coloma. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.

(Season 3, Episode 374) Amanda Jones, Mason Dixon and Rob  talk about War, The Olympics, The Blueberry Chicks, County Road 689 and The Haunting of the TV Studio. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, Tonya Kennedy calls in from Arizona to talk about her  matchmaker dates and dating in 2026. She also has some insights and advice on our resident ghosts.  It's all here, right now, on the Moondog Show.

Wildfire risk increasing, city not issuing burn permits, firefighters have a busy weekend; arrest made in Conway stabbing; Quorum Court to continue process toward hospital bond issue; Highway 154 to get improvements by state; South Conway County School District drops relationship with Lifetouch Photography; accidents Sunday night, early Monday on I-40 require emergency response; Regional Tournaments set for this week, we review the brackets; we visit with Amanda Jones of the Morrilton Area Chamber of Commerce.

(Episode 373) On this episode of The MoonDog Show, host Rob Byrd welcomes Amanda Jones and very special guest Chris Siriano from the House of David Baseball & Historical Museum in St. Joseph. The conversation dives into the history of the House of David from the founding of the colony, to the leadership of Brother Ben, his death, and the eventual split within the community.  We call Baseball and Negro League historian Phil S. Dixon to discuss the strong connections between the House of David baseball teams and the Negro Leagues. We talk a bit about pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander's amazing records, one which he still holds, and his time playing with the House of David. Later, Racin Mason Dixon calls in for his “Front Porch Stomp,” interviewing himself and sharing stories from the Mama Tried Motorcycle Show in Milwaukee. We also chat with Gina Johnston Small of South Haven Real Estate, who discusses a warming real estate market and emphasizes the importance of having your paperwork ready so you do not miss out on your dream property. We end with a call from Max Master Chiropractic and rehabilitation and talk about the weather change in the body and how chiropractic adjustment can help. All this and so much more on The MoonDog Show.

Support The Volley Pod by engaging with us on Patreon at:https://www.patreon.com/cw/thevolleypodThe Art of Coaching Volleyball Videos of the Weekhttps://www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/positive-self-talk/ Amanda Jones https://www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/step-outside-of-your-comfort-zone/ Christa Dietzenhttps://www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/flush-and-park-mistakes-with-a-mistake-ritual/ Positive Coaching AllianceResource of the Weekhttps://coachchijo.com/ Coach Chijo Takeda is a longtime juniors coach in West Linn, Oregon and notable internet coaching personality. Known for his work on Youtube and Instagram, Coach Chijo offers training for both coaches and players and a variety of other ways to learn more about volleyball and get better together.Check out our host Tod Mattox's books! Available on Amazon! Get them in your parents' hands!The Volleyball Journey: A Handy Guide Book for Players and Parents by Tod Mattox⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.amazon.com/VOLLEYBALL-COACHS-BOOK-LISTS-Inspiration/dp/B0DP5JFQC8/ref=sr_1_28?crid=2KJH98WQ39435&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.oxg1qQgJwtLqoZGdSEuK4bNHKYYRR4-cAA-9V23RMX-nL-x0EXVHeZsvloPz9dC3i0ivVmMRxTRCiVuqIQX0wJdDCvRlOzNvTkCHt5OPRsFejjaGI84DYqOtMvgeii8-Vjdlzr_ho0p8UKsZTf0TrCB1BTVR-Jbii8lHxy2StdIfdMIjldHHMF9eWFTQMVg8Eki4iJ_W4jUWfaYrTAPPcdyudyCQI7n_XZgnecS2Jdzb1CHwAO9JCszm2Tn6JYE8-Jdih2_HPaxyHbRhH5OQFpmncO6-ptR4TS-x3jtx9lk.hZo8QjPAUkfGwUYhQ14Iyo2kR5SseQsbUbPnmbM9YKI&dib_tag=se&keywords=volleyball+coach&qid=1733809078&sprefix=volleyball+coach%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-28⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ &The Volley Coach's Book of Lists by Tod Mattox⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.amazon.com/Volleyball-Journey-Guidebook-Players-Parents/dp/B0FCFCJ4ZM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=TQIVIZM890RJ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gJYP7EUo4goxj4_J2HK-Hxm3XggJnTLwEwrh9NMq_tkPZEFtjyi-0Mc2hL7gBxLflkIl8KKTLJLYzf_vkjQv7g.NfEum75s7UqcqoqR5WkedhXvtpWvHM2-Td7CRUtWkF4&dib_tag=se&keywords=tod+mattox&qid=1750113764&sprefix=tod+mattox%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find The Art of Coaching Volleyball at:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Art of Coaching Volleyball is a comprehensive resource designed to help coaches of all levels to improve their skills, teaching methods, and enhance their knowledge of volleyball. It offers a mix of instructional support, tools, and resources to support coaches in developing athletes and running effective practices.Check out Hudl at Hudl.comHudl empowers volleyball coaches to teach more effectively by providing clear, visual feedback. Through organized video clips and tagging, coaches can highlight successful execution, reinforce team systems, and guide player development in a constructive, efficient way that enhances communication and accountability.Check out The Volley Pod on Instagram at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/aoc.thevolleypod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email us at ⁠⁠⁠thevolleypod@gmail.com

