Archive for the ‘Booknotes’ Category
The Art of Living History on BookNotes
In celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, my guest on BookNotes this month is the historical novelist and preservationist Sharon Virts, whose six-part saga Fields of Honor, set during the first half of the 1800s, is grounded in historical fact.
The Goddess of Swizzle on BookNotes
Baltimore poet, Shirley J. Brewer—who says that she earned her MBA from the Maryland Bartending Academy!—is out with her fifth poetry collection. I invited her to read from and talk about it on BookNotes.
Steven Isserlis closes Shriver’s 60th subscription season
British cellist Steven Isserlis and his long-time collaborator Connie Shih perform a program of Beethoven, Schumann, Kabalevsky, and Vítězslava Kaprálová to close out the subscription season of Shriver Hall Concert Series‘ 60th anniversary. I spoke with him by phone from New York.
Poet Elizabeth Hazen’s new collection on BookNotes
Poet and essayist Elizabeth Hazen is a Maryland native and a fixture on the Baltimore literary scene. Her new poetry collection, The Sky Will Hold, is out this weekend.
#AWP2026 in Baltimore with writer Natasha Williams
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs—AWP—is holding its 2026 Annual Conference & Bookfair at the Baltimore Convention Center through this Saturday. One of the thousands of attendees is Natasha Williams, whose memoir The Parts of Him I Kept: The Gifts of My Father’s Madness has been published by Baltimore’s Apprentice House Press. […]
A fictional former Orioles player on BookNotes
Nathan Leslie—Writer. Editor. Organizer. Educator—is out with his latest novel titled Van Boyle, which one reviewer describes as “a compelling, heart-rending tale of a former major league ballplayer who has lost everything and now subsists in the wilds of Maryland.”
A Guide for Violinists on BookNotes
Dr. Marjory Serrano-Coyer is a violinist, educator, performer, and passionate communicator. She has brought all these gifts together in her informative book, Concertmaster Leadership: A Guide for Violinists.
BookNotes explores a memoirist’s silent treatment
Jeannie Vanasco, who teaches creative writing at Towson University, has been on the receiving end of a silent treatment from her mother. It’s the subject of her third memoir.
BookNotes considers Best Small Fictions
Best Small Fictions is the first-ever contemporary anthology solely dedicated to anthologizing the best internationally published short hybrid fiction in a given calendar year. The Series Editor is Nathan Leslie, who is my guest on BookNotes this month.
Pawprints on BookNotes
Five centuries before cat videos took over the Internet felines were gracing the margins of medieval manuscripts, and an exhibition called Paws on Parchment is currently on display in the Medieval Gallery at The Walters Arts Museum. It’s been curated by Lynley Anne Herbert, the Robert and Nancy Hall Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, […]
