Completely Booked - Official Podcast of the Jacksonville Public Library Jacksonville Public Library

Recently re-released with bonus content, Pucking Around (the first book in the series) is now a USA Today bestseller! The sequel, Pucking Wild, debuted at the top of the Kindle store in multiple countries: #2 in the USA, #1 in Canada, #1 in Australia, and top 50 in the UK!
From the author: "The signed paperback preorder campaign for the Kensington editions of Pucking Around is now LIVE!! I’ve partnered with Femme Fire Books, which is a Jacksonville-based independent bookstore, to help me run this preorder campaign. You can secure your preorder HERE." - https://femmefirebooks.com/products/pucking-around-by-emily-rath?_pos=1&_sid=cebabb0a5&_ss=r&variant=44219323121891 
Emily Rath is an international bestselling author of fantasy and romance. Born in Florida and raised in Kentucky, she is a former university professor, holding PhDs in Political Science and Peace Studies. Her works include the "TikTok sensation" and Amazon Charts bestselling Jacksonville Rays Hockey romance series, as well as the Second Sons Regency Romance series. She currently lives in Jacksonville with her husband, son, and cat. They regularly comb the local beaches looking for shark teeth.
Interviewer Jessica Hatch has a passion for writing genre-blind, character-first fiction with a love of words and a strong beating heart. Her work has appeared in such publications as Writer’s Digest, The Millions, Fast Company, Neutral Spaces, and Surely Magazine, and she hosts the virtual reading series Comp Title Book Club. Her freshman and sophomore novels were published by Hachette UK’s Bookouture imprint, and her debut novel, My Big Fake Wedding, a Lonely Victories Book of 2022, appeared in the Top 50 women’s fiction and Top 100 romantic comedy titles on Amazon. Before becoming an author, Jessica worked and interned in New York trade publishing institutions Writers House and St. Martin’s Press. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
READ Check out Emily's work from the library! https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22emily+rath%22&te= 
EMILY RECOMMENDS If you are new to the world of hockey romance, here are some other great authors you can check out:
Helena Hunting, Liz Tomforde, Jessa Wilder, Saxon James, and S.J. Tilly.
I owe so much to TikTok for helping me reach a whole new world of readers. I spend a lot of time on the #Booktok side of TikTok, where there are some truly amazing content creators. They have brought me so much laughter and whimsy! Some of my current personal favorite non-book-related creators are Brian Morabito (@morathanenough), Laura Ramoso (@lau_ramoso), Prince Stash (@realprincestash), and Sean the Sheepman (@seanthesheepman). If you're looking for an awesome bookish content creator to follow, go follow Reid Moon (@moonsrarebooks)--his rare book collection is absolutely fascinating!
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Jeffrey Blount is the award-winning author of four novels, including Almost Snow White, Hating Heidi Foster, The Emancipation of Evan Walls, and Mr. Jimmy From Around the Way. He is also an Emmy award-winning television director and a 2016 inductee to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. During a 34-year career at NBC News, Jeffrey directed a decade of Meet The Press, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and major special events. He is the first African American to direct The Today Show.
He was a contributor for HuffPost and has been published in The Washington Post, The Grio.com and other publications, commenting on issues of race, social justice, and writing.
Interviewer Fati D. Ashley is a Ghanaian-American literary and visual artist who resides in Florida. She holds a Master of Arts in English (Rhetoric and Composition) from the University of North Florida. Her poem “Cape Coast” was performed in Echoes of Us, a series of curated monologues, directed by Tony Award nominee Michele Shay in 2022. She is the Editor-in-Chief for The Banyan Review, a 2023 Best of the Net nominee, and a 2023 Fellow of The Craft Institute, "a non-profit organization dedicated to curating culturally inclusive ecosystems throughout the world of arts and entertainment..." Ashley consults and facilitates workshops for Authors Roundtable of North Florida and teaches creative writing at Jacksonville Arts and Music School. 
READ Check out Jeffrey's work from the library: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=%22jeffrey+blount%22&te= 
THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDS More books about finding yourself and your community:
The Gone Dead, by Chanelle Benz The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers ---
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Jami Attenberg is the author of seven books of fiction including Instant Love, The Kept Man, The Melting Season, The Middlesteins, Saint Mazie, and All Grown Up. Her most recent novel is All This Could Be Yours (2019). She is also the author of the memoir I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home (2022). Attenberg has written about food, travel, books, relationships and urban life for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, Slate, and others. Her work has been published in a total of sixteen languages. She lives in New Orleans, LA.