Librarians Building Libraries founders Tom Bober, Amanda Jones and Andrea Trudeau share their progress, upcoming events and opportunities for listeners to get involved!!! ALL THE EPISODE'S RESOURCES & SOCIAL MEDIA   Podcast Linktree Search by title, guest and location!  Editable PD Certificate FAQ's and ISO (In search of…) Online Doctoral Programs APA format for citing a podcast/podcast app SLU Playlists Amy's episode: The Importance of PLCs I would like to thank composer Nazar Rybak at Hooksounds.com for the music you've heard today.  

This Founder Friday we feature a couple who has been focused on giving their community excellence and warm hospitality for 13 years! Scaling deeper not wider, Tara and Martyn Knight have steadfastly cultivated something truly beautiful in Southsea Coffee  Tara and Martyn Knight are the co-founders of Southsea Coffee in Portsmouth, UK. A community-rooted coffee shop known for speciality coffee, chef-led brunch and warm, inclusive hospitality. Over 13 years, they've focused on building a business that scales deeper, not wider with strong standards, strong people, and a place where locals genuinely feel at home. Tara and Martyn sit down with me to recount their history from day one, to present day and all the growth, lessons, principles, and philosophy that have guided their operation of Southsea for over a decade.  It's very refreshing to find gems like Southsea Coffee and even more life giving to know that those behind it shine just as brightly as the business itself.  Related episodes:  542: Founder Friday! w/ Nori and Tin Burmudez of Corridor Flow, Lomita, CA 535: Founder Friday! 30 Years of Coffee! w/ Ana Burgos and Amanda Jones of Hyperion Espresso, Fredricksburg, VA

In this episode, Amanda Jones breaks down the One Big Beautiful Bill and what it means for business owners, entrepreneurs, and individual taxpayers. With major tax changes on the horizon, it's more important than ever to understand how these updates may impact your deductions, credits, planning strategies, and overall tax liability. We cut through the noise and explain what's actually changing and how you can prepare — whether you're a W-2 employee, self-employed, or running a growing business. ⏱️ What We Cover in This Episode Key changes affecting small businesses and self-employed taxpayers Impacts on individual tax returns and families Salt Tax, Bonus Depreciation, 529 plans No Tax on overtime and tips Updates to deductions, credits, and tax benefits Common misconceptions and what people are getting wrong Actionable steps you can take now to stay ahead Tax law changes can feel overwhelming, but knowledge is power. This episode is designed to help you understand the real-world impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill and how to position yourself — and your business — for success moving forward. Learn more about Atlas Financial Solutions with the links below: website: https://atlasfinancialsolutions.net/ instagram: atlasfinancialsolutionsca  

