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In this powerful episode of The Truth In This Art, join host Rob Lee for an insightful conversation with Chad Helton, President and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore's renowned public library system. Explore Chad Helton's transformative vision and dynamic leadership, diving deep into the future of the Enoch Pratt Free Library and discussing its vital role as a cornerstone of the Baltimore community.Chad Helton, a collaborative leader who believes no single person holds all the answers, shares his strategies for enhanced community engagement, the library's unwavering commitment to equitable access to information and resources, and the power of innovative library programs to transform lives. We also discuss the challenges and triumphs of leading a vital community anchor and the importance of creating a 21st-century library system that serves all of Baltimore's residents.Eager to learn more about Chad Helton's journey, from his Mayberry-esque small-town roots to leading one of Baltimore's most beloved institutions, and discover how his dedication to addressing diverse community needs is shaping the future of the Enoch Pratt Free Library? Listen now to this episode of The Truth In This Art! Host: Rob LeeMusic: Original music by Daniel Alexis Music with additional music from Chipzard and TeTresSeis. Production:Produced by Rob Lee & Daniel AlexisEdited by Daniel AlexisShow Notes courtesy of Rob Lee and TransistorPhotos:Rob Lee photos by Vicente Martin for The Truth In This Art and Contrarian Aquarian Media.Guest photos courtesy of the guest, unless otherwise noted.Support the podcast The Truth In This Art Podcast Fractured Atlas (Fundraising): https://www.fracturedatlas.orgThe Truth In This Art Podcast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thetruthinthisart.bsky.socialThe Truth In This Art Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truthinthisart/?hl=enThe Truth In This Art Podcast Website: https://www.thetruthinthisart.com/The Truth In This Art Podcast Shop: Merch from Redbubble ★ Support this podcast ★
Vandalism at draft board offices as U.S. involvement in Vietnam was escalating was deeply divisive. Opponents of the war were stereotyped as dirty hippies and sanctimonious white college kids, but the anti-Vietnam-war movement in the U.S. was really broad. Research: "Statement: the Boston Eight" Newsletter. ULS Digital Collections. https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735058194170 “Draftees ‘Lost’ in Raids Immune for January.” Boston Globe. 12/10/1969. “Draftees ‘Lost’ in Raids Immune for January.” The Boston Globe. 12/10/1969. “Hardy Rites Tomorrow.” Camden Courier-Post. 10/4/1971. Arnold, Hillel. “Draft Board Raids.” https://hillelarnold.com/draft-board-raids/ Associated Press. “Testify FBI Had Role in N.J. Break-in.” De Moines Register. 5/21/1973. Astor, Maggie. “Their Protest Helped End the Draft. 50 Years Later, It’s Still Controversial.” New York Times. 5/19/2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/catonsville-nine-anniversary.html Berrigan, Frida. “50 years later, the spirit of the Catonsville Nine lives on.” Waging Nonviolence. 5/16/2018. https://wagingnonviolence.org/2018/05/catonsville-nine-50-years-later/ Cassie, Ron. “Trial by Fire.” Baltimore. May 2018. https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/historypolitics/50-years-ago-catonsville-nine-sparked-national-wave-of-vietnam-war-resistance/ Dear, John. “The Camden 28.” National Catholic Reporter. 9/18/2007. https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/camden-28 Enoch Pratt Free Library. “Fire and Faith: The Cantonville Nine File.” 2005. http://c9.digitalmaryland.org/ Fisher, James T. “Debating 'The Camden 28': A scholar and an activist discuss a new film about the Catholic Left.” America: The Jesuit Review. 9/17/2007. https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/625/100/debating-camden-28 Fisher, James T. “Debating 'The Camden 28': Activist nuns, punk rock and the demise of the Catholic Left.” America: The Jesuit Review. 9/17/2007. https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/625/100/debating-camden-28-0 Friedman, Jason. “Draft Card Mutilation Act of 1965.” Free Speech Center. 7/2/2024. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/draft-card-mutilation-act-of-1965/ Giacchino, Anthony, director. “Camden 28.” PBS Point of View. 2007. Gilette, Howard Jr. “Camden, New Jersey.” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/camden-new-jersey/ Greenberg, Kyrie. “Camden 28 revisit court where they were tried for ’71 break-in to protest Vietnam War.” WHYY. 12/6/2018. https://whyy.org/articles/camden-28-revisit-court-where-they-were-tried-for-71-break-in-to-protest-vietnam-war/ Hammond, Linda C. “FBI Says Informer Was Paid $7500.” Courier-Post. 5/30/1973. Hardy, Robert. “Affidavit.” Via Camden28.org. Kroncke, Francis X. “RESISTANCE AS SACRAMENT.” http://www.minnesota8.net/Kroncke/essays/resistance.htm Lacy, Tim. “The Media Raiders: The FBI, Hoover, and the Catholic Left.” Society for U.S. Intellectual History. https://s-usih.org/2024/12/media-raiders-fbi-hoover-catholic-left/ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Photos: The Milwaukee 14 - a fiery '68 protest against the Vietnam War.” 9/20/2016. https://www.jsonline.com/picture-gallery/life/2016/09/20/photos-the-milwaukee-14---a-fiery-68-protest-against-the-vietnam-war/90517276/ Mische, George. “Inattention to accuracy about 'Catonsville Nine' distorts history.” National Catholic Reporter. 5/17/2013. https://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/inattention-accuracy-about-catonsville-nine-distorts-history Nelson, Paul. "Minnesota Eight." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/group/minnesota-eight Nelson, Paul. “The Minnesota Eight’s attempts to destroy draft files during the Vietnam War were mostly unsuccessful.” MNopedia via MinnPost. 6/15/2020. https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2020/06/the-minnesota-eights-attempts-to-destroy-draft-files-during-the-vietnam-war-were-mostly-unsuccessful/ Nixon, Richard M. “The Great Silent Majority.” https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/nixon-silent-majority-speech-text/ Norland, Rod. “Camden 28 Trial Looks to Juror No. 10.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. 5/20/1973. O’Farrell, Sean. “Milwaukee Fourteen.” Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/milwaukee-fourteen/ Presbrey, Paul. “Draft Vandalism Willful? Jury Hears Father’s Beliefs.” Minneapolis Star. 12/2/1966. Roden, Renee. “Book paints the Camden 28 as 'Spiritual Criminals.' But were their actions effective?” National Catholic Reporter. 2/22/2025. https://www.ncronline.org/culture/book-reviews/book-paints-camden-28-spiritual-criminals-were-their-actions-effective Rothman, Lily. “This Photo Shows the Vietnam Draft-Card Burning That Started a Movement.” Time. 10/15/2015. https://time.com/4061835/david-miller-draft-card/ Sadowski, Dennis. “After 50 years, draft board protesters insist what they did was right.” National Catholic Reporter. 9/1/2018. https://www.ncronline.org/news/after-50-years-draft-board-protesters-insist-what-they-did-was-right Silver, Maayan. “Member Of The Milwaukee 14 Reflects 50 Years After Draft Card Burning.” WUWM. 9/25/2018. https://www.wuwm.com/podcast/wuwm-news/2018-09-25/member-of-the-milwaukee-14-reflects-50-years-after-draft-card-burning Stanford University Libraries. “The Berrigans & the Catonsville Nine, 1968-1972.” https://exhibits.stanford.edu/fitch/browse/the-berrigans-the-catonsville-nine-1968-1972 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Lyndon B. Johnson". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Mar. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lyndon-B-Johnson. Accessed 20 March 2025. The Harvard Crimson. “Six Draft Boards Raided; Paint Thrown on Records.” 11/10/1969. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/11/10/six-draft-boards-raided-paint-thrown/ Walsh, Lori. “The Camden 28: Standing Against The Vietnam War.” SDPB. 9/8/2017. https://www.sdpb.org/margins/2017-09-08/the-camden-28-standing-against-the-vietnam-war Zinn Education Project. “Aug. 21, 1971: Anti-war Protesters Raid Draft Offices.” https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/anti-war-protesters-raid-offices/ Zunes, Stephen and Jesse Laird. “The US Anti-Vietnam War Movement (1964-1973).” International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. January 2010. https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/us-anti-vietnam-war-movement-1964-1973/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The draft board raids were part of an antiwar movement, largely grounded in Catholic religious convictions, that spanned almost four years. Part one covers the basic context of the Vietnam War and why the U.S. was involved in the first place, and the earliest raids on draft boards. Research: "Statement: the Boston Eight" Newsletter. ULS Digital Collections. https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735058194170 “Draftees ‘Lost’ in Raids Immune for January.” Boston Globe. 12/10/1969. “Draftees ‘Lost’ in Raids Immune for January.” The Boston Globe. 12/10/1969. “Hardy Rites Tomorrow.” Camden Courier-Post. 10/4/1971. Arnold, Hillel. “Draft Board Raids.” https://hillelarnold.com/draft-board-raids/ Associated Press. “Testify FBI Had Role in N.J. Break-in.” De Moines Register. 5/21/1973. Astor, Maggie. “Their Protest Helped End the Draft. 50 Years Later, It’s Still Controversial.” New York Times. 5/19/2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/catonsville-nine-anniversary.html Berrigan, Frida. “50 years later, the spirit of the Catonsville Nine lives on.” Waging Nonviolence. 5/16/2018. https://wagingnonviolence.org/2018/05/catonsville-nine-50-years-later/ Cassie, Ron. “Trial by Fire.” Baltimore. May 2018. https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/historypolitics/50-years-ago-catonsville-nine-sparked-national-wave-of-vietnam-war-resistance/ Dear, John. “The Camden 28.” National Catholic Reporter. 9/18/2007. https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/camden-28 Enoch Pratt Free Library. “Fire and Faith: The Cantonville Nine File.” 2005. http://c9.digitalmaryland.org/ Fisher, James T. “Debating 'The Camden 28': A scholar and an activist discuss a new film about the Catholic Left.” America: The Jesuit Review. 9/17/2007. https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/625/100/debating-camden-28 Fisher, James T. “Debating 'The Camden 28': Activist nuns, punk rock and the demise of the Catholic Left.” America: The Jesuit Review. 9/17/2007. https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/625/100/debating-camden-28-0 Friedman, Jason. “Draft Card Mutilation Act of 1965.” Free Speech Center. 7/2/2024. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/draft-card-mutilation-act-of-1965/ Giacchino, Anthony, director. “Camden 28.” PBS Point of View. 2007. Gilette, Howard Jr. “Camden, New Jersey.” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/camden-new-jersey/ Greenberg, Kyrie. “Camden 28 revisit court where they were tried for ’71 break-in to protest Vietnam War.” WHYY. 12/6/2018. https://whyy.org/articles/camden-28-revisit-court-where-they-were-tried-for-71-break-in-to-protest-vietnam-war/ Hammond, Linda C. “FBI Says Informer Was Paid $7500.” Courier-Post. 5/30/1973. Hardy, Robert. “Affidavit.” Via Camden28.org. Kroncke, Francis X. “RESISTANCE AS SACRAMENT.” http://www.minnesota8.net/Kroncke/essays/resistance.htm Lacy, Tim. “The Media Raiders: The FBI, Hoover, and the Catholic Left.” Society for U.S. Intellectual History. https://s-usih.org/2024/12/media-raiders-fbi-hoover-catholic-left/ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Photos: The Milwaukee 14 - a fiery '68 protest against the Vietnam War.” 9/20/2016. https://www.jsonline.com/picture-gallery/life/2016/09/20/photos-the-milwaukee-14---a-fiery-68-protest-against-the-vietnam-war/90517276/ Mische, George. “Inattention to accuracy about 'Catonsville Nine' distorts history.” National Catholic Reporter. 5/17/2013. https://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/inattention-accuracy-about-catonsville-nine-distorts-history Nelson, Paul. "Minnesota Eight." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/group/minnesota-eight Nelson, Paul. “The Minnesota Eight’s attempts to destroy draft files during the Vietnam War were mostly unsuccessful.” MNopedia via MinnPost. 6/15/2020. https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2020/06/the-minnesota-eights-attempts-to-destroy-draft-files-during-the-vietnam-war-were-mostly-unsuccessful/ Nixon, Richard M. “The Great Silent Majority.” https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/nixon-silent-majority-speech-text/ Norland, Rod. “Camden 28 Trial Looks to Juror No. 10.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. 5/20/1973. O’Farrell, Sean. “Milwaukee Fourteen.” Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/milwaukee-fourteen/ Presbrey, Paul. “Draft Vandalism Willful? Jury Hears Father’s Beliefs.” Minneapolis Star. 12/2/1966. Roden, Renee. “Book paints the Camden 28 as 'Spiritual Criminals.' But were their actions effective?” National Catholic Reporter. 2/22/2025. https://www.ncronline.org/culture/book-reviews/book-paints-camden-28-spiritual-criminals-were-their-actions-effective Rothman, Lily. “This Photo Shows the Vietnam Draft-Card Burning That Started a Movement.” Time. 10/15/2015. https://time.com/4061835/david-miller-draft-card/ Sadowski, Dennis. “After 50 years, draft board protesters insist what they did was right.” National Catholic Reporter. 9/1/2018. https://www.ncronline.org/news/after-50-years-draft-board-protesters-insist-what-they-did-was-right Silver, Maayan. “Member Of The Milwaukee 14 Reflects 50 Years After Draft Card Burning.” WUWM. 9/25/2018. https://www.wuwm.com/podcast/wuwm-news/2018-09-25/member-of-the-milwaukee-14-reflects-50-years-after-draft-card-burning Stanford University Libraries. “The Berrigans & the Catonsville Nine, 1968-1972.” https://exhibits.stanford.edu/fitch/browse/the-berrigans-the-catonsville-nine-1968-1972 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Lyndon B. Johnson". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Mar. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lyndon-B-Johnson. Accessed 20 March 2025. The Harvard Crimson. “Six Draft Boards Raided; Paint Thrown on Records.” 11/10/1969. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/11/10/six-draft-boards-raided-paint-thrown/ Walsh, Lori. “The Camden 28: Standing Against The Vietnam War.” SDPB. 9/8/2017. https://www.sdpb.org/margins/2017-09-08/the-camden-28-standing-against-the-vietnam-war Zinn Education Project. “Aug. 21, 1971: Anti-war Protesters Raid Draft Offices.” https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/anti-war-protesters-raid-offices/ Zunes, Stephen and Jesse Laird. “The US Anti-Vietnam War Movement (1964-1973).” International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. January 2010. https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/us-anti-vietnam-war-movement-1964-1973/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This episode delves into the vibrant stories of four remarkable individuals who made their way to Baltimore, carving unique paths in the hospitality and culinary industries. The incredible panelists—Travis Bell from Black Acre Roastery, Al Hutchinson of Visit Baltimore , Damian Mosley from Blacksauce Kitchen, and Juan Webster of Montage International. Their honest and heartfelt stories about leadership and purpose left the audience feeling inspired and motivated. I had the honor of partnering with the Enoch Pratt Free Library & Maryland State Library Resource Center during Black History Month, as we celebrated and honored Black Excellence and Innovation in our Baltimore Hospitality community. Discover how these leaders are driving diversity and inclusion in their fields and impacting the community with initiatives that foster connection and growth. Join us for an inspiring conversation about passion, perseverance, and the power of building community in an iconic American city.
