Page Count

Debut memoirist Tiffany Graham Charkosky discusses the story behind LIVING PROOF: How Love Defied Genetic Legacy, from the medical journey she embarked on after learning she carried a genetic mutation to the years she spent writing and revising the memoir before landing a book deal. Along the way, she also shares the challenges and joys of writing material that is deeply personal, the physical and...

In her new picture book, Sandra Nickel reveals the true genius behind the iconic Tiffany stained glass lamp designs: Clara Driscoll, an Ohio-born artist who managed the “Tiffany Girls” in Louis Comfort Tiffany’s studio in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While Driscoll’s contributions went unrecognized for decades, we now know she was the artist behind the gorgeous dragonfly, wis...

For our 100th episode, we’re traveling back in time: to 1915, the setting of Dan Chaon’s latest novel, One of Us, and to September 13, 2025, when this conversation was recorded in front of a live audience at the Literary Cleveland Inkubator Writing Conference. While using his new novel as an example, Chaon discusses the craft of fiction, including voice, setting, point of view, characterization, l...

Cleveland-based children’s book author Tricia Springstubb takes listeners on an adventure through the wilderness via The Wild Robot—how her granddaughter introduced her to Peter Brown’s story, why she loves the novel, and her thoughts on the film adaptation—before discussing her own writing journey. She shares how she came to publish thirteen books since 2010; why she loves writing for young peopl...

Listeners, you’re about to slip through a portal to arrive at the 2025 Columbus Book Festival, where Megan Giddings, Ruben Reyes Jr., and Edward Underhill discussed the ins and outs of speculative fiction: why they write it, why they love it, and the challenges and opportunities the genre presents. We’ve got mysterious doors opening to unknown lands, alternate realties, time slips, and plenty of a...

Lisa Ampleman, Managing Editor of The Cincinnati Review , offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into a literary magazine’s submission review process. By using one poem and one short story recently published in the print journal as examples, she reveals what might catch an editor’s eye in the submission queue, how the editing process unfolded after acceptance, and what kind of changes the authors made...

Julie K. Rubini discusses her biography for young readers, Virginia Hamilton: America’s Storyteller, which surrounds one of the most honored American children’s book authors of all time. Rubini sheds light on Virginia Hamilton’s life and work, including Hamilton’s childhood in Yellow Springs, Ohio; her early literary ambitions; the professors at Antioch College and The Ohio State University who ga...

This episode celebrates poetry, local voices, parks, biodiversity, and the art of paying attention to the natural world around us. Carrie George and Charles Malone, two co-editors of Light Enters the Grove: Exploring Cuyahoga National Park through Poetry, share how this literary field guide focusing on the plants, animals, and birds found within CVNP came together. From assigning writers species a...

From the songs of Taylor Swift to the skate parks of the Midwest, not to mention pep talks for writers and a guide to Columbus hot spots, this episode has something for everyone. Recorded during a panel discussion at the 2025 Ohioana Book Festival, authors Annie Zaleski, Mandy Shunnarah, Maggie Smith, and Shawnie Kelley discuss the art of nonfiction, including their research, writing, and publishi...

Join us for an audio tour of the Paul Laurence Dunbar House in Dayton, Ohio. Ryan Qualls, Chief of Interpretation and Site Manager, walks listeners through Dunbar’s final residence and sheds light on the life and work of this prolific, groundbreaking author. Take a step back into history to learn about Dunbar’s early friendship with the Wright brothers; how a pivotal review launched him into liter...

Forget actors, rock stars, and elite athletes—on Page Count, the real celebrities are librarians. Karen Henry Clark, the author of the picture book Library Girl: How Nancy Pearl Became America’s Most Celebrated Librarian , is here to discuss her friendship with Nancy Pearl, how she came to write a picture book about Pearl’s childhood, the research process, her own writing journey, librarian action...

Listeners, welcome to the fifth dimension. We’re joined by Dr. Kim Kiehl, Executive Director of the Ohioana Library Association, to discuss The Twilight Zone and its creator, Rod Serling. We focus on “Mirror Image,” an episode airing in Season 1 of the show’s original run, but we also talk about the series at large, Serling’s Ohio roots and his writing career, and just why The Twilight Zone remain...

Poet and editor Dr. Taylor Byas is here to discuss her award-winning debut poetry collection, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times . Along the way, she shares insights into writing about place, how The Wiz serves as structural inspiration for the collection, her literary inspirations and heroes, the value of Ph. D. programs in creative writing, her editorial work at The Rumpus, the art of chapbooks...