We discuss  the dangers of book bans and censorship, the power of civic action on the local level, and the intersection of libraries and human rights.   Amanda's civic action toolkit recommendations are:  Use the library! Follow Kelly Jensen at Book Riot on social media   Amanda Jones is a middle school librarian, an activist, and the author of That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America. She previously served as President of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians and has won numerous awards for her work in school libraries, including School Library Journal Librarian of the Year.    Let's connect! Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/   Discover new ways to #BetheSpark:  https://www.futurehindsight.com/spark    Follow Mila on X:  https://x.com/milaatmos    Follow Amanda on X:  https://x.com/abmack33   Follow Kelly Jensen on IG:  https://www.instagram.com/heykellyjensen/    Read That Librarian:  https://bookshop.org/shop/futurehindsight    Sponsor:  Thank you to Shopify! Sign up for a $1/month trial at shopify.com/hopeful.   Early episodes for Patreon supporters: https://patreon.com/futurehindsight  Credits:  Host: Mila Atmos  Guests: Amanda Jones Executive Producer: Mila Atmos Producer: Zack Travis

This week, I talk with Amanda Jones, a dedicated small-town Louisiana librarian, about the challenges she faces in her fight against book banning and censorship. She discusses her passion for literature, the importance of representation in books, the defamatory posts about her that spread like wildfire, and the impact of misinformation on community perceptions. Amanda has always championed the importance of diverse literature and the role of libraries as safe spaces for all children, particularly those from marginalized communities.Read all about Amanda's journey in her book That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

(Episode 365) On this show Amanda Jones, Gina Johnston-Small and Special Guest Harley Nail come to the studio. Harley tells us a little about life as a High School Senior at South Haven High School. Gina Johnston-Small tells everyone about what South Haven Real Estate has to offer at the moment. The group calls Madison Steadman to talk about her first 6 months of matrimonial bliss to her husband Chase. Gina talks to Madison about first steps toward home buying. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, he calls in and 3-way calls his Cousin Tucker Tyson to talk about his waiting position to get into the Goodyear Tire drop and his daughter that wants to be Tire Queen. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.   MoondogShow.com

(Episode 364) Mason Dixon, Amanda Jones, (Special Guest), Jay Wagner and Host Rob Byrd meet at the studio to talk about everything under the Moondog that is not racing. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, Dave Sarna from the Manawa Snodeo and Chuck Decker from The Decker Triple Crown Snowmobile Racing Series will be on to talk about their big $20,000 snowmobile race series in Wisconsin. Jay Wagner will be on to talk about panning for gold in California and Dr. Max Masters will make an extra special in-studio appearance to preview a surprise. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.   MoondogShow.com

(Episode 363) Amanda Jones, Scott T, Gina Johnston Small and Host Rob Byrd talk aimlessly without Mason Dixon. 

QFF: Quick Fire Friday – Your 20-Minute Growth Powerhouse! Welcome to Quick Fire Friday, the Grow A Small Business podcast series that is designed to deliver simple, focused and actionable insights and key takeaways in less than 20 minutes a week. Every Friday, we bring you business owners and experts who share their top strategies for growing yourself, your team and your small business. Get ready for a dose of inspiration, one action you can implement and quotable quotes that will stick with you long after the episode ends! In this episode of Quick Fire Friday, host Amanda Jones interviews Taylor Victoria, founder of Level Up Outsourcing and host of the "She's Making Millions" podcast. Taylor shares how she built a 7-figure outsourcing agency after struggling to find a job at 22. She explains how outsourcing transforms lives in the Philippines and why business owners must embrace AI as a co-pilot rather than fear it. Taylor highlights the power of personal development, time audits, and team alignment for high performance. She encourages business owners to explore AI tools and automate tasks to create freedom and grow their business. Key Takeaways for Small Business Owners: Embrace AI as a Co-Pilot, Not a Threat: AI won't replace your business — but business owners using AI will. Stay proactive and learn new tools weekly. Audit Your Time to Find What to Automate: Track your tasks for 1–2 weeks and use AI to identify what can be automated or delegated to free up your energy. Invest in Personal Development: Your business grows when you grow. Events, learning, and self-reflection directly impact performance and results. Our hero crafts outstanding reviews following the experience of listening to our special guests. Are you the one we've been waiting for? Build High-Performing Teams With Clear Systems: Review your team's workflows, improve efficiency, and let people focus on high-ROI work by pairing them with AI tools. Use Outsourcing to Scale Smarter: Global talent can transform your operations and create life-changing opportunities for others, especially in the Philippines. Prepare Your Business to Be an Asset, Not a Job:  Automating processes and reducing dependency on you increases business value — making it easier to scale or eventually sell. One action small business owners can take: According to Taylor Victoria, one action small business owners can take is to upload their weekly tasks into ChatGPT and ask which processes can be automated with AI, then commit to implementing one automation within the next seven days. Do you have 2 minutes every Friday? Sign up to the Weekly Leadership Email. It's free and we can help you to maximize your time. Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.

