Page Count

Page Count

Page Count, presented by the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library, features interviews with authors, librarians, booksellers, illustrators, publishing professionals, and literary advocates in and from the state of Ohio.

Episodes

July 15, 2025 59 mins

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 literary fame; his dialect poetry; contr...

Mark as Played

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 figures (and controversy!), what it...

Mark as Played

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 remains relevant today. We also discuss c...

Mark as Played

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, managing expectations as an author,...

Mark as Played

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 plot (or not); small press publishing ...

Mark as Played

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 Eastman’s first visit to Cleveland Publi...

Mark as Played

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 value of workshops, building confiden...

Mark as Played

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 it has to say about race and the dep...

Mark as Played
March 25, 2025 1 min

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 behind-the-scenes look at the...
Mark as Played
March 11, 2025 16 mins

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 about films or TV shows with a lite...

Mark as Played
February 25, 2025 42 mins

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 fictional stories in real places, post-mor...

Mark as Played

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 this great author’s beginnings, Ha...

Mark as Played

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-winning books, including The Keeper...

Mark as Played

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 speaker, overcoming anxiety about sharin...

Mark as Played
December 31, 2024 20 mins

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 inspiration, letting go of perfection, making...

Mark as Played

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 as well as peace and liberation. Wh...

Mark as Played
December 3, 2024 49 mins

If you’ve ever wondered about the process of turning your book into an audiobook, or what it takes to work as an audiobook narrator, then this episode is for you. Danielle Muething and Gary Leo Smith, two professional narrators based in Ohio, share a behind-the-scenes look at the art of audiobook narration. They discuss everything from how to get started as a narrator, how much money narrators can expect to earn, different pricing ...

Mark as Played

Denise Phillips, the owner of Gathering Volumes, an independent bookstore in Perrysburg, Ohio, offers holiday gift recommendations for readers of all ages and interests. From eels to dragons, baked goods, murderbots, Toni Morrison/Buffy the Vampire Slayer mashups, and a lot more, listen to get some holiday shopping ideas for the book lover in your life.

 

Books Denise recommends:

Mark as Played
November 4, 2024 37 mins

Author and illustrator Julia Kuo discusses her picture book Luminous: Living Things That Light Up the Night, which won the 2024 Floyd’s Pick Book Award. She shines a light on bioluminescence, the mysteries of the open ocean, squids and glowworms and jellyfish, illustration career paths, her journey to becoming an author, and the art of making our own light.

 

Julia Kuo is the author and illustrator of Let’s Do Everything and Nothin...

Mark as Played
October 22, 2024 47 mins

Halloween is right around the corner, so grab your pumpkin spice lattes and join us as we explore Ohio’s cemeteries with Ian Adams, Randall Lee Schieber, and Robin L. Smith, the photographers and author, respectively, of This Place of Silence: Ohio’s Cemeteries and Burial Grounds. Our guests discuss the process of photographing and writing about cemeteries in every county in Ohio, cemetery art and architecture, the history and evol...

Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    24/7 News: The Latest

    The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

    The Breakfast Club

    The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

    On Purpose with Jay Shetty

    I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.