Interviewer Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy award-winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black & Published podcast. Her latest novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree, was acquired by Scout Press and will be published in 2025. A Chicago native, Nikesha is now a columnist with JAX Today. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, ESSENCE, and VOX. She currently lives in Florida with her family.
READ Check out some of Jami's work from the library: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22jami+attenberg%22&te= 
THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDS More fiction to complement Jami’s works:
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud JAMI RECOMMENDS My parents live over in Venice, Florida, across the state from all of you in Jacksonville, so that’s the part of Florida I know the best. These are my four favorite things about Venice:
Belkis Cuban food inside the Citgo gas station. The people who run it are so nice and sometimes you just need to sit down with your family and eat an enormous Cuban sandwich. The free daily yoga on Venice Beach. The classes are offered by a lovely woman named Elin. She teaches it twice each morning. It’s basically just a lot of stretching but I like to go with my mom and then take a walk on the beach after. The Legacy Trail. An incredible miles-long multi-use recreational rail trail connecting Sarasota and Venice. My mother is on the Friends of The Legacy Trail board and helped with fundraising for its expansion, so I always think of it as the “Joan Attenberg Trail.” Humphris Park/South Jetty. Whenever I visit my parents, we go and watch the sunset here and it’s really lovely to see so many people come out and enjoy the natural beauty of Florida. ---
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Nat Glover was born in 1943, in segregated Jacksonville, Florida. At seventeen, he unknowingly headed into an angry white mob and the Ku Klux Klan attacking young black protestors staging a sit-in at a downtown whites-only lunch counter. Known as “Ax Handle Saturday,” this harrowing encounter with racism would commit him to a lifetime of fighting for justice.
He joined the Jacksonville Police Department in 1966 where he was named Police Officer of the Year four times, promoted to detective, rose to sergeant, and was appointed the city’s first hostage negotiator. In 1995, Duval County voters elected him the first Black sheriff in Florida since Reconstruction.
Hear more about his incredible work and his new memoir, Striving for Justice: A Black Sheriff.
Nathaniel Glover has garnered national recognition for his community policing, ban on choke holds, and de-escalation training. Then-President Bill Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno praised his initiatives during a walk-along with Glover in Jacksonville.
He was also a mayoral candidate in 2003 and served as the 29th President of his alma mater, Edward Waters University. He was twice nominated for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Male President of the Year. The school’s stadium is named the Nathaniel Glover Community Field and Stadium.
He received a “Great Floridian” designation in 2016 for his dedication to law enforcement, higher education, and the city of Jacksonville. He was inducted into the Florida Law Enforcement Officer’s Hall of Fame in 2021. His memoir, Striving for Justice: A Black Sheriff, was released on August 22, 2023. Book proceeds help fund scholarships for need-based students through the Florida State College at Jacksonville’s Foundation and the “Where They Will Shine Scholarship Fund”. Learn more at www.strivingforjusticebook.com.
Interviewer Keitha Nelson is an award-winning journalist with 19 years of experience in the field of broadcasting. She currently serves as the co-anchor for Good Morning Jacksonville, First Coast News, NBC12/ABC25.
She’s a true storyteller with the ability to connect with audiences. Throughout her career, Keitha has covered several major stories including Hurricanes Katrina, Matthew, and Irma as well as the Kamiyah Mobley story and Ahmaud Arbery shooting trial.
Keitha is a regular speaker and volunteer. Most recently, she’s been honored with a Ken Knight award for her coverage and positive impact within the community. Notably, she has also won an Award of Excellence in Broadcast Journalism from Women in Media. Keitha has contributed to team awards including both an Edward R. Murrow and a Peabody for Hurricane Katrina coverage and an Emmy.
She serves on the board of Jacksonville non-profit Hope at Hand, which provides art and poetry therapy to at-risk populations. Keitha is also a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.
READ Check out Striving for Justice from the library! https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=striving+for+justice+glover&te= 
THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDS African American Life in Jacksonville by Herman Mason It Still Hurts, by Marshelle Berry Florida’s Historic African American Homes, by Jada Wright-Greene ---
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The Spirit of Place Tim Gilmore is a prolific local history author who has written extensively about Jacksonville. As the writer and creator of www.jaxpsychogeo.com, a project that explores place and catalogs the Southern Gothic, he has told more than 700 stories of strange and historic locations in and around Jacksonville, Florida. He has also published 22 books.