Meghan McCorkell always formally educated Nestor about the charm of the Enoch Pratt Free Library but recently became the Executive Director of "Live Baltimore" and came to Faidley's on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to tell him all he never knew about the "I Love City Life" folks' 30th year aiming to attract and retain residents by highlighting the city's 278 neighborhoods and offering home ownership incentives like down payment assistance programs. The city's affordability, cultural richness and community spirit get no argument from the host. The post Meghan McCorkell gives Nestor the full story of Live Baltimore and why City Life is loved in Charm City first appeared on Baltimore Positive WNST.
Author and one-time Wall Street Journal reporter John Miller finally brings his Earl Weaver biography to life and joins Nestor to discuss better understanding his baseball legacy beyond the Baltimore Orioles. Join Miller and our friend John Eisenberg at Enoch Pratt Free Library on March 5th for an evening of Earl conversations. The post Author John Miller finally brings Earl Weaver biography to life to better understand his baseball legacy first appeared on Baltimore Positive WNST.
Earlier this week, the Board of Directors of the Enoch Pratt Free Library announced the appointment of Chad Helton as the new President & Chief Executive Officer of Baltimore city's more than 20 public libraries. His lengthy resume includes time at library systems in major cities across the county. Helton joins Midday to discuss how he became the librarian he is today, and his vision for Baltimore's library system in the future.Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.
My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Catherine W Rouhana, author of the book When the Fudge Trees Bloom. Cathy grew up in the '50s and ‘60s in a three-bedroom row house in Baltimore, Maryland. She was the second of ten children, seven girls, and three boys. Yikes! You might say. Somewhat cramped? Well, yes, in retrospect. But children can always find a cubby hide-away to escape the chaos, (and maybe the chores). In the days before social media and even the days of the infancy of television, she and her siblings escaped into books. They were voracious readers and fought over the treasures brought home from a three-mile hike to the nearest library. Of course, the hiker had first dibs, but the rest was up for grabs. The ‘70s brought marriage to her Lebanese husband and their first child. Books were still front and center with a job as a children's librarian/head of agency at a branch of the prestigious Enoch Pratt Free Library. This was soon followed by the opening of The Bookmark, an independent bookstore, with her friend and fellow librarian, Janice. But not to stay in one thing for too long, the “80s brought their second son and an offer to Nagib to work in Saudi Arabia. They accepted, and their adventure began. Back and forth in the Middle East, between Lebanon, Nagib's country of origin, and Saudi Arabia. From heat and humidity and daily sameness to fresh mountain breezes punctuated by intermittent bombings. She returned to the States in the late ‘80s but maintained one foot in the Middle East. Retirement from her position as manager in a medical office gave her the time and space she needed to complete the book she had been writing (slowly) for the past twenty years. When the Fudge Trees Bloom: Memories of an American in the Middle East is her first book, but, she hopes, not her last. In my book review, I stated When the Fudge Trees Bloom is an amazing memoir. Catherine spent many years of her adult life in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. However, the person she was when she left the US as a young mother and wife to a Lebanese citizen, and the person she was when she entered Lebanon again when her son got married were two very different women. I learned a lot about the unrest in the Middle East in the 70s and 80s. I also learned a lot about living life in the closed society of Saudi Arabia and family traditions in Lebanon. This memoir made me wonder how I would have handled the many wars, the political upheaval, the idea that women are second class citizens, and simply the loneliness of being far from home. In the end, I fell in love with Lebanon - at least the Lebanon known to Catherine's family. The one not torn to shreds by war. Subscribe to Online for Authors to learn about more great books! https://www.youtube.com/@onlineforauthors?sub_confirmation=1 Join the Novels N Latte Book Club community to discuss this and other books with like-minded readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3576519880426290 You can follow Author Catherine W Rouhana: Website: https://cathyrouhana.com/ IG: @authorcathyrouhana FB: @authorcathyrouhana Purchase When the Fudge Trees Bloom on Amazon: Paperback: https://amzn.to/4dd43CE Ebook: https://amzn.to/3SGz21r Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor IG: @terimbrown_author X: @terimbrown1 #catherinewrouhana #whenthefudgetreesbloom #memoir #terimbrownauthor #authorpodcast #onlineforauthors #characterdriven #researchjunkie #awardwinningauthor #podcasthost #podcast #readerpodcast #bookpodcast #writerpodcast #author #books #goodreads #bookclub #fiction #writer #bookreview *As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Our favorite librarian advocate Meghan McCorkell of the Enoch Pratt Free Library tells Nestor about all of the cool, modern ways our local institution is serving our citizens and defending the rights of authors and the community to access books.
Recorded live at the 2024 NAWB Forum.
There is a change of leadership at the top of Baltimore city's public library system. Heidi Daniel has been CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library since 2017. But next month, she will become the executive director of the King County Library System in Washington State. Her replacement is Darcell Graham, who has been with the Pratt Library for 25 years. She served as the Vice President of Public Services, and she has been appointed Interim CEO of the library while a search is conducted for a permanent successor to Daniel. We speak with Graham and Daniel about the transition and what it could mean for Baltimore's public library.Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.
Reading the book on the history and modern realities of Enoch Pratt Free Library with Meghan McCorkell. More than just a visit from Jada and Will, let the longtime journalist tell Nestor the facts about ways Baltimore is getting educated via its oldest institution of community and learning. The post Crab Cake Row: Reading the book on the history and modern realities of Enoch Pratt Free Library with Meghan McCorkell first appeared on Baltimore Positive WNST.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue Recorded live at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore's Mount Vernon, The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre presents Poe's “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” streaming on WYPR just in time for the author's 215th birthday. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” introduced readers everywhere to C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's brilliant French detective. The story created the detective genre and was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Adapted for radio by Caroline Bennett and directed by Alex Zavistovich, this live recording features both live and recorded sound effects, with original music and sound design by James D Watson. With the voices of Adam R Adkins, David Hanauer, Jimi Kinstle, Melanie Kurstin, Jennifer Restak, and Alex Zavistovich. The Murders in the Rue Morgue was made possible by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, RavenBeer, DC Dogs, the law offices of Faegre Drinker, the technology company Avaya, LINK Strategic Partners and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Looking for a last-minute gift? How about a book? Baltimore County librarian Conni Strittmatter shares her suggestions for children and teens, including a sci-fi space drama. Then, Meghan McCorkell of the Enoch Pratt Free Library offers popular picks for adult readers, such as a thriller set in a gothic mansion and a cocktail recipe book! Books for kids:"Something, Someday," by Amanda Gorman"Dino-Hanukkah," by Lisa Wheeler"How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney?" by Mac Barnett"The Story of Gumluck the Wizard," by Adam Rex"Dogtown," by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko"Merry Christmas, Anna Hibiscus!" by Atinuke"The Lost Library," by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass"Max Fernsby and the Infinite Toys," by Gerry Swallow"Winter Crafts Across Cultures: 12 Projects to Celebrate the Season," by Megan Borgert-Spaniol"Love in Winter Wonderland," by Abiola Bello"Star Splitter," by Matthew Kirby Books for adults:“Let Us Descend,” by Jesmyn Ward"Lessons in Chemistry,” by Bonnie Garmus"Iron Flame," by Rebecca Yarros“Day,” by Michael Cunningham“There Should Have Been Eight," Nalini Singh"Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice: A Cocktail Recipe Book," by Toni Tipton Martin“13-23," by J.M. Giordano“My Name is Barbra," by Barbra Streisand“Spare,” by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex“The Way Forward," by Yung Pueblo"Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger and Higher Education," by Stephanie LandDo you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472
aron interviewed Matthew Lengel Chair of the Pratt Contemporaries and Chris Lewis Individual and Corporate Giving Manager of the Enoch Pratt library. The Pratt Contemporaries are a diverse group of cosmopolitans who seek to raise awareness of the Enoch Pratt Free Library as a vital part of Baltimore's identity. Matthew, Chris and I talked about one of their premier events that the Pratt Contemporaries have ever year and it's called the Black & White Party. The Black & White Party is January 27th at the Central Library . The Pratt Contemporaries announced this year's theme is New Orleans, Mon Amour. The money raised all goes to Children and Teen programming at the Pratt Library. This helps with literacy with Baltimore youth. Listen in on how you can join the Pratt Contemporaries and why joining has so many amazing benefits. Some key dates for the Black & White Party. December 3rd for certain membership levels tickets are available now. On January 8th, all Pratt Contemporaries members can purchase their tickets during the presale. The general public sale will be January 11th. https://www.prattlibrary.org/support-... https://www.instagram.com/prattcontem...
Discover the inspiring journey of Boba Studios, a women-owned indie game studio in Baltimore, MD, dedicated to representing underserved players. Their mission drives talks and workshops at the Enoch Pratt Free Library and a Game Design Badge Workshop for the Girl Scouts of America. With accolades like winning the 2018 UP/Start Competition and leadership roles in the International Game Developers Association, founders Ashley and Kyrstin are true industry leaders.Dive into their debut game 'Squirrely Roo Rabbit,' a stunning 2.5D puzzle-adventure, blending color theory with watercolor visuals. Awarded 'Best Game' and 'Fan Favorite' at Playthrough 2023 and Creator Con 2017, this demo is available now at www.bobastudios.com!Squirrly Roo Kicktarter!Learn more about AshleyLearn more about KyrstinLearn more about Boba StudiosLearn more about usJoin the next episode of the Indie Game Lunch Hour LIVE every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to answer your own burning questions and be immortalized in the recordings.
EP 229: No Pix After Dark was Live at the Library. I had the opportunity to interview Heidi Daniel the CEO of Enoch Pratt Free Library . We discussed her career path, her love for books and why she wanted to work in Baltimore. Thank you to Comedian Ivan Martin for the comedy, Corinna Delgado for her spoken word, DJ Beazy for the soulful and upbeat tunes. Thank you to all that attended and support the podcast. Have a great time listening to this Live Episode at the Library. Special Thanks to Paul from Acutevisions for the audio Special Thank you to Emily and Megan from the library making this happen and thank you to the guest who showed up!
