Bill Peak

The Library Guy: Donald Hall Award Winning Poet Joy Priest

December 19, 2020 by Bill Peak Leave a Comment

Bill’s guest today is the young poet Joy Priest, whose very first book of poetry, Horsepower, won the prestigious Donald Hall Prize for Poetry last year. She has also just won the Stanley Kunitz Poetry Prize in June.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in ESPN, Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, The Rumpus, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Best New Poets 2014, 2016, and 2019, among others. Priest is the winner of the 2019 Gearhart Poetry Prize from The Southeast Review, and the 2016 College Writers’ Award from the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.

She was the 2018 Gregory Pardlo Scholar at The Frost Place and is the recipient of fellowships and support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Kentucky Arts Council, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the University of South Carolina, where she received her MFA in Poetry with a certificate in Women & Gender Studies.

This video podcast is approximately forty-seven minutes in length. The Library Guy is co-produced with the Talbot County Free Library and the Spy Newspapers. Photography courtesy of Landon Antonetti.

The Library Guy: Ann Finkbeiner on Wars in Space

November 27, 2020 by Bill Peak Leave a Comment

The Library Guy, Bill Peak, speaks with Ann Finkbeiner, author of an article in the November edition of Scientific American entitled, “Orbital Aggression: How do we prevent war in space?” Finkbeiner explains why America depends so heavily on its satellite fleet, how our global adversaries are already toying with the idea of destroying those satellites, and how a major attack upon them could, quite literally, endanger civilization.

Bill Peak Spends Some Time with Author Alice McDermott

November 4, 2020 by Bill Peak 1 Comment

Bill Peak, the Mid-Shore’s “library guy,” has just completed an interview for the Spy with Alice McDermott, who has been called “the Virginia Woolf of American letters.” Peak’s interview was performed as part of a partnership between the Talbot County Free Library and The Spy to introduce area readers to the poets and writers behind some of our country’s best literature.

Alice McDermott’s eighth and most recent novel, The Ninth Hour, made it to the Best Books of 2017 lists of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine, among others. Her seventh novel, Someone, was long-listed for the National Book Award. Three of her previous novels, After This, At Weddings and Wakes, and That Night were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Charming Billy won the National Book Award. That Night was also a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award.

McDermott’s stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harpers, Commonweal, and elsewhere. She has received the Whiting Writers Award, the Corrington Award for Literary Excellence, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for American Literature. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. McDermott retired last year from Johns Hopkins, where, for the past 23 years, she served as the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities.

This video is approximately sixty minutes in length. You can also listen to this as a podcast at the following:

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The Library Guy: Celeste-Marie Bernier on Frederick Douglass’s Family

September 26, 2020 by Bill Peak Leave a Comment

In honor of Frederick Douglass Day, Bill Peak’s guest today is Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier, Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and a world-renowned Frederick Douglass scholar. Bill speaks with her about her latest book, If I Survive, and the remarkable Walter O. Evans archive of Frederick Douglass Family correspondence and art it chronicles, including letters home from Lewis Henry Douglass, who fought with the illustrious 54th Massachusetts at Fort Wagner.

This video is approximately thirty-four minutes in length. Photo credits; National Park Service, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Washington D.C. For more information about the Talbot County Free Library please go here.

The Library Guy: USNA Poet Temple Cone Talks to Bill Peak

August 12, 2020 by Bill Peak 1 Comment

The Library Guy’s guest today is Temple Cone, Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy. Cone is the author of four books of poetry: Guzzle, That Singing, The Broken Meadow (which received the 2010 Old Seventy Creek Poetry Press Series Prize), and No Loneliness (which received the 2009 FutureCycle Press Poetry Book Prize). He has also published seven poetry chapbooks.

In today’s interview, he will be reading poems from the most recent of these: Southrenody. Cone holds a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Wisconsin, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia, an M.A. in Creative Writing from Hollins University, and a B.A. in Philosophy from Washington & Lee University. From 2018-2019, he served as the first Poet Laureate of the City of Annapolis.

This video is approximately twenty-five minutes in length. The Library Guy is co-produced with the Talbot County Free Library and the Spy Newspapers.

The Library Guy: Poet Meredith Davies Hadaway Talks to Bill Peak

July 2, 2020 by Bill Peak 1 Comment

The Library Guy’s guest today is Meredith Davies Hadaway, a poet who writes about her life and experiences living on the banks of the Chester River.

Hadaway is the author of three collections of poetry: At The Narrows, The River Is a Reason, and Fishing Secrets of the Dead. She has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council, and multiple Pushcart nominations. Her collection, At The Narrows, won the 2015 Delmarva Book Prize for Creative Writing. In addition to publishing poetry and reviews in numerous literary journals, she served for ten years as poetry editor for The Summerset Review. Hadaway holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is a former Rose O’Neill Writer-in-residence at Washington College, where she taught English and creative writing.

This video is approximately fifteen minutes in length

The Library Guy is made possible through a partnership between the Talbot County Free Library and the Spy online newspapers. Future interviews with local literary figures are planned.

The Library Guy: Poet Sue Ellen Thompson Talks to Bill Peak

June 1, 2020 by Bill Peak Leave a Comment

Today, Bill Peak, also known as the Library Guy for many years for his devotion to the Talbot County Free Library, continues his series with writers with a conversation with award-winning poet Sue Ellen Thompson.

Thompson is the author of five books of poetry, including her most recent work, They, which tells the story—through poems and the found poetry of postcards—of the poet’s sometimes troubled relationship with her transgender child, and the connection they find through the author’s father. She also edited The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Eleven of Thompson’s poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on his Writer’s Almanac radio show. . In 2010, Thompson received the Maryland Author Award, which is given once every four years to a Maryland poet in honor of his or her body of work. Sue Ellen lives in Oxford, Maryland.

The Library Guy is made possible through a partnership between the Talbot County Free Library and the Spy online newspapers. Future interviews with local literary figures are planned. A link to Peak’s interview with Thompson will be made available on the library’s website: www.tcfl.org.

The Library Guy: New Yorker Writer Casey Cep on Dorothy Day

May 5, 2020 by Bill Peak 1 Comment

The Spy is pleased to announce that the Talbot County Free Library’s “Library Guy,” Bill Peak, has joined the Spy as a frequent contributor. Bill earned his nickname through earning the respect and devotion of hundreds of library patrons through his creative programming and outreach efforts during his tenure at TCFL. He is also a critically acclaimed author. The Spy will be offering this in a long-form format, similar to Bill’s past live conversations.

In our inaugural installment of “The Library Guy,” I am pleased to welcome Casey Cep, New York Times bestselling author, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and graduate of Easton High School (Class of ’03).

Last year, Casey Cep’s first book, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, debuted at #6 on The New York Times’ bestseller list. Today, I talk with Cep about her most recent New Yorker article, “Dorothy Day’s Radical Faith.” In the piece, she writes about the life and legacy of the Catholic writer and activist, whom some hope will be made a saint. The New Yorker article is available in its entirety here.

Due to COVID-19, this interview was recorded remotely. In order to take advantage of a Wi-Fi hotspot at the local high school, Casey Cep joins us from the back seat of her car while I am broadcasting from what I admit is a rather cluttered home study.

This video is approximately fifty-two minutes in length. For more information about the Talbot County Free Library please go here and for the Kent County Public Library please go here.

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