Books on the Bed

Matt Sawyer
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Books

Inspired by a visit to Tuskegee, Alabama in April of 2021, I’m traveling through the country asking our hosts, ”If I came to your town and stayed at your house, what books would you put on my bed?” Each host will share 6 books for me to carry with me on the journey of my life. As we go, we’ll build a digital library for you to explore and find the stories that will part a curtain between us, make your heart shift, and change your life.

  1. May 24

    Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross

    This week we visit with Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross is a writer and editor based in Vancouver, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and art criticism have appeared in BOMB, C Mag, The Ex-Puritan, Fence, Mousse, and elsewhere, as well as in the chapbooks Mayonnaise and Drawings on Yellow Paper (with Katie Lyle). By day, she works as an editor at The Capilano Review. By night, she drafts suspended scenarios and propositions. The Longest Way to Eat a Melon, her debut collection of fictions, was published by Sarabande Books in 2025. She is at work on a novel. BUY AND READ THE LONGEST WAY TO EAT A MELON For more on Jacquelyn: jacquelynzross.com Jacquelyn's Books on the Bed: Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing by Hélène Cixous The Importance of Being Iceland by Eileen Myles The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli Pure Colour by Sheila Heti lettuce lettuce please go bad by Tiziana La Melia The Cloud Notebook by Ada Smailbegović Matt's gifts for Jacquelyn: Little Bird by Claudia Ulloa Donoso (translated by Lily Meyer) Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt Temporary by Hilary Leichter

    1h 43m

  2. Apr 26

    Alison Lyn Miller

    This week we visit with Alison Lyn Miller in Athens, Georgia. Alison Lyn Miller grew up in Hartwell, Georgia, and worked as a magazine editor in New York City and Dallas before moving to Athens, Georgia, in 2017. In 2020, she started reporting and writing about independent professional wrestlers around the state and published pieces in Sports Illustrated and Gravy. Her first book, Rough House (W.W. Norton, Jan. ’26), set in Georgia’s small-town professional wrestling scene, explores themes of escapism, self-actualization, performance and violence, and reveals the depth of an often-dismissed American pastime. She has written for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post, and Garden & Gun, among others, and has been awarded residencies at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Science (2023) and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2024). She is 2021 graduate of the Narrative Nonfiction MFA program at The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication. BUY AND READ ROUGH HOUSE For more on Alison: alisonlynmiller.com Alison's Books on the Bed: The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West by John Branch The Last Fine Time by Verlyn Klinkenborg The Library Book by Susan Orlean The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel Hiroshima by John Hersey Dirtbag Queen: A Memoir of My Mother by Andy Corren Matt's Gifts for Alison: Bookshop Cats by Daphne Du Meowier They Said They Wanted Revolution by Neda Toloui-Semnani A Race to the Bottom of Crazy: Dispatches from Arizona by Richard Grant Gene Smith's Sink: A Wide-Angle View by Sam Stephenson

    2h 7m

  3. Mar 8

    Alice Martin

    This week we visit with Alice Martin in Waynesville, North Carolina. Alice Martin is a writer, reader, and teacher from North Carolina. She holds a PhD in Literature from Rutgers University and works as an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where she teaches fiction writing and American literature. She lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, her son, and too many typewriters. Westward Women is her debut novel. For more on Alice: alicejmartin.com BUY WESTWARD WOMEN Alice’s Books on the Bed: The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Ray's Diary by Jennifer Sinor Envelope Poems: Poetry by Emily Dickinson (edited by Jen Bervin and Marta Werner) If I Had Two Wings: Stories by Randall Kenan The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter Matt’s Gifts for Alice: The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook Call It Horses by Jessie van Eerden Girl’s Girl by Sonia Feldman (forthcoming June 2nd)

    2h 4m

  4. Feb 15

    Nathaniel Roy

    This week we visit with Nathaniel Roy in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  Nathaniel Roy is a book designer, collage maker, photo taker, self-publisher, and a few other things. He's a graphic designer who specializes in book design, but for the right cause, he'll design just about anything. He's keenly interested in local, independent, and non-profit projects and is currently an in-house designer at the Ann Arbor District Library and available for freelance opportunities. His clients include Simon & Schuster, W. W. Norton, Wayne State University Press, University of Texas Press, Penn State University Press, Minnesota Historical Society Press. HIRE THIS GUY: nathanielroy.com Nate's Books on the Bed: The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding... Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis by Sam Anderson Matt's Gifts for Nate: The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd's Life by Helen Whybrow American Bulk by Emily Mester A History of Half-Birds by Caroline Harper New

