08 Monday Oct 2012
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Following up on my last post about the Library Association’s conference . . .
I met Mike Ekey from Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City, who tipped me off to a literary festival taking place at their Longview campus this weekend. Kansas City area readers, take note! Sounds like a good event – I wish I had heard about it earlier.
06 Saturday Oct 2012
As part of my role as this year’s president of the Missouri Writers’ Guild, I got to set up and work a booth at the annual conference of the Missouri Library Association. I’ve already expressed my fondness for libraries and librarians elsewhere in this blog, but I’ll just repeat it here…..librarians are one of civilization’s jewels! They uphold our American ideal of free access to ideas. It was a great pleasure to sit in our booth and visit with those who stopped by.
A special shout-out to other members of the Writers’ Guild who also held down our booth for a shift – Deborah Schott, our treasurer (pictured below), Laura Valenti, Ellen Gray Massey, Debbie Blades, T. W. Fendley, Lawrence Iles, and Betty McLane-Iles. Thanks for your participation!
The Writers’ Guild booth
24 Sunday Jun 2012
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Annapolis, favorite_places, fiction, historical fiction, John Mertens, libraries, Missouri, Ozarks, rural, Slant of Light, writing
This gallery contains 4 photos.
It was a fine day in Annapolis yesterday, as I visited the library to give a reading and autograph some …
30 Friday Mar 2012
Man, I love libraries!
I’m in the Chicago suburbs, having arrived for a conference downtown a little early to check into my hotel. What else to do but find a library?
So I’m working on a chapter of Book #2, enjoying the free internet, eavesdropping on conversations, and watching all manner of humankind — children and grownups, besuited business-types and sweatsuited retirees, the well-off and the unemployed — making use of this free public institution.
And for Anna Louise, here’s a bonus–there’s a poster of Ewan McGregor on the wall across from me. He’s reading a copy (or at least posing with a copy) of The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter.
17 Tuesday Jan 2012
What’s the greatest American invention of all time? You’ll get a lot of debate over this question, but for me, the free public library has to be up there in the top five.
My mom was a librarian . . . she started by working as a clerk in the Fredericktown Branch of the Ozarks Regional Library, then when we moved to Annapolis she was determined that it needed a library too. Her determination paid off when the city officials set aside space in the “old Bolch chickenhouse” where the Annapolis Branch began.
How many afternoons I spent in the library in both towns! And the patrons–what a marvelous assortment of people. Elderly folks who used the library as an opportunity for a conversation outing, school children needing help on a project, voracious readers of “great books” and addicts of escapist novels. Everyone came to the library, and all you needed to access the knowledge of the world was the little card in your wallet.
Librarians out there, if you ever want me to make an appearance or give a talk, say the word. I owe you.
stevewiegenstein 