Check out the latest episode of Your Child's Brain. Join Dr. Brad Schlaggar President and CEO of Kennedy Krieger Institute and his guests Heidi Daniel, president and CEO at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, and Dr. Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, a developmental neuroscientist at Kennedy Krieger Institute as we discuss children's reading, literacy, and the impact of technology on both. Links to visit: Enoch Pratt library Summer Reading Program https://www.prattlibrary.org/summer-break The Neurobiology of Reading podcast https://urlisolation.com/browser?clickId=796DE2A7-3F7F-4DA8-A057-296FDC84DFF0&traceToken=1682690228%3Bkennedykrieger_hosted%3Bhttps%3A%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DS&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DS_7brlIMa_k Dr. Brad Schlaggar (BS): Welcome to Your Child's Brain, a podcast series produced by Kennedy Krieger Institute with assistance from WYPR. I'm Dr. Brad Schlaggar, pediatric neurologist and president and CEO of Kennedy Krieger Institute. One of the most distinctive features of the human brain is its capacity for language. Arguably, our brains have evolved to produce spoken and heard language. But exactly when that capacity emerged in humans is debated, in the scientific literature, spoken language likely emerged no less than a couple of 100,000 years ago and perhaps as long ago as one million or more years. On the other hand, the invention of the written form of language and therefore the origins of reading, came roughly 5,000 years ago. Simply put, while our brains evolved for spoken language, reading and writing are far too recent to have been drivers for the evolution of our brains. It has only been in the last several 100 years that human society has put such a premium on the value of reading that large portions of society learned to read. That said, in Maryland and in the US as a whole and while estimates vary, roughly one in five adults has very low or absent literacy skills, contributing to significant challenges for the health and welfare of those individuals. For some, reading difficulty is largely the consequence of lack of access to quality education while for others, the issue is dyslexia or a reading impairment, despite sufficient intellectual ability and access to quality education. For so many reasons, it is critically important for us to understand the full complexity of how our brains learn to read and how factors in our children's life, like screen time, for example, impact the development of this crucial skill. Today, I'm joined by two guests, both with expertise that is highly relevant to a discussion of reading development and literacy. Dr. Tzipi Horwitz-Kraus from the Department of Neuropsychology at Kennedy Krieger Institute is an international leader in the neuroscience of reading development. She's an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She's also an associate professor of education and science and technology and in biomedical engineering at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. For full disclosure, Tzipi and I are research collaborators on the neuroscience of reading development and we published several papers together. Heidi Daniel is the president and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a true gem in Baltimore, Maryland, where she has been at the helm since July of 2017. Welcome, Tzipi and Heidi. Heidi, you're completing your sixth year leading the Enoch Pratt Free Library. I know that literacy is one of the pillars of the library's strategic plan, especially focused on digital literacy and pre-literacy. Tell us about the library's approach to literacy. Heidi Daniel (HD): The library approaches literacy the way we approach most things through the lens of access. You mentioned having access to high-quality education and high-quality materials is really important for the development of reading and literacy in our population. The library's focus is really on making sure that we're approaching learning and reading as a whole person way of looking at it. We're very focused on family literacy and for our pre-literacy skills and wanting to make sure that we're empowering parents and caregivers and the community around children to be fully literate themselves, to have the skillsets that they need to develop literacy in the children and their families and their care and their communities. Then giving access to high-quality materials to help them develop. That looks like a lot of things. It could be providing access to programming around development of brain, development of reading. It's modeling, it's doing programs that model, seeing, read, play with your children. It's providing play rich environments where children have the opportunity to play and explore while also having a lot of rent around them integrated into their play scape. Because we know that children learn through play. It's also that digital literacy piece. As we recognize that digital literacy is critical to the communities that we service and through really our whole world. We're all connected to devices and screens. How does that play out when we start to talk about children learning to read and children's brain development. Even in our teens, how does that interact with their continued growth and development? We really want to make sure that parents are educated on the impact of devices, and that they have access to high-quality apps and materials on those devices. We're not telling people to stay away from screens and only take out print books. If you know anything about the library, we've got tons of electronic resources for folks to access. But what we want to make sure is that caregivers feel empowered to make decisions around high-quality electronic usage. What apps are really educational and useful? How much screen time kids should be having? Really looking at all of the things that come into play when we talk about the interaction of literacy and devices and that they know how to correctly use them for empowerment so that it's not just that junk food approach, doing what feels good, but maybe what isn't like super nutritional for your brain. We take that approach as well as connecting families to all the additional resources they might need to support growth and learning in their home. BS: That sets us up so well for the discussion that we're about to have. Tzipi, tell us a bit about your work on understanding how our brains learn to read. Tzipi Horwitz-Kraus (TH-K): I've been working on the neurobiology of reading for I think 15 years now. I started coming out from a very personal place with having several family members with dyslexia, with the basically difficulty in reading, struggle with reading along the years. I saw that aside to wonderful thinking skills, great intelligence, right ability to manage in your environment. It struck me, how can it be, how can these intelligent individuals struggle with this ability that most of us are doing so naturally? I started digging in and doing the academic journal that I'm having for many years. I started looking for biomarkers, for reading difficulties, and we started looking at different neuroimaging tools or tools that helps us to understand how the brain works. We found that individuals with dyslexia, when they are adults, their brain basically does not recognize that they're making reading errors. Then we said, let's see if this is modifiable. Can we train them to better recognize words and can their brain actually realize that they made reading errors? We found that the brain is plastic, so we moved on to kids and we found that the kid's brain, even if they have dyslexia, is even more plastic than the adult brain that has dyslexia. In the past years, aside to work that we are doing with children with dyslexia and reading difficulties, and we will talk more about it, we started looking at younger kids at pre-reading age and we're trying to see whether we can minimize reading difficulties, and for better effect, not only reading difficulties, let's make all kids love reading because this is one of the most enjoyable activities that kids can do themselves and definitely can do with their parents. BS: As I mentioned earlier, human spoken language dates back on the order of probably 100,000 or a couple of 100,000 years ago. But written language and therefore reading, it's really been around just 5,000 years. What are the implications of how relatively new reading is for the human experience? How does that affect the way you think about investigating the way the brain learns to read? TH-K: This is an amazing question and there is a lot of literature about it that relates to this whole process as recycling these brain networks that were originally aimed to listen, to see, to pay attention to things in order to work together, so reading is accomplished. I think when we're talking about recycling these networks. This is a term coined by a researcher named Dehaene 2009. We kind of understand that maybe not all people can recycle these networks and maybe these brain networks cannot be recycled as easily for everybody. That only emphasizes how much this process is not really intuitive. Which means that in order for these networks to be active together, in order for us to see the words, to listen to the words in our thought and to pay attention to the words, then the timing of this activity needs to be very, very precise. The teaching or the tutoring of this process needs to be very explicit. So it's not intuitive for all kids. BS: Along those lines, what does the research tell us about the best approaches and at what ages it's best to introduce a child to reading? TH-K: Oh, wow. If we go back to the American Pediatric Association, they will tell you that a child should be exposed to reading from birth basically. If we talk about these brain regions that are related to reading, which are visual regions, auditory listening regions, attention regions, meaning, so language and vocabulary these brain networks are really ready to perceive this information at birth. I think that a fine stimulation of these brain regions using storytelling in a different way that matches the child age, using different methods like as batteries or speaking in a voice or reading the story and the voice that the young child can listen and process and then when the child is older, showing the words with the finger that the parent is reading is a great way even at early ages. We do see some of our studies that are looking at children at pre-reading age that are exposed massively or even not massively, are exposed to more hours of stories told by their parents and that they're exposed to more books in their household that even in their close environment basically show greater engagement of brain regions related to imagination when they just listen to stories so they're not seeing anything, but they can imagine the stories. BS: So Heidi, along those same lines of this early exposure, can you talk about some of the programs that you've implemented at the Enoch Pratt Free Library for early reading opportunities for young children. HD: As we talked about, it's really important that caregivers feel less self-conscious about doing anything right and use these intuitive techniques that come naturally to us when we're working with small and young children reading in a calm voice, letting them take breaks and walk away, letting them come back. Singing, playing with them while you're reading, letting them touch the words, pointing out the words. We do all of that naturally through our programming that we do with young children that is family-oriented. We have what people call the traditional story time at the library, we still have all of those. Then we also do some extra programs. We have a program called Books For Me that's been quite successful that really focuses in on groups of parents that partake in a cohort together and from their child's very young, we love to start at birth, right through as their children get older and even including older siblings and the experience of coming together and reading. The program really focuses on that modeling of using different techniques and there's five or six that the American Library Association really encourage parents to use that include things like singing, playing rhyming. Rhyming is really important. Showing the words doing left to right and focusing in on that phonological awareness. A lot of that can happen best through print. We also, through part of that program built home libraries because it's really important that children have access to literature and quality books in their home. I think a lot of studies show that the number of books in the home correlates with better educational outcomes later in life. So for us, we recognize that the cost of books is a big barrier and obviously we want you to come to the library and take out as many books as possible. But so many of our programs now focus on also building that home library for young children and then also even during our summer break programming for older kids and adults as well. Because it's also really important for young children to see the adults in their life reading as well so that they see that this is something important, this is something enjoyable. As the library we love to focus in on, like let your child love to read, especially as they get older, don't worry quite so much about that reading level. Obviously, there's markers and signs that you want to be thoughtful of if they're not developing correctly. But also really just let your child read books. My son is a reluctant reader and he loves Captain Underpants and I let him read that well past his level of reading, he was well beyond it lexical wise, but he just enjoyed reading them and it was the same with Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Just let them have fun and enjoy it. That's part of the beauty of reading is you get this wonderful experience out of it and it develops empathy and kindness in our brains, and really the ability to think about other people. I think sometimes when we work with parents at the public library, we have the privilege and ability to be able to say, make this a really enjoyable bonding experience with your child. Even if you're making up part of the story and they were walking away and they're coming back, it is okay, the idea of the written word being an enjoyable experience, it's also really important and having a lot of print rich environments for your child to explore is also a key development piece. BS: We've used this term dyslexia a couple of times now. So Tzipi, let's talk about it. What is dyslexia exactly? Why do some children have difficulty learning to read, despite all the other efforts being made to enhance the environment, access to education, intellectual ability, all of that. Why still do some children have difficulty learning to read? TH-K: Let's start with the definition for dyslexia. Dyslexia is defined as slow and inaccurate reading despite average IQ and higher. The typical exposure to written language. The reason for dyslexia is neurobiological. It's basically a brain that is active differently. Based on what we said at the beginning of the recycling of these networks that we're actually supposed to see and listen and pay attention to something that is happening in your visual field or when you hear something, there's really not surprising that there are situations that individuals just have difficulties reading. In our studies, this is exactly what we research. Is there a specific brain activity that we see in individuals with dyslexia? Can it be modified? Do we have different profiles of children with reading difficulties? Those who have attention difficulties in reading difficulties, are they the same as those with just reading difficulties? Because this reading network is so complex, it is really not surprising that reading difficulties can occur due to error sort of say, in different places in the network. We see children with epilepsy that suffer from reading difficulties, those with autism disorder, that suffer from reading difficulties and many, many more. I can say that the classical finding that was replicated by several researchers is that individuals with dyslexia show a greater engagement of the right side of the brain when they read as opposed to the average population, the children engagement of the left side of the brain when they read. This is a pattern that we're seeing in several studies, regardless or in most languages, I would like to say. BS: How early can reading issues such as you're describing be identified in a child? Can you talk about pre literacy skills and whether difficulty attaining those reading skills, those pre literacy skills predicts difficulty reading. TH-K: I think that Heidi touched upon some of these early markers. If we think about reading, as I said, I think that reading start developing when the child is born because the infrastructure for reading start developing right there and even beforehand in the uterus. I would say that early markers for future reading difficulties or for the occurrence of future reading difficulties would be related to the awareness to the tiny little sounds in language, the ability to repeat a word that you're hearing, the naming of the letters was found that the ability to name letters fast and accurately, which together is called automatically, is a marker for a future reading achievement. These kind of markers would probably predict the occurrence of feeding difficulties in future .BS: A significant direction of your work and something that you and I have collaborated on over the years is the role of executive function in reading. You talked about attention so broadly, executive function and how that influences reading development. Can you talk about how executive functioning is linked to reading issues and does treating executive dysfunction improve reading outcomes for example in children that have both ADHD and dyslexia? TH-K: Executive functions might be a term that not everybody are familiar with, and also in the field of psychology, this is like an umbrella term for many sub cognitive abilities that are related to learning from our own mistakes for example these include working memory, which is our ability to capture several items in our memory and to manipulate them. Speed of processing. How fast we process information and inhibition our ability not to respond immediately, but to hold that thought and wait with it. Some also referred to attention as part of executive function and some do not. We think, and what we find our studies is that executive functions might be the synchronizer of the reading system. What do I mean by that? We talked about the visual system that we see that is related to the ability to read words orthographically. To read the words holistically without decoding each letter at a time. We have the auditory system that is located in a different region in the brain that is related to the phonological processing steps. The ability to be aware that the tiny little sounds in language and also to decode letter and sound. In order to have a fluent reading, these two systems must be active in a synchronous manner. What we see in our studies is that executive functions or brain regions that are related to executive functions usually mapped to the frontal lobe but my neuroscience fellows will absolutely not like what I'm saying now, because this is an overall simplicity of this situation. But for now, let's just say in frontal regions of the brain, these regions basically synchronize the visual and auditory regions in our brain and we think that this is a critical role of executive functions. In a way, we can think about a metaphor of an orchestra where you have lots of tools in your orchestra, but you have the conductor who synchronize them altogether into a nice melody and we think that this is what executive functions are doing during the reading process. BS: One of the topics that has come up already, we've talked about screen time, different types of technology of how we are now viewing the written word. What do we know about how the use of technology or screen time affects the developing brain and pre literacy, learning to read? TH-K: This is a question My kids always tell me, please mom do not talk with my friends about screen, please. I can only speak for what we know scientifically. Let's put all our belief aside. What we found in several very innovative neuroimaging studies that are looking at neurobiological correlates for screen time. That children already at the age of three to five years when they're exposed to higher screen time. And that involves tablets and smartphones and television and all kinds of screens. The greater the time is, the less organized the white matter tracks in the brain. What are these white matter track? These are basically, we can think about them as the roads that connect the cities and if we're talking about cities, let's talk about the visual and the auditory regions that we just talked about and the executive functions related regions. These are the cities. They communicate with each other by roads that connect them. These are exactly the white matter tracks that I'm talking about. What the research shows is that the higher the screen time is, the less organized these roads are. If you're driving in a less organized road and you have a bump or you have a hole or you have whatever during your ride, the information or the car will move much slower than what we find is that for 3-5 year old kids, the higher the screen exposure is, the lower the organization is in these white matter, we also see that the cities themselves or the gray matter of regions that are part of the visual, auditory and executive function system is different. It's less thick. The cortex is less thick in these regions and this is in pre literacy age. We do not really know what is happening earlier in a younger age group. BS: I was going to ask you about these younger age group because we know that multiple guidelines from professional societies, medical, psychological and others, they recommend no screen time for children less than two years of age. That's a pretty stark recommendation. What is the level of evidence that we have at this time for zero screen time for under two years? TH-K: I think that unfortunately we cannot have a definitive answer for this question because in order to be able to answer this question, we will have to have longitudinal studies tracking screen time from birth onwards and see how that affects the child's brain. However, birth to five years old is really the critical time for brain development. There are different processes like the synaptogenesis. Where these synopsis are created and the pruning where it's cut when it's not being used, so many processes in this. Within these five years, if our results from 3-5 year old kids show this dramatic effect, I can only assume that kids that are younger than that, screen exposure will not be beneficial for them. BS: Right. I think it's reasonable to say that we should limit screen time. The research is not there yet to be really determinative. It is also fair to say that it's okay to FaceTime with grandma, it's okay to read back and forth, pointing to the words on a screen with your child if you're engaged in reading. It's not that all screen time necessarily is aversive to the brain's development, but we do know and we can extrapolate is that large quantities of screen time are probably to be avoided. We've been talking about reading off the screen. Does it even matter? Does it matter if you're reading off of the printed page or off of a screen in terms of how the brain is processing the printed word? TH-K: This is an excellent question that we really wanted to answer using MRI. MRI is this tube and this huge magnetic field. It's really hard to get a book inside the MRI to really see how your brain is active when you read a paper-printed based book, but you can use other tools for that. You can use EEG, electroencephalogram, which is this cap with the electrodes that measures brain electricity signal from your scalp. This is what we've done, a really freshly published paper that looked at brain activation of children that are 6-8 years old that are reading from the computer screen versus reading from a printed paper. What we found is that when children were reading from the screen, their brain activation looked like a brain activation of a distracted person. Patterns that look like a cognitive overload that's probably related to the way the individual is screening the screen, so the pattern of actual reading while reading from the screen, and there are behavioral studies supporting that. That there is a greater cognitive overload when you read from a screen versus when you read from a paper, both in adults and both in children. This is what we found. Again, would love to run greater studies compared to that one. BS: Heidi, how do you approach this question, reading from the screen versus the printed page? HD: We approach that in the same way. Start with the professional guidelines and the research which does show that young children tend to be more distracted when they're reading from screens and that there's less exchange verbally between the parent and the child also when they're reading from a screen or looking at images on the screen than when they're reading from print. It reduces that exchange of words between the caregiver and the child and it also means that there's less bonding going on, less intimacy in their reading experience. But it's very distracting when you're reading from the screen because there are things that come along, that are pop-ups, they're ads and that again gets to the quality of what you're putting on the screen in front of your child as well. Most of our children's librarians have taken a lot of media literacy classes to learn how to vet and evaluate apps. If we're loaning devices, the apps that are on those devices have been prevented to make sure that they don't have pop-ups, or distracting graphics, or things that would take away from the experience of reading with the child. Again, it gets back to what I said earlier about that junk food approach. Not everything is created equal just because you can access it. We recognize that a lot of parents are looking for those free apps, so a lot of times we will purchase the app, load up a device, and let parents borrow them so that we're ensuring that they're getting higher-quality experiences with their children that are appropriately aged 3-5, for that screen time so that it's more quality screen time as well. As a mom, like I can tell you I've handed my child a device in the shopping cart just so that I can get my things done, but we want to make sure that what we're giving them is high quality exposure. TH-K: To your point, Heidi, you were talking about destruction and I wanted to share really interesting study that we conducted looking at the effect of smartphone existence and text messages that are sent to the parents while they're reading a book to the child. Let's say you decided to read a book to the child. Great. Good for you. You're reading it dialogically, so with a lot of excitement in the air. Then all of us parents, we have our phone and we just got a text message, so we're just peeking at it. What is happening to this dialogue and to this interaction that we just had with the kids? Luckily, neuroimaging data can reveal what is happening between these two brains. What we found using a really interesting neuroimaging technique that is called hyperscanning, so we collect data both from the parent and from the child while they're reading a book, we saw that the ability of the parent and child to pay attention to each other, what we call joint attention, that we can actually measure looking at the brain correspondence of these two goes down. For us, it was striking because it opened up so many questions. Does it go back? Do we go back to synchronization with the child after it is interrupted by the device? If you are choosing to read a book for the child, put the phone aside for a couple of minutes. [LAUGHTER] BS: Exactly. Heidi, the library has rolled out some programs including with the summer coming, I know Summer Break Baltimore. Can you describe that program, how does it work, and what are some of the early outcomes from it? HD: This Summer Break Baltimore program is really our new take on the classic summer reading program. We changed the focus because it's not just about reading. We also include a lot of experiences in that program as well. There's rewards for attending programs, there's rewards for going to cultural places throughout the community. But the idea is that you keep your child or the child in your care engaged throughout the summer because it combats that summer slide. The fact that children lose usually about a grade level of reading in the summer if they're not engaged in some learning activity. We want to make sure that those levels stay up, so we try to engage children in a wide variety of activities. We have camps during the summer for all age groups, and the earliest readers even get to be read to and get rewards and parents can get rewards for reading as well because we know that that's fun. We really focus on the rewards being building your home library. We give away a lot of books during the summer. The outcomes have been pretty great actually. We had seen quite a dip in summer reading over the years because people are engaged in camps, they're engaged in a lot of activities. Rarely now, as time has changed, you see the two parent, one parent at home available to take their kid to a program at 10:00 AM. It's a lot busier and kids are engaged in a lot more activities. We started going out to camps as well as having camps. We've gone to rec centers, we've partnered with the schools, and we really take this program out so that this way we can incorporate reading into every single piece of the summer experience throughout the community. What we've seen is our numbers were slipping, we had in the low thousands of families participating, and last summer, we had over 20,000 families that finished. We're really excited about how families are engaging with this and I think that piece of also building a summer library, having those books in your home to keep have been really an important piece as well because parents realized that having those books around for children to go back to over and over is really valuable in your child's learning journey. It's been great. We hope more families will engage with it or continue to engage with it so that we can keep those summer scores up. BS: If we can, let's put a link to the library summer books program on our website or web page for this episode so we could direct families to it. The other thing I'd like to link, if we could, is I know that the two of you were part of a webinar through the library that was recorded on April 17th. It's probably a similar conversation I would imagine, but perhaps a bit longer and more in-depth, but I think we should be able to link that webinar to the web page for this episode as well. That would be great. TH-K: Definitely. BS: Thank you both. I want to thank our guests for this fascinating discussion on reading development. We hope you our listeners have found this topic interesting and informative and that you'll consider sharing this podcast and rating it. You can check out our entire library of topics on Your Child's Brain at Wypr.org, KennedyKrieger.org, Wypr.org/studios, or wherever you get your podcasts. You've been listening to Your Child's Brain. Your Child's Brain is produced by Kennedy Krieger Institute with assistance from WYPR and producer Spencer Bryant. Please join us next time as we examine the mysteries of your child's brain.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
D. Watkins is tired of the lies. Lies about being tough, about not feeling pain or loss or rejection. In his latest book, ‘Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments,' Watkins shows how he learned to face those lies and push through to the truth. He hopes everyone, especially young Black men and boys, find that strength from his stories On April 12th, D. Watkins will be in conversation with author Shanita Hubbard at Enoch Pratt Free Library. They will be discussing Hubbard's debut book, “Ride or Die: A Feminist Manifesto for the Well-Being of Black Women.” This interview originally aired on August 1, 2023.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Stoop Storytelling Series and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health partnered last fall to present a night of storytelling by scientists, activists, and community members sharing personal stories about urgent public health issues. In part 3, Ashley Esposito, a “litter picker” with Bmore Trashpickers, talks about the story that trash can tell about the health of a community, and Dr. Stephen Thomas, director of the Maryland Center for Health Equity at the University of Maryland School of Public Health in College Park and founder of the Barbershop Project talks about the power of barbershops as places of health education. These stories were recorded on September 22, 2022 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
The Stoop Storytelling Series and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health partnered last fall to present a night of storytelling by scientists, activists, and community members sharing personal stories about urgent public health issues. In part 2, we hear from Cleo Hirsch, the executive director of COVID Response at Baltimore City Public Schools about creating “learning pods” for some of the most vulnerable kids in the city, and Tyde-Courtney Edwards, founding director of Ballet After Dark on surviving trauma through dance. These stories were recorded on September 22, 2022 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
The Stoop Storytelling Series and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health partnered last fall to present a night of storytelling by scientists, activists, and community members sharing personal stories about urgent public health issues. In part 1, Carolyn Sufrin, an obgyn and medical anthropologist, tells her story of how she began working in reproductive health care in prisons, and Cicely Franklin, an overdose prevention specialist with the Baltimore City Health Department, talks about the dual dynamic of working in harm reduction and having a family member with substance abuse issues. These stories were recorded on September 22, 2022 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
Carefully preserved at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland is a lock of hair belonging to one of America's most celebrated authors - Edgar Allan Poe. What insight do these brown strands provide into his bizarre and tragic death? At the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas is a capsule that flew into space before sinking to the bottom of the ocean, almost taking an astronaut with it. How did it happen? The Harbor History Museum in Washington State possesses a medical book that played a central role in the deaths of dozens of ill people. Who wrote it? And what happened to the author's patients?For even more Mysteries at the Museum, head to discovery+. Go to discoveryplus.com/mystery to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Baltimore artists and arts organizations use their talents to positively impact their communities and the world. Today on the Free To Bmore Podcast we talk to the interdisciplinary artist Soledad Salamé about her work exploring environmental and human rights issues, and how Enoch Pratt Free Library plays a role in her research. Salamé's recent work includes an examination of migration resulting from climate change, exacerbated by social-political impact.
I interviewed Jamar Brown Chair of the Pratt Contemporaries. The Pratt Contemporaries are a diverse group of cosmopolitans who seek to raise awareness of the Enoch Pratt Free Library as a vital part of Baltimore's identity. Jamar and I talked about one of their premier events that the Pratt Contemporaries have ever year and it's called the Black & White Party. The Black & White Party is January 28th back at the Central Library for the first time since COVID. The Pratt Contemporaries announced this year's theme is Jekyll and Hyde. The money raised all goes to Children and Teen programming at the Pratt Library. This helps with literacy with Baltimore youth. Listen in on how you can join the Pratt Contemporaries and why joining has so many amazing benefits. Some key dates for the Black & White Party. On January 9th, all Pratt Contemporaries members can purchase their tickets during the presale. Then, the public sale will be January 12th. https://www.prattlibrary.org/support-us/pratt-contemporaries https://www.instagram.com/prattcontemporaries/?hl=en www.nopixafterdark.com
Heidi Daniel joined the Enoch Pratt Free Library as President and CEO in July of 2017. Ms. Daniel is focused on leading the Pratt into the future by breaking down barriers of access for the people of Baltimore and the state of Maryland. In 2018, she led the Pratt to becoming one of the first fine-free public library systems on the East Coast. She managed the $115 million renovation and reopening of the historic Central Library. Under her leadership, the Pratt was named one of the “Nicest Places in America” by Good Morning America and Reader's Digest.Coming to Baltimore from Youngstown, Ohio, Daniel served as Executive Director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. Daniel, the 2015 recipient of the Ohio Librarian of the Year award, oversaw fifteen library branches throughout Mahoning County. During her nearly five years as Executive Director, she worked on several major building projects and spearheaded innovative new services, including a Pop-Up Library and the circulation of mobile Wi-Fi hot spots.Prior to Youngstown, Daniel began her career in children's and teen programming in Oklahoma City and Houston before moving into library administration. She managed multiple neighborhood library branches in Houston before becoming Director of the Ohio system.The daughter of a factory worker, her parents did not go to college, but used the library in her Michigan hometown to impress upon her the importance of education. Daniel earned her Bachelor's degree in women's studies at DePaul University and her master's degree in library sciences at Texas Woman's University.Mentioned in the episodeEnoch Pratt LibraryThe Truth In This ArtThe Truth In This Art is a podcast interview series supporting vibrancy and development of Baltimore & beyond's arts and culture. To find more amazing stories from the artist and entrepreneurial scenes in & around Baltimore, check out my episode directory.SPONSORSDoubledutch Boutique: Boutique featuring a curated selection of modern, retro-inspired women's designer clothing. Check out the shop's gifts for holidays for him/her, including items from local makers and new modern lines from abroad and as well as vintage treasures by going to doubledutchboutique.comSPONSORSDoubledutch Boutique: Boutique featuring a curated selection of modern, retro-inspired women's designer clothing. Check out the shop's gifts for holidays for him/her, including items from local makers and new modern lines from abroad and as well as vintage treasures by going to doubledutchboutique.com ★ Support this podcast ★
The fuel of the Underground Railroad was its passengers--enslaved people who summoned their courage to flee. The Railroad's engineer was William Still, a free Black who met them in Philadelphia, fed them and helped them move to freedom. Andrew Diemer, associate professor of history at Towson University, tells the story of that work and what followed in his new book, "Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad." On Thursday, Nov.10 at 7 p.m. at the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Diemer will speak as part of the Writers LIVE! Series. The event will also be live streamed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tom's guest for the hour today is the journalist and author, April Ryan. She is the Washington, DC Bureau Chief and Senior White House correspondent for The Grio, and a political analyst for CNN. Previously, she reported for the American Urban Radio Networks. A native of Baltimore and a graduate of Morgan State University, April is the longest serving Black female White House correspondent covering urban issues from one of the most prestigious beats in all of journalism. She has covered every President since Bill Clinton. She is also the author of four books, including The Presidency in Black and White (2015); Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House (2018); and At Mama's Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White (2016). Her latest book is an homage to African American women, many of whom she has covered, all of whom she admires. It's called Black Women Will Save the World: An Anthem. April Ryan joins us on Zoom from her home in Baltimore. ____________________________________________ April Ryan will be discussing her new book tomorrow (Saturday Oct. 29) when she delivers the keynote address at the Enlighten, Inspire, Empower Summit at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Pikesville, presented and hosted by India McCleod. (The event is sold out, but check the link for availability.) Ms. Ryan will also be speaking at the Enoch Pratt Free Library at 7pm on Monday, November 7, in conversation with University of Baltimore President Kurt Schmoke. Click the link for details.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, I welcome Meghan McCorkell to the podcast. She is the Chief of Marketing Communications and Strategy at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a large library system in Baltimore. She has extensive professional experience in Journalism and storytelling, has won multiple John Cotton Dana Awards, and discusses the many events she and her team have run successful campaigns for! Meghan finds inspiration from other libraries rather than books, which I totally relate to. Thank you Meghan!Curious about the JOhn Cotton Dana Awards? Check out the requirements for submission on EBSCO's website here: https://www.ebsco.com/about/scholarship-awards/john-cotton-danaThere is still time to register for the upcoming Library Marketing & Communications Conference, here: https://www.librarymarketingconference.org/Have feedback for me? Please send me questions, comments, constructive criticism, and anything else that comes to mind at info@thelibrarianmarketer.org.I've started a website! Find me online at: www.thelibrarianmarketer.org. (It's pretty basic right now).Until next time!Intro & Outro Music Credit: Royalty Free Music by MusicUnlimited from Pixabay.By accessing this Podcast, I acknowledge that the entire contents are the property of Katie Rothley, or used by Katie Rothley with permission, and are protected under U.S. and international copyright and trademark laws. Except as otherwise provided herein, users of this Podcast may save and use information contained in the Podcast only for personal or other non-commercial, educational purposes. No other use, including, without limitation, reproduction, retransmission or editing, of this Podcast may be made without the prior written permission of Katie Rothley.This podcast is for educational purposes only. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein.
Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/baltimores-enoch-pratt-free-library-workers-move-to-unionizeEmployees of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library system have announced their intention to unionize, citing better pay, benefits for all, and greater employee input into working conditions as their chief motivations. Seeking voluntary recognition from Pratt leadership, Pratt Workers United hopes to join AFSCME Council 67, where workers from Walters Art Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art are also seeking representation. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez interviews Pratt Workers United organizers Marti Dirscheri and Antoinette Wilson on the unionization campaign.Studio/Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnews
Celebrate the finalists in the 2022 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review! The three finalists, Maryland's Poet Laureate, and LPR's head editor read. Caitlin Wilson, the winner of the 2022 Poetry Contest, is a Maryland poet. She holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her writing has appeared in ENTROPY, filling Station, Iron Horse Literary Review, McNeese Review, RHINO, Rogue Agent, and Wildness. She was a 2021 Sewanee Writer's Conference contributor and recipient of VCU's 2021 and 2020 Graduate Poetry Awards, a 2019 AWP Intro Journals Project award, the 2018 Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award, and a Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize for Poetry. She previously served as managing editor of Blackbird. Alicia Potee, a 2022 Poetry Contest finalist, is a Maryland native and 2002 graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis. Her poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, Hawaii-Pacific Review, and The Baltimore Review, among other places. She lives in Towson with her two kids and a rescued mutt named Romeo. Robert Schreur, a 2022 Poetry Contest finalist, is a psychotherapist and clinical supervisor in community psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. A volume of his selected poems, That Said, was published in 2018. He has lived in Baltimore for 37 years. Grace Cavalieri is Maryland's tenth Poet Laureate. Her new books are Grace Art: Poems & Paintings and The Secret Letters of Madame de Stael (both 2021). She founded and produces The Poet and the Poem for public radio, now from the Library of Congress, celebrating 45 years on-air. This series of several hundred poets will be shot to the moon in the Lunar Codex in 2022 as the first podcast series on the moon. Grace's forthcoming book is The Long Game: Selected and New Poems (2022). She has a poem in LPR's summer 2022 issue. Chelsea Lemon Fetzer, a contest judge, holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and earned her MFA in Fiction at Syracuse University in 2008. She is a 2019 Rubys recipient for the Literary Arts and a recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's 2022 Independent Artist Award. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, Tin House, Mississippi Review, and Minnesota Review. Her essay “Speck” appears in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century. Fetzer teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Baltimore, serves as vice chair on the board of CityLit Project, and is lead editor of the Little Patuxent Review. Pictured: (top row) Alicia Potee, Caitlin Wilson, Robert Schreur, (bottom row) Grace Cavalieri, Chelsea Lemon Fetzer. Recorded On: Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Believe in Baltimore: A Podcast Conversation Hosted by Govans Presbyterian Church
Poonam Prasad and Gloria Bartas discuss anniversary celebrations for the Govans Branch Library and their work during the pandemic. Poonam is the Branch Manager of the Enoch Pratt Free Library - Govans Branch and Gloria is the children's librarian there. Learn more about the library online. Believe in Baltimore is a podcast conversation with community leaders and change-makers in Baltimore, Maryland, hosted by Govans Presbyterian Church. In each episode, we welcome a local leader to share about their work in Charm City, as well as their hopes and dreams for our community. Govans Presbyterian Church is a theologically progressive community empowering people to make the world better. Learn more about Govans and how you can get involved at www.govanspres.org. Stay connected to Govans Presbyterian online through our social platforms, too! Govans Instagram Account - https://www.instagram.com/govanspresbyterian/ Govans YouTube Account - https://www.youtube.com/user/Govanschurch Govans Twitter Account - www.twitter.com/govanschurch Govans Facebook Account - www.facebook.com/govanschurch For more information or to send us your show ideas, email Billy at billy@govanspres.org.
When millions of African Americans moved from the rural south to northern cities, exclusionary zoning and restrictive covenants worked to constrain their space. Over time, these practices evolved into lending discrimination and then into urban renewal projects that displaced Black communities.Georgetown law professor Sheryll Cashin argues that geography is central to the American residential caste system. Her latest book "White Space, Black Hood," and she'll be speaking about it on Thursday at an event hosted by the Enoch Pratt Free Library and OSI-Baltimore.Links:It's Time to Dismantle America's Residential Caste SystemHow Larry Hogan Kept Blacks in Baltimore Segregated and Poor See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Celebrate the finalists in the 2021 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review! The three finalists, another contributor to the summer issue, and LPR's head editor read. Steven Hollies, the winner of the 2021 Poetry Contest, is a Rockville native living mostly inside his head, a 2019 graduate of Howard Community College, and a drop-out from many other times and places. He enjoys playing volleyball, guitar, hooky, jokes, games, with words, around, along, it cool, hard to get, with fire, and the fool. Read "Body/language," the poem that won the 2021 Poetry Contest. Virginia Crawford, a 2021 Poetry Contest finalist, is a long-time teaching artist with the Maryland State Arts Council. She has co-edited two anthologies: Poetry Baltimore, poems about a city and Voices Fly, An Anthology of Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Program from CityLit Press. She earned degrees in Creative Writing from Emerson College, Boston, and The University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Her book Touch appeared in 2013 from Finishing Line Press. Apprentice House Press published questions for water in April 2021. She writes and lives in Baltimore. Learn more at virginiacrawford.com. Rosemary Hutzler, a 2021 Poetry Contest finalist, teaches, writes, and mothers in northwest Baltimore. Growing up on an island near Seattle, she was imprinted by natural beauty, quirky houses, and iconoclastic personalities. She also lived in Maine, Connecticut, France, and Brooklyn before settling into Baltimore and its Jewish community. Her teachers have included John Hollander, Michael Collier, Mark Strand, and Gerald Stern. Her work has appeared in the Texas Observer, the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore City Paper, the Forward, Nimrod, and elsewhere. Read her translation of R.M. Rilke's "Grown Woman" and her review of a republication of Ellen La Motte's Backwash of War. .chisaraokwu. (she/her), a contributor to LPR's summer 2021 issue, is an Igbo American actor, poet, and healthcare futurist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in many journals, including Berkeley Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Obsidian, and Tinderbox Poetry. Named a Cave Canem Fellow in 2020, she looks forward to post-pandemic travel. Read her poem "The Suicide Bomber Climbs A Mountain & Leaves A Note." Chelsea Lemon Fetzer, a contest judge, holds an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, Tin House, Mississippi Review, and Minnesota Review. Her essay “Speck” appears in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about being Mixed Race in the 21st Century. She is a 2019 Rubys recipient for the Literary Arts. Fetzer currently teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Baltimore. She serves on the board of CityLit Project and as head editor of Little Patuxent Review, a literary and arts journal that publishes creative work from the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond. Read her poem "flare." Pictured: (top row) Virginia Crawford, Steven Hollies, Rosemary Hutzler, (bottom row) .chisaraokwu., Chelsea Lemon Fetzer. Recorded On: Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Last month, the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore hosted our own Keith Chow in conversation with New York Times bestselling author Kevin Kwan as part of their "Writer's Live" series. Because they spent a portion of their talk discussing Kevin's childhood in Texas, we are presenting that conversation in its entirety for Southern Fried Asian! The evening was kicked off by Hannah of the Ivy Bookshop and Pratt Library CEO Heidi Daniel (1:00). Keith and Kevin start their conversation by noting that the Sex and Vanity book tour has been completely consumed by COVID (5:00). Then, Kevin explains why it's important to him to center Asian American romance in his books (9:30) before shifting into the story of how his family ended up immigrating to a town outside Houston (19:00) and why chicken fried steak and high school cafeteria food was the best thing that happened to him in America (29:00). Later, they bring the conversation back to Sex and Vanity and what it was like writing the book in the wake of the Crazy Rich Asians phenomenon (32:00) before moving into audience Q&A (34:00). Subscribe to the Southern Fried Asian podcast on iTunes, Google Play, NPR One, Spotify, and Stitcher Radio! Support Hard NOC Media on Patreon and GoFundMe. Buy merch on TeePublic! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Also, welcome new listeners who have found this podcast because Vanity Fair named it an "essential AAPI listen!" Our official theme music is the song "Top Down" by Chops, Timothy Flu, and Mic Barz. Podcast logo by Jef Castro. Southern Fried Asian is produced by Keith Chow and Jes Vu.
Leslie Gray Streeter is in conversation with Melanie Hood-Wilson about her book, Black Widow. Looking at widowhood through the prism of race, mixed marriage, and aging, Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like "Journey" in the Title redefines the stages of grief, from coffin shopping to day-drinking, to being a grown-ass woman crying for your mommy, to breaking up and making up with God, to facing the fact that life goes on even after the death of the person you were supposed to live it with. While she stumbles toward an uncertain future as a single mother raising a baby with her own widowed mother (plot twist!), Leslie looks back on her love story with Scott, recounting their journey through racism, religious differences, and persistent confusion about what kugel is. Will she find the strength to finish the most important thing that she and Scottd? Tender, true, and endearingly hilarious, Black Widow is a story about the power of love, and how the only guide book for recovery is the one you write yourself. Leslie Gray Streeter is an author, veteran journalist and speaker. whose memoir Black Widow, was published in March 2020 by Little, Brown and Company. Until recently, she was the longtime entertainment and lifestyle columnist and writer for the Palm Beach Post. A native of Baltimore, MD and a University of Maryland graduate, she and her work have been featured in The Miami Herald, the Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Atlantic, the Today show, SiriusXM, O, The Oprah Magazine and more. She lives with her son Brooks and her mother Tina in her hometown of Baltimore, which she moved back to last summer. She's a slow runner, an amateur vegan cook and a true crime and “Law and Order” enthusiast, as well as a proud former regular at the Northwood branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library! After receiving her BA in ‘93 and MSEd in '94 from Sarah Lawrence College, Melanie Hood-Wilson returned to Baltimore to teach. In 2001, she was hired to lead the Single Step Program at CCBC, growing the program from eight students to over 300 and winning five local and statewide awards. In 2019, she launched Melanie Hood-Wilson and Associates which provides trainings and accountability planning in diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as academic and disabilities support. Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Aaron Dante has an amazing conversation with the Meghan McCorkell the Marketing and Communication Director at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. since 2017 We discuss what the Library has been up to during the pandemic. How they helped with mobile hot spot throughout the pandemic. For people applying for jobs or kids that needed to do schoolwork while at home., How they have hired more people during the pandemic. We talk about the programs that the library offers to residents in Baltimore City. This blew my mind when Meghan told me all of the resources. We have Amber an Urban Designer talk about Harlem Park Laurel talks about confession Thursday Charmyra gives her words of wisdom.
