Here’s What’s Coming in December
Here’s the complete line-up for December 2020. Check out the authors, books and summaries of the episodes, below:
Dec 1
Poets Christopher Davis and Allison Hutchcraft Examine Family and Nature
Award-winning Charlotte poets Christopher Davis and Allison Hutchcraft, share their poetry books, Oath, published by Main Street Rag and Swale, published by New Issues Press.
David Trinidad says “there is a sharp, steel-like edge to the lines in Christopher Davis’s poems-so finely wrought are they, and attuned to ‘the brutality of fact,’ the limits of human interaction.”
Paisley Rekdal says “Hutchcraft examines the delicate balance between rapture and ravishment, in poems as ambitious as they are beautiful.”
Dec 4
Jordan O’Donnell’s “Zoon Garden” Offers Political Allegory in the Spirit of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”
In “Zoon Garden,” when the mysterious zookeeper of Clarendon Zoo grants his animals freedom to govern themselves, the creatures create a new land founded upon life, liberty, and happiness for all animals. Though the land seems to function well, each species soon realizes they have differing visions for how the land should be governed.
With the help of Eagle and Owl’s propaganda, the traditional wolves and the progressive sheep quickly emerge as leaders. The two species fight to spread their contradictory visions, pitting the animals against one another, and inadvertently throw the zoo into chaos. Screeching pigeons flood the sky as animals make their opinions known, fact becomes fiction, fiction becomes fact, truth becomes impossible to discern. The wolves and sheep slowly destroy the very land they claim to lead.
Dec 8
Audiobook Narrator Bill A. Jones and Landis Wade Explore The Making of the Christmas Courtroom Trilogy Audiobooks
In the spirit of the holiday season, host Landis Wade, award-winning author of The Christmas Courtroom Trilogy, visits with narrator Bill A. Jones about the three stories and the making of the audiobooks for this collection where belief in Christmas is on trial and time is running out. The episode includes audio clips from all three audiobooks.
The Christmas Heist is a “script somewhere between the screenplays for My Cousin Vinny and Miracle on 34th Street,” says the former Dean of Wake Forest University School of Law “and that’s a wonderful place to be.” It’s the first cozy holiday mystery in The Christmas Courtroom Trilogy, narrated by Bill A. Jones, best known as an actor for his humorous role as news anchor “Rod Remington” on Fox TV’s Glee. Bill A. Jones also has appeared on Comedy Central’s Workaholics, The King Of Queens, CSI New York, Everybody Hates Chris, General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, and many other shows, has done voiceover work for such clients as The Disney Channel, Warner Brothers, and The Fox Movie Channel, and was named one of LA’s Best Concert/Cabaret Artists.
Dec 11
Registered Dietitian Camille Martin Speaks to Women in “Love to Lose”
Camille Martin says that women “waste their lives dieting, which is tragic because diets don’t ever work,” and that “they wait until they lose weight to really live.” Her book posits that “if you reverse the equation and live enthusiastically by setting and achieving more meaningful goals, the weight will lose itself.”
One endorser said that prior to her retirement as a psychotherapist, she had read many self-help, weight management, and motivational/inspirational books and she wished she’d had this book as part of her counseling practice, because it “is chock full of everything that is right with starting and staying on the journey to remain physically, nutritionally, and most importantly, emotionally healthy.”
Dec 15
George Arnold Brings Courage, Danger and Romance With His Western “Wyandotte Bound” and a Christmas Short Story, Too
Bound, like many other strong words, finds its meaning in the perceptions of those it affects. To the Van Sheltons, it is positive and deep-rooted, defining their ties to a vast amount of land abundant in the timber, cattle, and silver that make them the wealthiest and the most powerful family in the town of Wyandotte and influential throughout the state of Nevada.
The show starts with a reading from the opening chapter of the book, where a young man desires to prove his worth with his gun against J.D. Rohr, who wants no part of it but has little way out but to face the man. And before we’re through with the episode, we’re going to find out more about “One Minute Past Christmas.”
Dec 18
Ian Malone Takes Readers On a Science Fiction Thrill Ride in “Detron City Vice,” a City of Temptation Where People Go Missing
Detron City Vice” is a science fiction thriller among Ian Malone’s collection of “character charged Sci-Fi with a shot of Rock & Roll!”
The age of human division should’ve ended five years ago when the decades-old war between the Auran Alliance and the Alystierian Empire drew to a close. Turns out, things change. And nowhere is this more evident than in the bustling streets of Detron City, a place where thrills are chased by thousands, deals are made to impact millions, and where temptations lie in wait beneath the neon glow and lavish excesses of the city’s nightlife for anyone seeking an escape.
It’s also a place where people vanish. Protagonist Danny Tucker is a retired Auran staff sergeant and an ex-cop from Miami living in Detron City. He just got a call. A friend’s son has gone missing.
Dec 22
Jerry, Ryan and Sam McGee Deliver Laughs, Tears and More in “Sidelines & Bloodlines: A Father, His Sons and Our Life in College Football”
Jerry McGee, Ryan McGee and Sam McGee pull back the on-field curtain in college football in “Sidelines & Bloodlines: A Father, His Sons and Our Life in College Football” (Triumph Books).
For ESPN’s Ryan McGee and attorney Sam McGee, football is a lifelong passion formed from growing up as the sons of Dr. Jerry McGee, a man who wore stripes for decades as one of the most highly-decorated officials in college football history. In Sidelines and Bloodlines, Ryan and Sam team up with their father Jerry to share lessons learned between the white lines, featuring a cast of characters that runs from no-name small college athletes and coaches to one-name legends such as Holtz, Paterno, Tebow, and Bo.
The McGees provide a rare and often hilarious glimpse inside the lives of college officials, detailing how a love for the game convinces accomplished professionals from all walks of life to voluntarily endure ceaseless insults, public criticism, and the expressed goal of doing one’s job on a very public stage in a way that will hopefully NOT draw any attention to how that job is done.
Dec 24
Lifelong Minister Leighton Ford Discerns God’s Voice and His Own in “A Life of Listening”
In this memoir, lifelong minister of the gospel Leighton Ford tells his story as a personal history of listening for God’s voice. Beginning with his earliest memories, he recounts the different ways God has spoken to him, and the different ways he has learned to listen.
Through the joys of ministry, first as an international evangelist, often in partnership with Billy Graham, and later as a leader of the Lausanne Movement and a mentor of emerging leaders, Leighton remembers God’s voice proclaiming, instructing, reassuring. Through the pain of deep loss, he remembers God’s voice calling out to him, even in the deafening silence.
What emerges is not just an account of a long and faithful life of Christian service, but a picture of the Christian life—the life of listening. What will it sound like, Ford asks, when God speaks to you?
December 29th
Host Landis Wade Reflects on 2020 and Looks Forward to 2021
In this Charlotte Readers Podcast 2020 finale episode, host Landis Wade reflects on the 2020 podcast year, reads a few of his 2020 published pieces and shares what’s coming on the podcast in 2021.