A new feature on X, formerly known as Twitter, has revealed that some prominent MAGA accounts are based in South Asia and Eastern Europe. On this week's On the Media, how foreign actors funnel political rage-bait into social media feeds. Plus, a school librarian in Louisiana shares how she's been targeted by book-banning activists.[01:00] Host Micah Loewinger sits down with Charlie Warzel, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of its newsletter Galaxy Brain, to discuss the recent X update that revealed many high profile, pro-MAGA accounts might be based in foreign countries.[16:37] Host Brooke Gladstone talks with Amanda Jones, school librarian in Livingston Parish, Louisiana and former School Librarian of the Year, to discuss her experience as a target of book-banning activists. Plus, why protecting libraries is as crucial as ever. [32:44] Brooke Gladstone talks to Elyse Graham, professor of sociology at Stony Brook University and author of Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II. They discuss the role that academics, archivists, and librarians played in WWII intelligence gathering activities, and why the CIA invested in storytelling as a result. Further reading / watching:Elon Musk's Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors, by Charlie WarzelThe Librarians filmThat Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, by Amanda JonesBook and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, by Elyse Graham On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

If you want to run a great coffee shop, loving people is one of the most important things to have at the foundation of all you do. It is also sometimes the hardest and requires intentional pursuits of a visions and a tenacity that always seeks out ways to improve communication, service, hospitality, and quality to make sure both staff and customers consistently feel the love.  I am happy that we get to chat with someone whose cafe and pursuit of what coffee service and community can look like has been making an big impact in a small eastern Washington town. Today we will be talking with the founder of Kittitas Cafe, Mackenzie Cohen!  After working in the food and beverage industry in the U.S. and in Australia for over a decade, Mackenzie found her love for coffee, food, and people was so overwhelming she needed to make it her career! The Kittitas Cafe's unofficial motto is, "love on people so much, they can't help but love us back." So far, it's worked pretty well for them! Kittitas Cafe has formed an incredibly loving community, introduced people to coffee and food they otherwise may never have tried, and has provided careers for people that offer growth and fulfillment.  Some things we will cover: Inspiration Behind Opening the Cafe Influences of Coffee Culture What is "The Athleticism of Service" What it Looks Like to Love People Well The importance of Creating a Supportive Team Environment Viewing Management as a continuous learning process Challenges, proud moments, and Building Relationships with Customers How Balance Staff and Customer Needs Menu Evolution From Staff Conversation and Feedback Gratitude as a Lifeline to Staff   Links: 535: Founder Friday! 30 Years of Coffee! w/ Ana Burgos and Amanda Jones of Hyperion Espresso, Fredricksburg, VA

Amanda Jones welcomes Dr. Justin Hiebert CEO of New Frontier Consulting. New Frontier Consulting, a dynamic agency dedicated to helping small business owners scale their businesses and achieve sustained growth. With a decade of leadership in executive coaching, HR consulting, Lean Six Sigma process improvement, and digital marketing strategy, Justin is passionate about empowering business owners to break through barriers and unlock their full potential. New Frontier Consulting operates on a proven '4M' framework—Mindset, Management, Marketing, and Money—helping clients shift from feeling "stuck" to experiencing measurable success. A relentless advocate for small business success, Justin brings a strategic approach to leadership development, team growth, and operational efficiency. Justin's core philosophy is simple: the best days for your business are ahead. In today's episode we also discussed the 4 M's framework, working S.M.A.R.T.E.R, and New Frontier Consulting K.I.S.S Review. Dr. Hiebert gives some awesome end of year sprint goals as well as 2026 goals. Our Host Amanda discusses her end of year checklist that she gives out to clients so that the audience can close out 2025 strong! Learn more about New Frontier Consulting with the links below: Website Instagram  