CityLit Project joins the Enoch Pratt Free Library in presenting the CityLit Festival - Reimagined: a virtual celebration of the literary arts In an exhilarating tale of colliding worlds, Emily St. John’s The Glass Hotel paints a breathtaking portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives. In Jenny Offill’s funny and urgent Weather, the foreboding sense of doom commands a family and presents a nation in crisis, and how we weather it. The authors will be in a conversation moderated by Marion Winik, author of The Big Book of the Dead. Jenny Offill is the author of the novels Last Things (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the L.A. Times First Book Award); Dept. of Speculation, which was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Pen Faulkner Award and the International Dublin Award; and most recently Weather, an instant New York Times Bestseller. She lives in upstate New York and teaches at Syracuse University and in the low residency program at Queens University. Emily St. John Mandel's five novels include The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award and has been translated into thirty-two languages. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. University of Baltimore professor Marion Winik is the author of The Big Book of the Dead and winner of the 2019 Towson Prize for Literature. Among her ten other books are First Comes Love and Above Us Only Sky. Her award-winning Bohemian Rhapsody column appears monthly at Baltimore Fishbowl, and her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere. A board member of the National Book Critics Circle, she writes book reviews for People, Newsday, The Washington Post, and Kirkus Reviews; she hosts The Weekly Reader podcast at WYPR. She was a commentator on NPR for fifteen years; her honors include an NEA Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction. More info at marionwinik.com. The Writer's Room is a new Festival highlight designed to engage festival attendees, who are also writers, in an informal conversation with the featured guest authors. Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Tuesday, March 2, 2021
On the anniversary of Lucille Clifton’s passing, join Enoch Pratt Free Library and the Clifton House in a celebration of her generous spirit and writing. Our esteemed featured speaker is Natasha Trethewey. Natasha Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014). She is the author of five collections of poetry, Monument (2018), which was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award; Thrall (2012); Native Guard (2006), for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002); and Domestic Work (2000), which was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. She is also the author of the memoir Memorial Drive (2020). Her book of nonfiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, appeared in 2010. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. At Northwestern University she is a Board of Trustees Professor of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. In 2012 she was named Poet Laureate of the State of Mississippi and and in 2013 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Recorded On: Saturday, February 13, 2021
Dr. Carla Hayden is the 14th Librarian of Congress, and the first woman and the first African-American ever to hold that prestigious pose. Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Carla grew up in Queens and in Chicago. Her parents were both talented musicians – her father taught music at Florida A&M University – but Carla, by her own admission, did not have the music gene. What she did have was a love of knowledge and of reading.After graduating from Roosevelt University in Chicago, and while looking for work, she became an “Accidental Librarian.” A college friend gave her a lead on a job in a public library. That tip led to a career in librarianship, including a doctorate in library science from the Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago, a teaching post at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Science, and leadership roles in the public library systems in both Chicago and Baltimore.In Baltimore, as Executive Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Carla led that city's magnificent public library system for almost a quarter of a century and was widely praised – and properly so – for keeping the libraries open in the wake of riots that shook Baltimore in 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray - an African-American - man in police custody.In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Carla to serve as the 14th Librarian of Congress. Upon her confirmation by the Senate, she took over that prestigious post.The Library of Congress is a crown jewel. It dates to 1800, and one of its first large acquisitions of books came from the personal library of Thomas Jefferson. Though the Library of Congress was originally housed in the U.S. Capitol Building itself, fires in 1814 and 1851 – the first set by the British, the second, an accident – and a burgeoning collection required that the library move to its own building. Today, its astonishing collection is housed in numerous buildings, including the Jefferson Building, which contains the breathtaking Main Reading Room, completed in 1897. The Library of Congress today has more than 171 million items, including 32 million catalogued books in 470 languages, 61 million manuscripts, 15 million photographs, 5 million maps, the papers of 23 presidents, and extraordinarily rare and precious books, including an original Gutenberg Bible and the Lincoln Bible. In fact, when Carla Hayden took the oath of office for the post she now holds, she took it on the original Lincoln Bible. She shares with podcast host Chuck Rosenberg a wonderful story about that day, that Bible, her mom, and the oath.In 2021, Carla is also leading a new Library-wide initiative, Of the People: Widening the Path, to connect the national library more deeply with Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and other underrepresented communities. To do this, the Library of Congress plans to expand its collections, use technology to enable storytelling, and offer more internship and fellowship opportunities to attract diverse librarians and archivists. The initiative, supported by a $15 million investment from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will allow the Library of Congress to share a more inclusive story about our contemporary American culture, our historical record and how we understand our past.The Library of Congress is a Palace to Knowledge. It is one of the most important cultural institutions in the United States, and in the world. The person privileged to run it is Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress.If you have thoughtful feedback on this episode or others, please email us at theoathpodcast@gmail.com.Find the transcript and all our previous episodes at MSNBC.com/TheOath
Tom's next guest is D. Watkins, an editor-at-large for Salon and a lecturer at the University of Baltimore’s Klein Family School of Communication Design. D. is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America, and The Cookup: A Crack Memoir. His latest book is called We Speak for Ourselves: How Woke Culture Prohibits Progress, which has been named the 2020 One Book Baltimore selection. One Book Baltimore is a collaboration among several local organizations, including the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Baltimore City Public Schools, to provide opportunities for the city's 7th and 8th graders, their families, and community members to connect with each other by reading the same book. Discussions and programming are being held across the city to spark conversations designed to inspire young people, and promote positive change in the community. There will be a special One Book Baltimore virtual event on January 15, from 10-11:30am, featuring D. and two past participating authors, Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds. They will be in conversation with WYPR’s Future Cities host Wes Moore. To register for this free online event, click here.
Today on Midday, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’re going to take a break from news about the pandemic, or our recalcitrant president, or the intractable murder rate here in Baltimore City. Instead, we are going to take some time to show Baltimore a little love. It is easy to complain about our town. It takes only a mild dash of cynicism to point out what’s wrong with Baltimore. But as veteran journalist Ron Cassie’s new book demonstrates, it’s also easy to celebrate our town, and the many characters who populate it, and the many places in it where sometimes downright magical stuff happens. Ron Cassie is a senior editor at Baltimore Magazine. These days, when you turn to the final page of BMag, you are treated to a column by Ron called “You Are Here: Life in Baltimore Observed.” His new book is a collection of columns like these, which he began writing in 2008... From the last days at the Bel Loc Diner and Bethlehem Steel, to a High Heel Race at the Baltimore Pride Festival and the Baltimore Marathon, from an oven called “the Duchess” to the Dome, a famed East Side basketball court, Cassie profiles senators and swim teachers, pitchers and preachers, bunnies and bon-vivants, in a collection that creates a vivid portrait of our town, and its engaged and engaging people. We welcome listener calls and comments today. What are your favorite spots in Baltimore? Your favorite memories? Your most memorable experiences? The book is called If You Love Baltimore, It Will Love You Back: 171 Short, But True Stories. Ron Cassie joins us on Zoom... Ron Cassie will be discussing his new book - and providing a brief video tour of his home - at a special "Writers Cribs!" virtual event hosted by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, next Wednesday, December 2, from 7-8pm. For information on registering for this free event, click here.
Mary Rizzo is in conversation with Wesley Wilson and Melvin Brown. In Come and Be Shocked, Mary Rizzo examines the cultural history and racial politics of these contrasting images of the city. From the 1950s, a period of urban crisis and urban renewal, to the early twenty-first century, Rizzo looks at how artists created powerful images of Baltimore. How, Rizzo asks, do the imaginary cities created by artists affect the real cities that we live in? How does public policy (intentionally or not) shape the kinds of cultural representations that artists create? And why has the relationship between artists and Baltimore city officials been so fraught, resulting in public battles over film permits and censorship? To answer these questions, Rizzo explores the rise of tourism, urban branding, and citizen activism. She considers artists working in the margins, from the East Baltimore poets writing in Chicory, a community magazine funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity, to a young John Waters, who shot his early low-budget movies on the streets, guerrilla-style. She also investigates more mainstream art, from the teen dance sensation The Buddy Deane Show to the comedy-drama Roc to the crime show The Wire, from Anne Tyler's award-winning book The Accidental Tourist to Barry Levinson's movie classic Diner. Mary Rizzo is an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University–Newark. She is the author of Class Acts: Young Men and the Rise of Lifestyle and founder of the Chicory Revitalization Project. Melvin E. Brown was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Columbia University and is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. He was the longest serving editor of Chicory Magazine published by the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Community Action Program (1966-1983). Melvin is a former faculty member at Sojourner Douglass College and Towson University, where he taught African American Literature and Creative Writing. Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Tuesday, September 22, 2020
We all have more time to read and learn during this crisis! Here's what a great library system means to a community...
As the Pratt Library moves into phase two of its Road to Reopening, what will it look like? Heidi Daniel, CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system, talks about serving patrons during the pandemic. When doors closed in March, the library focused on expanding its collection of digital resources. On Monday, the Pratt will begin offering books by mail, contact-free pick up, and drive-in wi-fi at eight locations. Daniel says these are all steps to stay safely connected to the community. Click here for the calendar of virtual events. Reach the reference line at: 410-396-5430.
Five years ago this week, the city of Baltimore was upended by protests and riots following the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old unarmed black man who died while in Baltimore Police Department custody. Wes Moore, a Baltimore native and author of The Other Wes Moore and The Work: Searching for a Life that Matters, looks at Gray’s death and its aftereffects in his upcoming book, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, cowritten with former Baltimore Sun reporter Erica L. Green and available August 18 (One World/Penguin Random House). In this special bonus episode of the Dewey Decibel podcast, American Libraries Senior Editor and Dewey Decibel host Phil Morehart talks with Moore about his book, socioeconomic conditions in Baltimore, and how Enoch Pratt Free Library was the bedrock of the city during the riots.
Through digital platforms, and telecommunication, the Enoch Pratt Library is making valuable resources like, tutors, research databases, online classes and of course, books, available to students across the city.
What if, instead of seeing Baltimore as a collection of troubles, traumas, assets, resources and deficits … we looked at her as the heroine of a novel? Or maybe its hero? What would the story be? That’s the conceit of a gathering tomorrow evening at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. The conversation will be led by D. Watkins of East Baltimore, a writer and lecturer at the University of Baltimore and founder of the B-More Writers Project, and David Brooks of the New York Times and founder of “Weave: the Social Fabric Project” at the Aspen Institute. This event is co-hosted by Thread, a local nonprofit that surrounds struggling teams with a network of volunteers.
Sixteen-millimeter movies are practically relics -- especially compared to the immediacy of Youtube or smartphone videos. But the look and sound of real celluloid stirs an unmistakable nostalgia. The Enoch Pratt Free Library and the Maryland Historical Society will give audiences entry to that nostalgic feeling later this month with “Maryland On Film” ... featuring scenes of Baltimore from the 1920s to the 1990s. We get a preview from Tom Warner, librarian in the ‘Best & Next Department’ of the Enoch Pratt Library/State Library Resource Center and from Joe Tropea, Curator of Films and Photographs at the Maryland Historical Society.
On the 10th anniversary of Lucille Clifton’s passing, join Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Clifton House, and Zora’s Den in a celebration of her generous spirit and writing. Writers will share poems and favorite memories of Lucille Clifton.Featured readers include:Abdul AliDiedre Badejo Linda Joy BurkeCarla Du PreeJessea GabbinJoanne GabbinMichael GlaserJalynn Harris Sharea HarrisZora’s Den (ZD) is a sacred space where Black women writers in search of encouragement and sisterhood can support one another in personal and professional growth. What started in January 2017, as an invitation-only Facebook group of twenty-two sister scribes, has grown to over two hundred women across the United States, and in various countries around the world. Zora’s Den welcomes and encourages its members to stand firmly in their identity as Black women writers.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Re-opening activities are made possible in part by a generous gift from Sandra R. Berman.Recorded On: Thursday, February 13, 2020
On the 10th anniversary of Lucille Clifton’s passing, join Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Clifton House, and Zora’s Den in a celebration of her generous spirit and writing. Writers will share poems and favorite memories of Lucille Clifton.Featured readers include:Abdul AliDiedre Badejo Linda Joy BurkeCarla Du PreeJessea GabbinJoanne GabbinMichael GlaserJalynn Harris Sharea HarrisZora’s Den (ZD) is a sacred space where Black women writers in search of encouragement and sisterhood can support one another in personal and professional growth. What started in January 2017, as an invitation-only Facebook group of twenty-two sister scribes, has grown to over two hundred women across the United States, and in various countries around the world. Zora’s Den welcomes and encourages its members to stand firmly in their identity as Black women writers.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Re-opening activities are made possible in part by a generous gift from Sandra R. Berman.
Racially restrictive housing covenants were once common in Baltimore. Eventually, federal rules and regulations locked in even sharper barriers to mortgage loans and housing access. A traveling exhibit titled, “Undesign the Redline,” now at the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, uses maps and stories to show how explicit racism became structural. Facilitator Trent Hall tells us about the exhibit. He hopes visitors leave with a sense of purpose.
Baltimore native Phil Kane enlisted in the Army in 1941. During WWII, he sent hundreds of letters home to his new bride, Jack. We hear their love story from their daughter, Jacqueline Kane, who collected their letters in the book, ----A Real Whole Lot----.She will be speaking at the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library on November 12th at 6:30 pm. RSVP here.
In the 1800s, Enoch Pratt said Baltimore needed “...a free circulating public library, open to all citizens regardless of property or color.” How is the Enoch Pratt Free Library continuing Pratt’s legacy with renovations to the Central Library? Meghan McCorkell, the library’s Marketing & Communications Director, tells us more.
Midday is thrilled to be broadcasting from the beautifully renovated and restored Enoch Pratt Central Library in downtown Baltimore. The library looks great following a three-year, $115 million dollar face-lift. Today, from an impromptu stage in the Library's grand Central Hall, Midday host Tom Hall and his guests discuss what’s new about the 86-year-old building itself, and the range of programs that the Enoch Pratt Free Library offers. During the broadcast we meet Wesley Wilson, Chief of the Central Library, and Vivian Fisher, Deputy Director and head of the African American Department here at the Central Library. They describe the expanding array of programs and services offered by the Pratt. We begin by welcoming the president and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Heidi Daniel and Jean Campbell. Campbell, an architect, is a senior project manager with Beyer, Blinder, Belle, the architecture firm that that oversaw the renovation of this beautiful and historic building.The Grand Reopening of the Central Library -- a community block party -- is slated for Saturday, September 14, from 11am-4pm. A ribbon cutting ceremony is set for noon, at noon with Pratt CEO Heidi Daniel, Baltimore Mayor Jack Young, Senator Ben Cardin and other city leaders and dignitaries in attendance.Video of the event will be posted soon on the WYPR Facebook Page.
Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins us on this Wednesday afternoon (we're broadcasting live on Thursday from the Enoch Pratt Free Library) for another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, she spotlights the new production of Proof that opens the 2019-2020 season at Baltimore's Everyman Theatre.In playwright David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play, which opened on Broadway in October 2000, we meet Catherine, who has inherited her late father Robert’s house, hundreds of his notebooks, his mathematical genius, and, she fears, his debilitating psychoses. She grants one of her father's best students, Hal, permission to comb through his voluminous writings, where he discovers a revolutionary mathematical proof -- a discovery that sparks a crisis of identity for Catherine. Everyman Resident Company member Megan Anderson, who played Catherine in Everyman's sell-out first production of Proof in 2004, returns to play Catherine’s older sister, Claire. Joining Ms. Anderson in the cast are Jeremy Keith Hunter as Hal, and fellow resident company actors Katie Kleiger as Catherine, and Bruce Randolph Nelson as Robert. Proof, directed by Resident Company member Paige Hernandez, continues at Everyman Theatre through October 6. Follow the link for showtimes and ticketing information.
Carla Hayden, Ph.D, says the Library of Congress is the biggest - the greatest - library in the world. Hayden should know, she’s the Librarian of Congress. And that would make her the world’s top librarian. Hayden visited the Marysville Library on Aug. 1, 2019, along with Congressman Rick Larsen, and then recently joined podcast co-hosts Ken Harvey and Jim Hills for a conversation by phone from her office in Washington, D.C. “I really enjoyed my time at the Marysville Library with Congressman Larsen,” Hayden says. While there, Hayden took a turn at reading a book to a group of nearly 100 children. Hayden began her career as a children’s librarian in Chicago. Larsen followed her, reading another book to the children and impressed Hayden with his skills. “He’s very good," she says. Hayden touched on the evolving roles of public libraries. Before being appointed to her role at the Library of Congress, Hayden spent 23 years at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, the nation’s first library system. Hayden helped “The Pratt” explore new ways to serve the city’s residents, even bringing pop-up libraries to neighborhood laundromats. “Convening is a good word to think about libraries and their meaning to the community,” she says. In many ways, Hayden says her leadership at the Library of Congress mirrors the work she has done in Baltimore and Chicago. “The vision was to let everyone know the Library of Congress is for them,” Hayden says. “That would include a student in a remote area, as well as teacher who needs a lesson plan on Thomas Jefferson, and people interested in things like baseball; we have the world’s largest collection of baseball cards as well as the world’s largest collection of bibles.” Carla Hayden is the 14th Librarian of Congress and nominated to the position by President Barack Obama. Hayden is the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library. She is also the first professional librarian appointed to the post in more than 60 years. Prior to her appointment, she was CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. Hayden was deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993. She was an assistant professor for Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1991. Hayden was library services coordinator for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago from 1982 to 1987. She began her career with the Chicago Public Library as the young adult services coordinator from 1979 to 1982 and as a library associate and children’s librarian from 1973 to 1979. Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003-04. In 1995, she was the first African American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an master’s degree and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. Episode length: 43:16
There is more than one independence day celebrated on American soil. Juneteenth is gaining recognition, but many Americans still don’t understand its significance.National Park Ranger Anokwale Anansesemfo unravels the history behind the holiday that commemorates the proclamation of the end of slavery.Then Sheri Booker, author and spoken word artist, previews her talk at Enoch Pratt Free Library, and shares what she hopes Juneteenth will become.
John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent, will present "The Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore" using newly discovered information found in the Baltimore City Archives, Maryland Historical Society, Enoch Pratt Free Library, and private archives. Muller has presented widely throughout the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area at venues including the Library of Congress, Newseum, Politics and Prose, American Library in Paris and local universities. He is currently working on a book about the lost history of Frederick Douglass on Maryland's Eastern Shore.John Muller will be in conversation with Dr. Ida E. Jones, Morgan State University archivist.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.Recorded On: Thursday, February 28, 2019
John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent, will present "The Lost History of Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore" using newly discovered information found in the Baltimore City Archives, Maryland Historical Society, Enoch Pratt Free Library, and private archives. Muller has presented widely throughout the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area at venues including the Library of Congress, Newseum, Politics and Prose, American Library in Paris and local universities. He is currently working on a book about the lost history of Frederick Douglass on Maryland's Eastern Shore.John Muller will be in conversation with Dr. Ida E. Jones, Morgan State University archivist.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.
Are you still searching for the perfect books to give your loved ones this holiday season? Or are you looking for a book of your own to relax with during the cold days of December?On today's show, Tom considers some of the year's best books, invites listener picks, and solicits the expert recommendations of two very well-placed local book lovers who join us in the studio:Heidi Daniel is the President and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Paula Willey is the Children's Department Head at the Pratts's Southeast Anchor Branch in Highlandtown.Today's conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page.Here is the link to our program page (http://www.wypr.org/post/best-books-holiday-gifts-tips-pratt)
Brigid Kemmerer (@BrigidKemmerer) is the author of MORE THAN WE CAN TELL, a book centering on the separate but soon-intertwining lives of two teens, one growing up in a foster home and the other the creator of an MMO first person shooter. The story calls into question what it means to be family, how well we think we know one another online, and how we perceive what we mean to those who raise us. Nisha Sharma (@Nishawrites) is the author of MY SO-CALLED BOLLYWOOD LIFE, a story in which the protagonist wrestles with futures, both the ones that are predicted, the ones we plan out for ourselves, and also the ones that just happen to us when we allow life to follow its course. We recorded this episode live on the Enoch Pratt Free Library stage at the Baltimore Book Festival. You can access even more information about this book and its author illustrator by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast.
This month the Free To Bmore Podcast welcomes Laurel Smith-Raut and Kimberly Street to explore the Social Worker in the Library program at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. The initiative has had a transformative effect on people throughout Baltimore and is a spark of hope for those looking to connect to resources. #attthepratt
Tony Medina (@PoetTonyMedina) is the author of I AM ALFONSO JONES, a graphic novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement about a teen who is shot and killed by police while shopping for a suit in a clothing store. The novel retraces the events leading to that day while also following the timeline forward as both life itself a the ghost of Alfonso Jones struggle against a nation's history of violence toward people of color. It is a powerful and timely story and one that will remain with readers long after hearing Alfonso's story. We recorded this episode live on the Enoch Pratt Free Library stage at the Baltimore Book Festival. You can access even more information about this book and its author illustrator by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast.
In the late summer of 1859, the fierce abolitionist John Brown assembled a small army in a farmhouse in rural Maryland and prepared to raid the federal arsenal across the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry. Brown hoped to inspire a rebellion and establish a government of liberated slaves in the Appalachian Mountains. Among Brown's band of raiders were five African-American men, one of them an escaped slave, who have been largely overlooked by historians — John Copeland, Shields Green, Dangerfield Newby, Lewis Leary and Osborne Perry Anderson. Their stories are now told in ----Five For Freedom,---- a new book by longtime journalist Eugene Meyer, a former reporter and editor of the Washington Post. In this episode: A visit to the Kennedy farm where Brown's army stayed in the weeks before the raid and a conversation with Gene Meyer about Brown and the five African-American raiders who joined his cause.Eugene Meyer is scheduled to speak at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore on Thursday, Sept. 20 at 6:30 pm. Photo credit:u160uAcroterion/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)Links:http://johnbrown.org/https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/john-brown.htmhttp://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/five-for-freedom-products-9781613735718.phphttp://eugenelmeyer.com/http://calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/writers_live_mike_reiss_springfield_confidential#.W5-r_ZNKjcMhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
A few months after the September 11th attacks, Anthony Moll did what a lot of teenagers did: raised his hand and took an oath to the U.S. army. For a working-class kid in a stagnant city, the army meant escape. For a bisexual man with pink hair, the army at that time also meant “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” His new memoir is titled, ----Out of Step----.Anthony Moll will speak about ----Out of Step,---- as part of the Writers LIVE series, tomorrow night, 6:30 pm, at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. More detail here.
Lawyer in the Library, a partnership between Maryland Legal Aid and the Enoch Pratt Free Library, grew out of the civil unrest in Baltimore City after Freddie Gray died from injuries received in police custody. Lawyer in the Library gives convenient access to free legal advice right in the neighborhood. Amy Petkovsek from Maryland Legal Aid and her client Shannon Powell, along with Melanie Townsend Diggs, former manager of the Pennsylvania Avenue Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, talk about the genesis of the free legal assistance program and the difference its made in thousands of people's lives. TAGS:
In 2016, Enoch Pratt Free Library president Carla Hayden was selected to head the Library of Congress. Heidi Daniel was selected to replace her, stepping in to manage the 22-branch system. Heidi began her career in children's and teen programming in Oklahoma City and Houston before moving into library administration. Before coming to Baltimore, she was the director of Ohio’s Youngstown and Mahoning County system. Right now, she is overseeing a $115 million renovation of the Pratt’s historic central branch. Heidi talked about the role of libraries in both communities and in her life.
A portrait of a president; an probe of Southern cuisine; a reboot of the Black Panther comic books. We’ve got books suitable for all the readers in your life--young and old, fans of pop and counterculture. These titles are perfect to read over the holidays, to give as gifts, or to share among friends. Cullen Nawalkowsky of Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse ... and Deborah Taylor of the Enoch Pratt Free Library … share their picks for the best recent books. Taylor suggests Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci ...
In some ways, caregiving is the new normal One in four U.S. adult children provides unpaid care to an aging adult -- everything from hands-on physical care to shopping and household help. It can be exhausting, but it can also be a platform for a meaningful life, and a springboard to better understanding how you yourself will age, and how you can shape the kind of old age you want.Ann Kaiser Stearns, a professor of behavioral science at the Community College of Baltimore County, combines research, insights and problem-solving tips in her new book, ----Redefining Aging: A Caregiver’s Guide to Living Your Best Life----.Professor Stearns will be speaking about it Wednesday at noon at the Hatton Senior Center in Canton, part of the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s “Writers Live” series.
