Episode 28: PBQ Celebrates with One Book, One Philadelphia

This is a special podcast episode with some help from the folks over at One Book, a signature program of the Free Library of Philadelphia that promotes literacy, library usage, and citywide conversation by encouraging the Philadelphia area to come together through reading and discussing… This is a special podcast episode with some help from the folks over at One Book, a signature program of the Free Library of Philadelphia that promotes literacy, library usage, and citywide conversation by encouraging the Philadelphia area to come together through reading and discussing a single book. This year’s book is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. We started the evening with a round of Slam, Bam, Thank you, Mam, or improv reading game. Listen in and see what we created in 5 minutes! The writers came at the themes of the book from so many angles, but the one they each had in common was they blew us away.If you’re old enough, imagine the dude (and his martini glass) getting blown away by the sound from his Maxell tape (if you’re too young to remember that iconic image, Goolge it)—it was like that. Or, just look at this: via Flickr And then listen to the podcast and feel the same way! Let us know what you think on our Facebook event page or on Twitter with #OneBook Read on!   Kalela Williams is a fiction writer whose most recent work appears in Calyx: A Journal of Art & Literature by Women, and Drunken Boat. She also directs One Book, One Philadelphia, a Free Library of Philadelphia program with the goal of promoting citywide conversation around the themes in a single book. She is currently working on a novel.   Cindy Arrieu-King is an associate professor of creative writing at Stockton University and a former Kundiman fellow. Her books include People are Tiny in Paintings of China (Octopus 2010), Manifest (Switchback 2013) and a collaboration with the late Hillary Gravendyk (1913 Press 2016). Find her at cynthiaarrieuking.blogspot.com.   Thomas Devaney is a poet and lives in Philadelphia. His books include Runaway Goat Cart (Hanging Loose, 2015), Calamity Jane (Furniture Press, 2014), and The Picture that Remains (The Print Center, 2014). His nonfiction book Letters to Ernesto Neto (2005) was published by Germ Folios. He is the 2104 recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. His collaborations with the Institute of Contemporary Art include “The Empty House,” for The Big Nothing, and “Tales from the 215” for Zoe Strauss’s “Philadelphia Freedom.”   Patrick Rosal is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including his latest, Brooklyn Antediluvian. A former Senior Fulbright Research Fellow, his work has appeared in The New York Times, Grantland, Harvard Review, Tin House, The Best American Poetry and dozens of other magazines and anthologies. He has been a featured performer in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and hundreds of venues throughout the United States, including the Whitney Museum and Lincoln Center. He is currently an Associate Professor at the MFA Program of Rutgers University-Camden.   Julia Bloch grew up in Northern California and Sydney, Australia. She is the author of two books of poetry—Letters to Kelly Clarkson, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and Valley Fever, both from Sidebrow Books, and of the recent chapbook Like Fur, from Essay Press. She lives in Philadelphia, coedits Jacket2, and directs the creative writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.       M.C. Extraordinaire: Paul Siegell   The Lineup: Kalela Williams Cindy Arrieu-King Thomas Devaney Patrick Rosal Julia Bloch   Engineering Producer: Joe Zang