QFF: Quick Fire Friday – Your 20-Minute Growth Powerhouse!   Welcome to Quick Fire Friday, the Grow A Small Business podcast series that is designed to deliver simple, focused and actionable insights and key takeaways in less than 20 minutes a week.   Every Friday, we bring you business owners and experts who share their top strategies for growing yourself, your team and your small business. Get ready for a dose of inspiration, one action you can implement and quotable quotes that will stick with you long after the episode ends!   In this episode of Quick Fire Friday, host Amanda Jones interviews Brian Proctor shares his unique upbringing as the son of legendary personal development teacher Bob Proctor and how he now continues his father's legacy through books, programs and coaching. He reflects on authenticity, daily small actions and reconnecting with joy as essential tools for overwhelmed small business owners. Brian emphasizes the importance of clarity, worthy goals, using imagination and eliminating procrastination through simple daily practices. He also discusses lessons from his upcoming book, encouraging listeners to "quit screwing around" and bet on themselves. This episode is filled with heartfelt stories, practical strategies, and powerful reminders to take small steps every day toward a life and business you truly want. Key Takeaways for Small Business Owners: Small daily actions create big transformations — Brian emphasizes that most people look for a massive breakthrough but overlook the power of doing one small meaningful task every single day.   Clarity is everything — Overwhelm often comes from a lack of direction; Brian urges business owners to step back, find quiet time, and define a clear, worthy goal for their life and business.   Reconnect with joy — Instead of grinding endlessly, he encourages finding joy in daily life, taking breaks, and doing activities that refill your energy and creativity. Our hero crafts outstanding reviews following the experience of listening to our special guests. Are you the one we've been waiting for?   Eliminate procrastination through simplicity — Brian shares his father's powerful habit: write down five things to accomplish the next day, then focus on completing them one at a time.   Use imagination to think beyond current circumstances — Exercises like imagining how you'd spend $5 million help shift mindset from limitations to possibility, sparking vision and motivation.   Bet on yourself — The strongest message of the episode: stop letting others' opinions shape your path. Get clear on what you want, write a letter from your future self, and take action toward the life you truly want. One action small business owners can take: According to Brian Proctor, one action small business owners can take is to write down five things tonight that they want to accomplish tomorrow, then focus solely on completing the first task before moving to the next. This creates clarity, reduces overwhelm, and builds consistent daily momentum. Do you have 2 minutes every Friday? Sign up to the Weekly Leadership Email. It's free and we can help you to maximize your time. Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

11/24/25: Dr. Xiomara Herman, Amherst School Super: the school counselor controversy, LGBTQ rts & the middle school. Megan Zinn w/ Amanda Jones, who is "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” UMass Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Maurice "Soulfighter" Taylor: poetry, rap & comm healing. Amherst Town Mgr Paul Bockelman: the huge fire, Amherst College's $ contributions to town, lighting the Merry Maple.

(Episode 359) Mason Dixon, Amanda Jones and Host Rob Byrd get together in the studio to discuss when a boy becomes a man. Scott T calls in for a road report from Flint, Michigan. Dr. Max Masters from Masters Chiropractic and Rehabilitation calls in to talk about the roller coaster weather and it's affect on the body. Scott Whiteford steps in for Gina Johnston Small to talk about his involvement with South Haven Real Estate and Whiteford Wealth Management. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, Mason calls hype man, Big Daddy John Stark from Grundy County Raceway for a chat about their season and the depression of the off season. It's all here, right now and so much more on The Moondog Show.

Amanda Jones joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about her career as an award winning Librarian and an online smear campaign against her from the far right, that led her to writing her story in. "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America".

One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing. Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and "Christian." But Amanda Jones wouldn't give up without a fight: she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance. The discussion delves into Amanda's story of growing up in Watson, Louisiana, her passion for literature and libraries, and the extreme harassment she faced after speaking out against book banning efforts in 2022. Amanda shares her journey, including filing a defamation lawsuit, the community's reaction, and the broader implications of book banning as a political tool. They also discuss practical steps for combatting censorship and supporting libraries.https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/that-librarian-9781639733545/ Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus content most Mondays, bonus episodes every month, ad-free listening, access to the entire 850-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC Order Brad's book: https://bookshop.org/a/95982/9781506482163 Subscribe to Teología Sin Vergüenza Subscribe to American Exceptionalism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This weeks guest is Amanda Jones, who joins us from Austin, Texas. Amanda is a 19-year veteran of the bar and restaurant industry and the 5 year GM of Nickel City, one of the country's most beloved neighborhood bars. A 2025 Spirited Awards Top 10 U.S. Bartender nominee, Amanda is known for her leadership, hospitality expertise, and dedication to creating welcoming, community-driven spaces. @juicebyjonesy A big thank you to Jean-Marc Dykes of Imbiblia. Imbiblia is a cocktail app for bartenders, restaurants and cocktail lovers alike and built by a bartender with more than a decade of experience behind the bar. Several of the features includes the ability to create your own Imbiblia Recipe Cards with the Imbiblia Cocktail Builder, rapidly select ingredients, garnishes, methods and workshop recipes with a unique visual format, search by taste using flavor profiles unique to Imbiblia, share recipes publicly plus many more……Imbiblia - check it out! Contact the host Kypp Saunders by email at kyppsaunders@gmail.com for products from Elora Distilling, Malivoire Winery and Terroir Wine Imports. Links kyppsaunders@gmail.com @sugarrunbar @the_industry_podcast email us: info@theindustrypodcast.club

(Episode 358) Amanda Jones, Mason Dixon and Host Rob Byrd get together to discuss the current state of the government, the flight of businesses out of New York and whatever else comes to the for-front. On Racin' Mason Dixon's Front Porch Stomp, Mason invites Phil S. Dixon, Author and Negro League Historian to tell everyone about the Indianapolis Clowns. He also tells us about the resurrection of the Clowns name to play in the Banana Ball Championship League. It's all here, right now and so much more on the Moondog Show.   MoondogShow.com

QFF: Quick Fire Friday – Your 20-Minute Growth Powerhouse! Welcome to Quick Fire Friday, the Grow A Small Business podcast series that is designed to deliver simple, focused and actionable insights and key takeaways in less than 20 minutes a week. Every Friday, we bring you business owners and experts who share their top strategies for growing yourself, your team and your small business. Get ready for a dose of inspiration, one action you can implement and quotable quotes that will stick with you long after the episode ends! In this episode of Quick Fire Friday, host Amanda Jones interviews Dylan Pargiter-Green, founder of Bold Wealth, to explore how courage, clarity, and purpose can reshape the way we think about money and success. Dylan shares his journey from financial advisor to business owner, revealing how "Be Better, Be Well, Be Bold" became more than a tagline—it's a philosophy for life and growth. He opens up about helping clients find balance between building wealth and truly living well, while also reflecting on lessons from running a service-based business. From setting meaningful goals to rewarding yourself along the way, Dylan's insights remind entrepreneurs that real success isn't just about numbers—it's about fulfillment. Whether you're building a business or redefining your relationship with money, this conversation is a must-listen. Key Takeaways for Small Business Owners: Reward Yourself Along the Way – Don't wait until retirement to enjoy your hard work. Pay yourself fairly and appreciate the small milestones as your business grows. Set Clear Goals and Review Them Often – Reflect on your progress every few months. Identify what's working, fix what isn't, and keep your goals practical and measurable. Align Business and Personal Wealth – Your business should support your lifestyle and long-term wellbeing. Make financial choices that strengthen both areas together. Our hero crafts outstanding reviews following the experience of listening to our special guests. Are you the one we've been waiting for? Build Genuine Relationships – Success in business comes from understanding people. Take time to know your clients' values, dreams, and priorities to create lasting trust. Embrace Change and the Unknown – You can't predict everything. Learn quickly from challenges, adapt with a positive mindset, and keep improving with every experience. Activity Breeds Success – Stay active and engaged. Say yes to opportunities, meet new people, and always keep learning—the more you do, the more success will follow. One action small business owners can take: According to Dylan Pargiter-Green, one action small business owners can take is to set aside dedicated time every six months to review both their business and personal goals. This reflection helps identify what's working, where improvements are needed, and ensures their business growth aligns with their personal wellbeing and financial security. Do you have 2 minutes every Friday? Sign up to the Weekly Leadership Email. It's free and we can help you to maximize your time. Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.

Amanda Jones welcomes Lori Malkin and Joe Peters. Lori is the president of JJ's Legacy a nonprofit here in Bakersfield CA that promotes organ donations. As a donor mother, I was truly inspired by the amazing legacy my son Jeffrey “JJ” Johns left after his passing. It became my passion to inspire and educate the community about the importance and need of organ, eye and tissue donation. I started JJ's Legacy in 2010 to honor Jeffrey and other donor families in Kern County.  This organization has grown to be so much more than I ever imagined! Today, JJ's Legacy is educating and inspiring our community to become registered organ, eye and tissue donors. We now have a Medical Grant program which provides grants to recipients' families and honors donor families in Kern County. In today's episode we also discussed the 10th annual Grillin & Brewin event that JJ's legacy is hosting. Join us for the Grillin' and Brewin' fundraising event, a lively evening featuring local BBQ prepared by our award-winning competition BBQ team, the Ridge Route Boys! This year, back by popular demand, Local country music star Joe Peters will be our entertainment. Sponsorship opportunities, reserved tables, and individual event tickets are available. We would also be honored to have your donations of goods, gift cards, services, and products, and other silent auction items. The fundraiser supports JJ's legacy, specifically the Got the Dot High School leadership fellowship program. This essential learning platform educates local students about the need and importance of registering to become an organ, eye, and tissue donor. With the goals of investing in our community and nurturing the next generation of educated and inspired students, this project is the perfect way to bring our community together and create positive lasting changes while educating and increasing donor registration! Learn more about JJ's Legacy: website instagram JJ's Legacy Grillin' and Brewin'  

Alfarena McGinty, Marion County Coroner in Indianapolis, Indiana, explains how her department's investment in Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) has improved the efficiency and interoperability of timely mortality data; Amanda Jones, Data Modernization Director at the Vermont Department of Health, discusses why her department created a Data Modernization Advisory Committee to promote cultural change and foster excitement around new technologies; ASTHO is now accepting applications from state health agency staff and levels of maternal care leaders for a community of practice to address maternal care challenges; and today, October 24th, is the deadline to apply to participate in ASTHO's success story discussions on preventing adverse childhood experiences. CDC Foundation: Resources for MDI Offices and IT Developers ASTHO Report: Accelerating Data Exchange in Public Health: Insights from Public Health FHIR Pilots ASTHO Blog: Creating Shared Vision and Governance for Data Modernization in Vermont ASTHO Web Page: Bridging Barriers in Maternal Health Access Community of Practice ASTHO Web Page: Success Stories: Advancing Health Agency Capacity to Address ACEs, Suicide, Overdose, and Mental Health-Related Harms Request for Information  

QFF: Quick Fire Friday – Your 20-Minute Growth Powerhouse! Welcome to Quick Fire Friday, the Grow A Small Business podcast series that is designed to deliver simple, focused and actionable insights and key takeaways in less than 20 minutes a week. Every Friday, we bring you business owners and experts who share their top strategies for growing yourself, your team and your small business. Get ready for a dose of inspiration, one action you can implement and quotable quotes that will stick with you long after the episode ends! In this episode of Quick Fire Friday, host Amanda Jones interviews Stephen Sakach, Founder of Zero Company and AI CMO.io, to explore how empathy and purpose can transform modern marketing. Stephen shares his groundbreaking “Bliss Business” philosophy—building love into scalable systems—and explains how emotional connection drives brand loyalty and long-term success. From integrating AI with authentic storytelling to creating marketing that truly feels human, this conversation uncovers how businesses can grow with both heart and strategy. Key Takeaways for Small Business Owners: Build Emotional Connections: Brands that connect emotionally with customers enjoy higher loyalty and up to 300% greater lifetime value. Lead with Purpose: Defining your business's “why” gives meaning to your work and helps attract engaged employees and ideal clients. Adopt the Bliss Philosophy: Build Love Into Scalable Systems—turn random acts of kindness into structured habits within your business culture. Our hero crafts outstanding reviews following the experience of listening to our special guests. Are you the one we've been waiting for? Use AI with Intention: Leverage AI tools to save time and enhance creativity, but ensure your message stays authentic and human-centered. Create Surprise and Delight: Small, thoughtful gestures toward customers can foster emotional bonds and brand differentiation. Empathy = Profitability: Data shows empathetic businesses not only build trust but also outperform competitors financially. One action small business owners can take: According to Stephen Sakach, one action small business owners can take is to build love into scalable systems – find small, meaningful ways to infuse empathy, care, and purpose into everyday business processes so that kindness and connection continue to thrive, even when you're not directly involved. Do you have 2 minutes every Friday? Sign up to the Weekly Leadership Email. It's free and we can help you to maximize your time. Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.

The All Iowa Reads committee reveals the titles for 2026. First, we revisit a conversation with educator Amanda Jones about her book, That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.

More than 100 Labour MPs are calling this morning for the Government to put up gambling taxes to pay for scrapping the two child cap on universal credit. Lifting the cap would cost an estimated £3 billion a year. Chancellor Rachel Reeves already has a £20 to £30 billion deficit to try and balance in the November budget. So, should she do it? Anita Rani talks to Iain Watson, BBC Political Correspondent, and Director of policy, rights and advocacy at Child Poverty Action Group, Sara Ogilvie. Professor Edith Heard is the new Director of the Francis Crick Institute, the UK's flagship biomedical centre. Passionate about women's biology, she's taking over at a time when debates over science seem to get hotter by the day. Resources are under strain too, not just money in the midst of high inflation but also the pressure to keep the best scientists working here in the UK. She tells Woman's Hour about how she got here and her plans for the future.The Librarians is a new documentary examining the rise of campaign groups calling to ban books from school and public libraries in the USA. Anita talks to film maker Kym Snyder and librarian Amanda Jones.Oyinkan Braithwaite's debut novel My Sister the Serial Killer was nominated for the Women's and Booker prizes in 2019. Now she's back with another novel on similarly dark themes but explored in a markedly different way. Cursed Daughters is about a legacy of heartache and broken relationships that comes to define one family in Nigeria. She joins Anita.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show has been pulled off the air following his comments about Charlie Kirk's killer. On this week's On the Media, how threats to free speech have escalated in the wake of the assassination. Plus, a school librarian in Louisiana shares how she's been targeted by book-banning activists.[02:25]  Host Micah Loewinger sits down with Lily Mason, professor of political science at Johns Hopkins and the co-author of the book Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, to discuss what data we have on how Americans think about political violence. [21:07] Micah speaks with Ryan Broderick, author of the Garbage Day newsletter, to examine the evidence around Charlie Kirk's alleged killer, and what radicalization looks like in a digital age.  [35:45] Host Brooke Gladstone talks with Amanda Jones, school librarian in Livingston Parish, Louisiana and former School Librarian of the Year, to discuss being a target of book-banning activists. Plus, why protecting libraries is as crucial as ever. Further reading / listening:Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy, by Lily Mason“Charlie Kirk was killed by a meme,” by Ryan BroderickThat Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, by Amanda Jones On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

This story was read as a part of a live show hosted by the great Judy Blume, on the subject of banned books, something she personally knows about. This story hasn't been banned on its own, but many of Roxane Gay's works have, including Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture and Hunger: A Memoir of My Body. Because these bans are so prevalent, and so pernicious, we wanted to talk about that cultural argument, too. Surprising to absolutely no one, we at Too Hot are free speech boosters; so after the reading, we feature a fascinating talk with Amanda Jones, the author of That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, who is on the frontline of this culture war in Louisiana. The story was read by actress Jessica Hecht. Our host is Aparna Nancherla.