"Ever since UNF English Professor Alex Menocal introduced me to the concept of psychogeography years ago, I’ve been enthralled with it," Gilmore says. "It’s a portmanteau word, the psychology of geography, [meaning] something like the spirit of place. It’s where the name for my website, jaxpsychogeo, comes from."
Gilmore seems equally fascinated with Jacksonville and its people. He is also the founder of JaxbyJax. A literary arts festival, now in its 10th year, JaxbyJax was built on the theme of “Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville.” Few writers have written about Jacksonville more than Gilmore.
He joined us last November to talk about his latest book, The Culture Wars of Warren Folks. 
Tim Gilmore has written 22 books including Box Broken Open: The Architecture of Ted Pappas; Murder Capital: Eight Stories, 1890s-1980s; Channeling Anna Fletcher; Repossessions: Mass Shooting in Baymeadows; The Book of Isaiah: A Vision of the Founder of a City, illustrated by Shep Shepard; Devil in the Baptist Church: Bob Gray’s Unholy Trinity; and The Mad Atlas of Virginia King. Four of the works he’s written for the stage have been produced by Florida State College at Jacksonville DramaWorks and his writing has appeared in numerous publications both locally and nationally.
JaxPsychoGeo has received mention in publications including The Miami Herald, The Washington Post and The New Yorker and was featured in the A24 book Florida! A Hyper-Local Guide to the Flora, Fauna and Fantasy of the Most Far-Out State in America.
Gilmore teaches Literature and Writing at Florida State College at Jacksonville. He’s received awards from FSCJ, the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville and Jacksonville City Council. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida. You can also read his twice-weekly newsletter, Tim Gilmore’s deadpaper, at timgilmore.substack.com.
Interviewer Shep Shepard is a professor of English at FSCJ’s Nassau Center. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida and has worked as a full-time instructor at FSCJ for twenty years. In his spare time, he produces music under various monikers, edits fiction and nonfiction prose, creates digital art, and enjoys time with his wife Ana and their dogs Meka and Moxie.
READ Check out Tim's work from the Library Catalog: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22tim+gilmore%22&te= 



Tim Recommends: Pyschogeographical Works I’ve long been a huge Cormac McCarthy fan. I’ve assigned The Road to numerous classes over the years. Of all the McCarthy I’ve read, I most highly recommend The Road and two of his earlier novels:
First, there’s the 1973 novel Child of God, which somehow manages to be one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read and one of the most beautiful. Few writers could achieve that strange incongruous feat, perhaps none better than McCarthy. Meanwhile, his 1979 novel Suttree paints as detailed a picture of down-and-out Knoxville, Tennessee, as Joyce ever painted of Dublin. It’s perhaps the greatest American psychogeographical work. When I recently read John Oliver Killens’ 1954 novel Youngblood, I couldn’t believe I’d not read him already. This novel, alongside Harry Crews’ newly reissued 1978 memoir A Childhood, has to be among the best writings ever to come out of Georgia. The two of them work like split-screen, a Black childhood and a white childhood, both so different and so similar. Both writers had ties to Jacksonville. Crews said mid-2

Cat Sebastian writes queer historical romance. Her books have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and she’s been featured in the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and Jezebel. She was born in New Jersey and lived in New York and Arizona before settling down in a swampy part of the South. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, having one-sided conversations with her dog, or doing the crossword puzzle.
Interviewer Lori Sterling is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who focuses on helping LGBT+ individuals both at her private practice, Tea Time Therapy, and with her career as a medical care coordinator at JASMYN, a nationally recognized LGBT+ youth center located in Jacksonville Florida. When not advocating for or working with the community, you can most likely find her painting, playing Animal Crossing, or on the mat with her Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class. 
READ Check out more of Cat's work from the library! - https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22cat+sebastian%22&te= 
CAT RECOMMENDS "Here are some non-fiction books and memoirs I've recently read for research purposes, and which I've loved."
The Summer Game by Roger Angell Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell Can't Anybody Here Play This Game by Jimmy Breslin A Drinking Life by Pete Hamill - https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=drinking+life+hamill&te=  City Boy by Edmund White - https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=TITLE%3D%22city+boy%22&qu=AUTHOR%3Dwhite&te=  ---
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