Podcast appearances and mentions of heather o'donnell

Heather O'Donnell talks about her career as a pianist and health psychologist. After experiencing years of chronic pain and weakness in her fingers, hands and arms, she had to find a way of navigating these issues, and this in turn changed her views on her professional life as a pianist. She stepped away from her performance career and began studying psychology. Now she works with musicians on issues of health maintenance, recovery and development. She gives individual lessons and workshops at conservatories and universities on the complexities associated with these topics. She is in the process of founding a center for performing artists' health in Cologne, "The Green Room", scheduled to open in Fall of 2020.

In this episode, Film Forum Presents a conversation between D.W. Young, director of the delightful, illuminating new documentary portrait of the rare book trade, THE BOOKSELLERS, and two of the film’s subjects – Heather O’Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers and Rebecca Romney of Type Punch Matrix – recorded especially for the podcast. THE BOOKSELLERS is available for home viewing in our Virtual Cinema at www.filmforum.org. Pictured left to right: D.W. Young, Heather O’Donnell, Rebecca Romney. (D.W. Young photo by Melanie Metz; Heather O’Donnell photo by Dave Pappas; Rebecca Romney photo by Peter Bolte)

"Heather O'Donnell grew up in the library stacks and bookstore aisles of suburban Delaware. In 1989, she moved to New York City, where she studied English at Columbia, and held down a series of bookish jobs on the side: working the cash register at the Strand, shelving photobooks in the Avery Library, sifting the slush pile at Grand Street. While writing her doctoral dissertation in the Yale English department, Heather worked as a curatorial assistant at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In 2004 she left academia to pursue the rare book trade full-time. For seven years, she worked as a bookseller in the New York gallery of Bauman Rare Books. In the fall of 2011, she founded Honey & Wax Booksellers in Brooklyn. In 2017, she and Rebecca Romney established the annual Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize of $1000 for a young woman book collector." We met at her office early one crisp October morning to talk about all of the above, plus Gertrude Stein, Henry James, completionists, bona fide collectors, publishers' bindings and women reading, the need for unusual distinctive inventory, the way core texts reach wider audiences, apprenticing, James Jaffe, and the valuable contribution collectors make to society. 

Clara Schumann blazed a path for women in music, composing and soloing at a time when it was unheard of for women to have a professional career in that world. Yet, we still hear murmers of discontent: she was mean, she wasn't supportive of her husband Robert, she neglected her kids. This "soft misogyny," as pianist Heather O'Donnell calls it, has tainted the legacy of a great artist.

Heather O'Donnell from the Sunshine Coast in Australia, is back in Whistler and living what we call here #theWhistlerLife. She has found a way to travel, share the love of Muay Thai as she goes, and has built strong friendships that last. She has won several Titles - WMC Featherweight South Pacific champion, Arafura Asia Pacific games Gold medalist 2009 to name a couple. I got a chance to meet up with her at Whistler Core on a Sunday afternoon, a rare afternoon we both had off and had a chat about the journey. - Anyssa Jane

Rare book dealers Heather O'Donnell and Rebecca Romney drop some knowledge about Henry Highland Garnet’s "Memorial Discourse,” the first address delivered to Congress by an African-American.

Need for volunteers at Kindred Hospice. Heather O'Donnell is my guest