You Are What You Read

On this week’s episode of You Are What You Read, we are remembering a dear friend who passed recently, beloved nun Sister Bernadette Kenny. Sister Bernie grew up in Boston and entered the order of the Medical Missionaries of Mary in 1957. For fifteen years, Sister Bernie traveled from Ireland to Tanzania as a midwife, and then moved to Southwest Virginia in 1978 by request of the Richmond Diocese. In 1982, Sister Bernie founded the Health Wagon, a single mobile unit, traveling through small towns to community locations and even providing care in families’ backyards to the medically underserved populations of Southwest Virginia. From preventative care, women’s health, and chronic disease management (the list goes on), to parenting classes, economic health, and even technical education, the Health Wagon has become an invaluable lifesaving resource across the five main counties it serves, and beyond. In 2019, Sister Bernie co-wrote "Better for Being with You: A Philosophy of Care" with Tauna Gulley who worked alongside Sister Bernie in Clinchco, Virginia. In the book, Sister Bernie and Tauna recount three decades of health care work in Southwest Virginia. The great Father John Rausch once said if you want to meet a modern-day saint, have a conversation with Sister Bernie Kenny. We hope you enjoy this conversation with her.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s episode, we are delighted to have award-winning writer and New Yorker cartoonist Bob Eckstein with us. Bob’s illustrations are iconic, immediately recognizable and always hilarious. His work has been exhibited in the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco, the Smithsonian Institution, The Cartoon Museum of London, among many others. His work has also appeared in MAD, McSweeney’s, National Lampoon, The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, SPY, Wall St. Journal and publications worldwide. He has taught at the School of Visual Arts, New York University, Pratt Institute and Yonsei University in South Korea. Bob has worked on over 50 books as either a writer or illustrator or both. A few of his titles include The History of the Snowman, The Complete Book of Cat Names, Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores, and Footnotes from the Most Fascinating Museums, which we will be discussing at The Bookmark Shoppe in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday, December 18th at 7pm.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling novelist and award-winning journalist Jennifer Egan joins us on this week’s episode of You Are What You Read. You know Jennifer's work: Manhattan Beach, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Candy House, and more. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, Jennifer’s books are the gold standard. It’s no wonder they have also been included in the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century and among President Barack Obama’s favorite reads. Jennifer’s writing also appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times. In this conversation, we get to know Jennifer beyond the page and the crucial steps she took to become a writer- her gap year between high school and college thinking she would be an archeologist, her career as a model, her time spent as a temp in New York City…and her many stories in between.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s episode of You Are What You Read, we are joined by one of the most important and interesting visionaries in media, Josh Sapan. Josh was CEO of AMC Networks for 25 years during which he took the company from a classic movie channel to one of today’s leading entertainment destinations featuring Emmy and Golden Globe-winning shows… Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, Portlandia, The Night Manager and Top of the Lake. Under Josh’s leadership, he also owned and operated the popular and award-winning brands: IFC, Sundance Channel, WE tv, and IFC Films, helping to popularize independent cinema. Josh now leads Sapan Studio, boutique film, television and media investment company, in partnership with IFC Films. Josh’s books include CABLE TV, THE BIG PICTURE: AMERICA IN PANORAMA, and THE THIRD ACT: REINVENTING YOUR NEXT CHAPTER, which explores the lives of extraordinary people—including Gloria Steinem, Rep.James Clyburn, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Robert Redford, Norman Lear and Alan Alda—and their accomplishments and discoveries in aging. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices