Book City ★ Roanoke

Season two of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast launches with a conversation with freelance journalist and local foods advocate Christina Nifong. In her profiles of Roanoke area residents, Nifong plays the cinematographer. "I'm always trying to decide when to go in tight and when to pull back," she says. The telling detail help us understand her subject, and these individual stories help us understand the broader place.

Nifong recently penned a story for The Roanoker, "What Makes Roanoke, Roanoke?" In this episode she talks about what she found out in the many conversations she had in writing it and she talks about the changes and trajectory of her own life as mother and professional.

Follow Christina Nifong's writing and projects in her Nourishing Stories newsletter available at christinanifong.com.

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Book No Further, an independent book store on Roanoke's Historic City Market.

Our exploration of Identity and Action wraps with podcast producer Brad Stephens. In this episode, Brad and Douglas Jackson look back at the entire season. Of course, we'll talk about books, many of this seasons' guests and what these conversations are adding up to, touching on the following and more:

• empathy and books,
• books and the unlikeable,
• writing and wisdom, and
• the complexity of the self

Brad has worked for years in finding ways to encourage positive action and support ambitious efforts to improve our community. He's also a good reader and in this episode, he shares some of the books from his shelf and even one he hasn't been able to make it through. He also tells of his journaling strategy, which might make an impression on you.

www.bookcityroanoke.com

The exploration of Identity and Action continues with Writer Jeanne Larsen. With the poet, novelist, and essayist we explore how the written word shapes our sense of self and how we put that into work in the world around us. "You need to find the words that put who you are as you perceive yourself out there into the world," says Larsen.

Jeanne Larsen, writer, spent a career at Hollins University and is now professor emeritus. She is most recently the author of What Penelope Chooses (Cider Press Review, 2019). She describes the work as a "sassy lyrical footnotes to Homer" in which she responds to characters from The Odyssey and The Iliad.

Identity and Action: We continue exploring how the written word shapes our sense of self and how we put that into work in the world around us with a conversation with City of Roanoke Vice Mayor Joe Cobb. In this episode Joe discusses three books that weave through his way of being in the world. We touch on hospitality and fear, on seeing ourselves and on the power of claiming our bodies.

"Living this life...," Joe says "is not about what or who we ought to be according to someone else, but who we come to know ourselves to be. And for me, love is the guiding force in shaping that."

Joe Cobb is the co-author with Leigh Anne Taylor of Our Family Outing: A Memoir of Coming Out and Coming Through (self-published in 2011). This summer he marked one year of service on Roanoke's City Council. He has served in the past as pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of the Blue Ridge, and currently he’s a chaplain for hermitage Roanoke and Outreach Coordinator for Highland Park Elementary School.

The three titles discussed in this episode:

• Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (Doubleday, 1975) by Henri Nouwen
• Beloved (Knopf, 1987) by Toni Morrison
• Let Your Life Speak:Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Jossey Bass, 2000) by Parker J. Palmer

Identity and Action: Season one of the BOOK CITY ★ Roanoke podcast continues with poet Ashley Rhame. Ashley writes and performs with astonishing frequency. She's active in bringing people together in The Speakeasy, evenings of music and poetry. She is the program lead for Girls Rock Roanoke, and she works full time for Roanoke Public Libraries at the new Melrose Branch.

"Without poetry, I don't know who I would be," says Rhame.

In this episode, Rhame performs the poem "The Color of My Soul", a poem through which Rhame uncovered aspects of who she is in the world. It's a topic she uses to engage young people, who she says, need to know who they are to navigate the world around around them. Words help.

Listen to this City Builder, and share her joy for writing, performing, and caring for the people sharing the neighborhood and the world around her.