April Ryan, White House correspondent for the American Urban Radio Networks, talks about the president-elect, Donald J. Trump, and his criticism of the press. (He will be the fourth president Ryan has covered in her broadcasting career.) But, with her new book, Ryan’s focus is on the important roles mothers play in the lives of African-American children, particularly boys and young men. Ryan’s book is “At Mama’s Knee: Mothers And Race In Black And White,” and it addresses race relations, and relations between African-Americans and police, the Freddie Gray case and the death of Trayvon Martin. (“Everyone needs to read a book about race,” Ryan says.)April Ryan is chief of American Urban Radio Networks’ Washington bureau — the only African-American broadcast bureau in the White House, with a network of more than 300 stations nationwide and nearly 20 million listeners each week. Ryan is the author of “The Presidency in Black and White: My Up‑Close View of Three Presidents and Race in America.” She’ll discuss her new book, “At Mama’s Knee,” on Thursday, Jan. 19 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/baltimore-insider-blog/bs-ae-april-ryan-20161028-story.htmlhttp://aprildryan.com/http://calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/brown_lecture_series_april_ryan_at_mamas_knee_mothers_and_race_in_black_and_white#.WH426dIrK71
With President Obama scheduled to give his farewell address from Chicago on Tuesday night, Michael Days, editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, talks about the president’s legacy. Days has written a book about Obama’s time in the Oval Office, assessing everything from the passage of the Affordable Care Act to the Detroit bailout and the efforts to pull the nation out of the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. Days, author of “Obama’s Legacy: What He Accomplished,” will be the featured speaker Tuesday evening in Baltimore as part of the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Writers LIVE! Series.Links:https://www.whitehouse.gov/farewellhttps://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-i-days/obamas-legacy/9781455596614/http://calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/writers_live_michael_i_days_obamas_legacy_what_he_accomplished_as_president#.WHPfVdIrK71
In September 1954, just four months after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling against racial discrimination in public education, 17-year-old Walter Gill became one of the first black students to enter the elite, all-white, all-male Baltimore City College High School. He and nine other black students reached the famous "Castle on the Hill" after Baltimore’s school board voted to desegregate the schools and adopt a free choice policy that made integration voluntary. Gill, who would become the first black graduate of City — the photo, from his high school yearbook, shows Gill surrounded by his classmates — tells the story in a new memoir, "Yesterday’s Tomorrow," which details his youth and his long career as an educator. Gill will appear 6:30 Wednesday evening at the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.Links:http://calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/writers_live_wah_gill_yesterdays_tomorrow#.WFAFzdIrK71
In 1984, Pamela Rigby and her mother, Vivian Rigby, were winning bidders of a 19th-century photo album at an auction on Baltimore's Antiques Row. They soon discovered that the woman who had started and maintained the album, Fannie Keene, was a former slave who had lived most of her life in Missouri. The Rigbys went about trying to identify the dozens of men, women and children whose formal portraits appear in the album, and they had some success. But many of the people are still unidentified.By taking her project public, Pam Rigby hopes to continue her late mother's work, connecting African-Americans with the ancestors they likely never knew. Rigby has published a book about the album and her efforts to identify the people pictured in it. The book is, "Waiting To Be Found: The Lost Treasure of Fannie Keene." Pam Rigby has a website devoted to her project, and she hopes to reach people whose family roots were in Missouri and Illinois. She is scheduled to speak in the Writers Live series at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore on Oct. 18. For a gallery of some of the images from the album, go to http://bsun.md/waiting-to-be-found.Links:http://waitingtobefound.comhttp://calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/writers_live_pamela_rigby_waiting_to_be_found_the_lost_treasure_of_fannie_keenehttp://bsun.md/waiting-to-be-found
Mikita Brottman, a literary scholar and professor in humanities at the Maryland Institute College of Art, established a book club for inmates at Maryland’s maximum-security Jessup Correctional Institution. The club members, some of them convicted murderers serving life sentences, read Melville’s "Bartleby," "The Scrivener", Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness," Shakespeare’s "Macbeth," Stevenson’s "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and Poe’s "The Black Cat," among other works. Brottman, who is also an author and psychoanalyst, tells about her experiences sharing her favorite books with prisoners in a new memoir, “The Maximum Security Book Club,” published by Harper Collins.Brottman speaks Wednesday night, June 15, at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
There?s a new top librarian in Baltimore. Heidi Daniel took over as President and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library this week after longtime president Carla Hayden left last year to lead the Library of Congress. Heidi comes to Baltimore from Youngstown, Ohio, where she oversaw 15 branch libraries. Prior to Youngstown, she worked at both the Houston Public Library and the Metropolitan Library System of Oklahoma City. The library?s central branch is already undergoing a major renovation , so what else is new at the Pratt? These days, a library is much more than a place you go to check out a book, and that?s especially true of the libraries in Baltimore, which often serve as resources and safe havens for children and families. The Enoch Pratt library offers legal advice from an onsite lawyer, after school programs and job placement assistance among other services . Heidi Daniel joins us to talk about some of these programs and her vision for the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Check out Heidi
Whether you are lazing by the pool or passing time at the airport, summer is a great time to get lost in a good book. Deborah Taylor of the Enoch Pratt Free Library shares selections that appeal to adults--thrillers, memoirs, and more. And Jamie Watson of the Baltimore County Public Library has ideas for books to catch the interest of children, teens, and reluctant readers.
Get to know the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Maryland State Library Resource Center, with this brief audio tour. Listeners will enjoy a helpful overview of the Central Library's most prominent departments and collections as well as additional background about the building's architecture and history. Thanks to a capital grant from the State of Maryland as well as matching funds from the City of Baltimore and the Library's Board of Trustees and Directors, the Central Library is currently undergoing a full-scale historic restoration and renovation. This audio tour provides both information on the current state of the building and a preview of what changes are to come. The tour will be updated throughout the restoration process, which is scheduled to be complete in 2019.Recorded On: Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Get to know the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Maryland State Library Resource Center, with this brief audio tour. Listeners will enjoy a helpful overview of the Central Library's most prominent departments and collections as well as additional background about the building's architecture and history. Thanks to a capital grant from the State of Maryland as well as matching funds from the City of Baltimore and the Library's Board of Trustees and Directors, the Central Library is currently undergoing a full-scale historic restoration and renovation. This audio tour provides both information on the current state of the building and a preview of what changes are to come. The tour will be updated throughout the restoration process, which is scheduled to be complete in 2019.
"Excellent, Watson! You scintillate today." [ILLU] In 2017, we'll celebrate the 10th anniversary of , appropriately called "a family reunion for Sherlockians." In this episode, we're fortunate to be able to speak with the founder of the event, Jacquelynn Morris, BSI ("The Lion's Mane"). From an AOL discussion board to membership in one of Maryland's finest Sherlockian societies, we hear about Jacquelynn's first meeting with Sherlock Holmes and the many people who have influenced her along the way. Hers is a story that typifies the magnificent power of friendship and colleagues as one finds one's way into the world of Sherlock Holmes fans. It includes the encouragement of outsiders and younger individuals, a fine tradition which Jacquelynn herself carries on today. We also touch on topics such as Undershaw and 's latest publication . Much like an onion, the more layers we peel back from Jacquelynn, the more we discover — and she's fascinating! Listen in to find out what a wedding, a swordfight, Vincent Wright and a deli platter have in common. Notes 1:35 Introduction 3:24 Sponsor — Wessex Press 4:45 Welcome Jacquelynn Morris, BSI, ASH 10:30 Remembering alt.fan.holmes, the Hounds of the Internet and Steve Clarkson 12:01 Watson's Tin Box of Ellicott City, Maryland 14:58 If you own a restaurant, be wary of Watson's Tin Box 18:08 Saturdays with Sherlock Holmes at the Pratt Library 20:23 The origins of A Scintillation of Scions 26:34 Essay contest for 7th graders in Howard County, Maryland 32:30 The stand-out speaker of all of the Scintillations 33:22 Other memorable events at Scintillation 35:48 Upcoming features at A Scintillation of Scions X 38:09 Getting involved with Undershaw 42:57 Jacquelynn's contribution to About Sixty 50:00 A chapter in The Wrong Passage about which poison Anna Coram took 57:53 Sponsor — The Baker Street Journal 1:00:09 Contact information and review 1:01:36 Sherlock Holmes Brand ad 1:02:43 Special news announcement Sponsors This episode includes our two longtime sponsors. Please support our sponsors by visiting their sites: Links (website) (Facebook) (website) (Facebook) at the Enoch Pratt Free Library by William Hyder (book) for 7th graders in Howard County, MD by Michael Sims (pre-order on Amazon) on IHOSE from the BSI Manuscript Series Many more links, articles and images are available in our Flipboard magazine at , as well as on the on Google+ (with over 3,900 members), as well as through our accounts on , , , and . Please , , , or and be kind enough to leave a rating or review for the show. And please tell a friend about us, in any fashion you feel comfortable.
Sep. 14, 2016. Carla Hayden describes her journey from nomination, confirmation and inauguration as 14th Librarian of Congress. Speaker Biography: Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016. Prior to her latest post she served, since 1993, as CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland. Hayden was nominated by President Obama to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board in January 2010 and was confirmed to that post by the Senate in June 2010. Prior to joining the Pratt Library, Hayden was deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993. She was an assistant professor for Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1991. Hayden was library services coordinator for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago from 1982 to 1987. She began her career with the Chicago Public Library as the young adult services coordinator from 1979 to 1982 and as a library associate and children's librarian from 1973 to 1979. Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, she was the first African American to receive Library Journal's Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling. Hayden received a B.A.from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. For captions, and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=7396
Dr. Carla Hayden joins Tom for her first interview since being confirmed by the Senate July 13 as the next Librarian of Congress. After 23 years in what most people consider a transformative tenure as the CEO of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, Dr. Hayden next month will become the first woman and the first African American to hold the most high-profile library post in the nation. Then, Producer Bridget Armstrong visits the Reginald F. Lewis Museum’s latest exhibition, called Now, That’s Cool! It features rare artifacts, like an original picture of Frederick Douglass, from a decidedly not-so-cool era of slavery. Plus, theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews The Baltimore Shakespeare Factory's new production of Julius Caesar . And historian Lawrence Jackson on The City That Bleeds . He wrote a provocative essay in the July issue of Harper’s on Freddie Gray and the legacy of inequality that seeded last year’s uprising.
April 30, 2015. In conjunction with the American Library Association's national DIA celebration, the Young Readers Center and the Center for the Book convened a symposium to explore how to use culturally diverse literature to support families and teen literacy. Deborah Taylor, coordinator for school and student services of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, moderated a distinguished panel of authors including Kwame Alexander (2015 Newbery Award winner), Meg Medina, Ellen Oh, Gigi Amateau and Tim Tingle. For transcript, captions, and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=7116
PNC Bank and Enoch Pratt Free Library hosts this interview with four highly experienced and established women business owners in Baltimore to discuss the effects of the economy on their businesses and how they have managed the negative economic trends to stay operating and successful.Recorded On: Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Jen Michalski talks about her new book, The Tide King.The Tide King won the 2012 Big Moose Prize. She is the author of two collections of fiction, From Here and Close Encounters, and a collection of novellas, Could You Be With Her Now. In 2013 she was named one of "50 Women to Watch" by the Baltimore Sun and won a "Best of Baltimore" for Best Writer from Baltimore Magazine.Sponsored by the Friends of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.Recorded On: Sunday, January 26, 2014
For more than 25 years, Jean Thompson has been a private history scavenger and detective, pursuing what she calls "pieces of The Dream.""The Dream," as articulated by noted bibliophiles, historians and curators, is to reveal untold, hidden, forgotten or lost stories about the American experience in ways that instill cultural understanding and cultivate pride. The "pieces" that tell the stories include ephemera -- documents, photographs, advertising and other paper records, including items that might have been thrown away rather than saved. These include ancestral belongings, books, artworks, sheet music, souvenirs and other objects of material culture that evoke a specific era, event or place."Private collections are vital repositories: major institutions of art, culture and learning have been built with objects preserved first in private homes," says Thompson. "With guidance from many in the field, I specified in my will that when the time is right, I would 'send home' items that can serve their highest and best purposes as part of other collections or institutional holdings. My will specifies the Enoch Pratt Free Library as a major recipient of the collection, so that materials deemed relevant to the larger story of Baltimore and Maryland will remain here."Guest speaker: Hari Jones, African American Civil War Museum, on "Adding a Powerful Ally: Lincoln's Colored Troops." Recorded On: Thursday, September 26, 2013
A Genealogy Circle Fall ProgramBest practices for preserving paper-based materials and objects: books, paper documents, photographs and more. Topics will include: proper storage and handling methods/techniques, appropriate environmental issues, and disaster preparedness.Martha Edgerton is a Preservation Expert and Book Conservator with over 38 years of experience. Martha has worked at the Johns Hopkins University as a Book Conservator and as supervisor of the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Bindery department. Recorded On: Saturday, September 14, 2013
As part of the Pratt Library's Mencken Day, author, journalist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens presented the 2006 Mencken Memorial Lecture at the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. The British-American writer Christopher Hitchens, the masterful rhetorician, intellectual and atheist, died Thursday December 15, 2011 at the age of 62.Recorded On: Saturday, September 9, 2006
Poet Lucille Clifton was a mentor, friend, and teacher to scores of writers in Maryland and around the country. Clifton served as Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland and was Distinguished Professor of Humantities at St. Mary's College of Maryland. She received the National Book Award for her poetry collection, Blessing the Boats (2000). Clifton wrote more than 16 books for children. She served as trustee of the Enoch Pratt Free Library from 1975 to 1984.Join us for this celebration of the life of Lucille Clifton. Poets from Baltimore and around the state will raise their voices to honor the memory of Clifton's life and works. We invite you to bring your favorite Lucille Clifton poem to share.Recorded On: Thursday, June 24, 2010
Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College, will talk with David Hornbeck, former Philadelphia superintendent of schools, about how race plays out in American classrooms. Speakers: Diana Morris, Carla Hayden, Joe Jones, Beverly Daniel Tatum, David Hornbeck. (Recorded: November 2, 2009)
Find out the answers to all your flu shot questions. Dr. Anne Bailowitz, a pediatrician with the Baltimore City Health Department, is interviewed while providing free flu shots at a public health flu clinic at the Enoch Pratt Free Library.Stay healthy this winter -- get a FREE flu shot! (check out our calendar to find out more).Recorded On: Friday, November 9, 2007
Presidential Historian and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author An equally gifted historian and storyteller, Doris Kearns Goodwin illustrates lessons in leadership relevant to today’s issues and headlines from some of the country’s greatest figures. With stories and anecdotes from the inner circles of wives, friends and close associates who surrounded our president's, Goodwin brings the past alive, allowing listeners to learn from the talents, skills, and human failings of some of our most fascinating leaders, as well as providing insight in to the proper boundaries between private and public lives.Doris Kearns is the 2007 recipient of Enoch Pratt Free Library's Lifetime Literary Achievement Award and delivered this keynote address at the Pratt Society Dinner on November 10.Recorded On: Saturday, November 10, 2007