Hilary Plum discusses her new novel, State Champ, which surrounds an abortion clinic employee who goes on a hunger strike to protest her boss’s imprisonment. In this far-reaching conversation, Plum sheds light on the spontaneity of art and protest; the history of the hunger strike; the dark joys of writing a complicated, acerbic protagonist; elite athletes; eating disorders; crafting a novel’s plo...

As part of Cleveland Public Library’s celebrations surrounding the 100th anniversary of Main Library , Page Count honors Linda Anne Eastman, the first woman to lead a large metropolitan library system in the United States. Through letters, documents, photographs, speeches, and other archival material, Cleveland Public Library Archivist Melissa Carr sheds light on Eastman’s life and work. From East...

Next up in our Literary Screening series is the 2021 film The Tender Bar, an adaptation of J.R. Moehringer’s 2005 memoir. RW Franklin, a writer and past Lit Youngstown board member, is here to break down the film, which is a coming-of-age story of a young man finding his place in the world—and his voice as a writer. She also discusses her own writing journey, her decision to use a pen name, the va...

Welcome to the first episode of Literary Screening, a new series that invites Page Count guests to discuss films or television shows with a literary connection. First up is American Fiction, the 2023 adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure. Laura is joined by Matt Weinkam and Michelle Smith of Literary Cleveland to consider how the film satirizes the publishing industry and academia, what i...

Page Count’s fourth season kicks off on April 8, 2025! Listen to snippets from just a few of our upcoming episodes featuring the following guests:   Matt Weinkam and Michelle Smith of Literary Cleveland discuss the film American Fiction, Percival Everett, and the economic realities of being a writer. Lisa Ampleman, Managing Editor of The Cincinnati Review, discusses the art of editing by sharing a...

Laura and Don celebrate Page Count’s third anniversary by discussing some of their favorite episodes from Season 3, touching on everything from MacArthur geniuses to Annie Oakley, typewriters, graveyards, unicorns, bioluminescence, ghosts, Laura’s aversion to clip shows, and a lot more. They also look ahead to Season 4, which will introduce Literary Screening, a new series featuring conversations...

Mary Grimm leads listeners through the tunnels, dreams, purgatories, and ghost towns that appear in her new story collection, Transubstantiation . Along the way, she discusses her literary influences and heroes, experimental writing, story beginnings and endings, publishing short fiction in The New Yorker and beyond, the line between autobiographical fiction and creative nonfiction, setting fictio...

Quartez Harris is here to discuss his new picture book, Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer, which illuminates Baldwin’s childhood and literary foundation. Harris discusses Baldwin’s early challenges and support systems, how a young Baldwin found refuge in the library, Baldwin’s queer identity, and why glitter serves as a recurring metaphor in Go Tell It. In addition to shedding light on...

Kelcey Ervick, author of the graphic memoir The Keeper: Soccer, Me, and the Law that Changed Women’s Lives, is here to discuss soccer, women’s sports, Title IX, connections between goalkeeping and writing, rereading your teenage diaries, research for memoirists, her own evolution from athlete to writer to graphic memoirist, Viking names, and a lot more.   Kelcey Ervick is the author of four award-...

In a special episode recorded before a live audience at the Inkubator writing conference, Laura interviews Loung Ung, whose bestselling memoirs detailing her experiences under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia have moved readers worldwide. Ung discussed the genesis of her writing life, writing in a child’s voice for an adult audience, writing and publishing in English as a nonnative English speak...

We’re wrapping up 2024 by offering New Year’s resolutions for writers inspired by advice offered this year by some of Page Count’s guest authors: Ross Gay, Claire McMillan, Alison Stine, Jacqueline Woodson, Hanif Abdurraqib, Brian Broome, Sara Moore Wagner, Chiquita Mullins Lee, Leah Stewart, Rob Harvilla, Libby Kay, David Hassler, and Alex Rowland. From writing in new places to finding inspiratio...

In a virtual panel hosted by Literary Cleveland during the 2024 Inkubator writing conference, Ohio poets Ruth Awad and Maggie Smith consider how poetry can awaken us to new possibilities of being. Throughout their wide-ranging conversation, Awad and Smith discuss inspiration, hyphenated identities, poems as time capsules, poetic supervillain origin stories, and finding language for grief and rage...