    1h 33m

  5. 12/21/2025

    Ashleigh Bryant Phillips

    This week we visit with Ashleigh Bryant Phillips in Asheville, North Carolina.  Ashleigh Bryant Phillips is from rural Woodland, North Carolina. She's a graduate of Meredith College and earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Her debut short story collection Sleepovers is the winner of the 2019 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize, selected by Lauren Groff. Her stories have appeared in The Oxford American, The Paris Review and others.  For more on Ashleigh: ashleighbryantphillips.com Ashleigh's Books on the Bed: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please by Raymond Carver Portraits and Dreams: Photographs and Stories by Children of the Appalachians  1976-1982, 2009-2018 by Wendy Ewald  Bambi by Felix Salten, translated by Damion Searls Free Day by Inès Cagnati, translated by Liesl Schillinger The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross The Royal Diaries: Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile, Egypt, 57 B.C. by Kristiana Gregory Matt's Gifts for Ashleigh: Where the Roots Reach for Water: A Personal & Natural History of Melancholia by Jeffery Smith Reading Reconstruction: Sherwood Bonner and the Literature of the Post-Civil War South by Kathryn B. McKee Room Swept Home by Remica Bingham-Risher

    2h 12m

  6. 12/07/2025

    Nilo Tabrizy

    This week we visit with Nilo Tabrizy in Brooklyn, New York. Nilo Tabrizy is the co-author (with Fatemeh Jamalpour) of For the Sun After Long Nights, a moving exploration of the 2022 women-led protests in Iran, as told through the interwoven stories of two Iranian journalists. She is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post working for the visual forensics team, where she covers Iran using open-source methods. Previously, she was a video journalist at The New York Times, covering Iran, race and policing, abortion access, and more. She is an Emmy nominee and the 2022 winner of the Front Page Award for Online Investigative Reporting. She received an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in political science and French from the University of British Columbia. For more on Nilo: ntabrizy.com Nilo's Books on the Bed: Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Women's Voices from Kurdistan: A Selection of Kurdish Poetry (edited by Farangis Ghaderi, Clémence Scalbert Yücel, Yaser Hassan Ali) Puerto Rico: A National History by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo An Anthology of the Experiences of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Victims (Third Collection) by Hiroshima Association for the Success of the Atomic Bomb Exhibition Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg (must-read afterword by Peg Boyers!) They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of My Parents by Neda Toloui-Semnani Matt's Gifts for Nilo: As Seeds We Grow: Student Reflections on Resilience (edited by Elise Boulanger) Heating the Outdoors and Between the Moments: Canadian Aboriginal Voices by Marie-Andrée Gill Daughters of Palestine by Leyla K. King

    1h 52m

  7. 11/30/2025

    Tessa Fontaine

    This week we visit with Tessa Fontaine in Asheville, North Carolina.  Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts and The Red Grove, her debut novel. Raised outside San Francisco, Tessa teaches in Warren Wilson’s MFA program, started Salt Lake City’s Writers in the Schools program, and has taught in jails and prisons for years. She co-founded and teaches the Accountability Workshops with writer and pal Annie Hartnett, and lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her daughter, silly dog and sassy cat. For more on Tessa: tessafontaine.com Tessa's Books on the Bed: Sun Under Wood by Robert Hass Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje Jazz by Toni Morrison The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews We the Animals by Justin Torres Matt's Gifts for Tessa: Leaving Biddle City by Marianna Chan Obit by Victoria Chang Chooch Helped by Andrea L. Rogers (illustrated by Rebecca Kunz)

    1h 40m

  8. 11/09/2025

    Andrea L. Rogers

    This week we visit with Andrea L. Rogers in Mountainburg, Arkansas.  Andrea L. Rogers is an award-winning author of historical and contemporary fiction across a variety of genres. Her first book, Mary and the Trail of Tears is historical fiction, which is pretty much horror for Native people. It was on both the NPR & American Indians in Children’s Literature best of 2020 lists. Her critically acclaimed Young Adult Horror Novel, Man Made Monsters, was released by Levine Querido in October 2022. It includes illustrations by Jeff Edwards (Cherokee). The novel received the Walter Award and several other accolades. She also authored a YA novel of Cherokee Futurism called The Art Thieves, released in August 2024. Her debut picture book about Southeastern tribes and wild onion dinners (the opposite of horror) is called When We Gather, illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight (Chickasaw). A second picture book, Chooch Helped, arrived in October 2024, illustrated by Rebecca Kunz(Cherokee). Chooch Helped won the 2025 Caldecott Medal. Andrea is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She currently attends The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville where she is a doctoral student in English. Andrea graduated with an MFA from the Institute for American Indian Arts. She taught Art and HS English in public schools for 14 years. She has three wonderful children. Andrea's Books on the Bed: A Golden Treasury of Song and Lyrics by Francis Turner Palgrave The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleasing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875 by Gary Clayton Anderson The Ballad of Black Tom and The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror by W. Scott Poole Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey Fall in Line, Holden! and Herizon by Daniel W. Vandever Matt's Gifts for Andrea: Roots of My Fears: Terrifying Stories of Ancestral Horror (Edited by Gemma Amor) The Ghost Variations by Kevin Brockmeier The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis

    1h 60m
See All (38)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Inspired by a visit to Tuskegee, Alabama in April of 2021, I’m traveling through the country asking our hosts, ”If I came to your town and stayed at your house, what books would you put on my bed?” Each host will share 6 books for me to carry with me on the journey of my life. As we go, we’ll build a digital library for you to explore and find the stories that will part a curtain between us, make your heart shift, and change your life.

Information

  • Creator
    Matt Sawyer
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2024
  • Show Website
    Books on the Bed

You Might Also Like