 Welcome to another episode of in the studio. I'm Lynn Weaver. Our topic is the Battle of the Books, which is an event taking place in Davis on October 15th to benefit the Hattie Webber Museum. And my guests are Randy Jones of the UC Davis Writing Program, a poet and interpreter of poetry. Andy has taught classes on TS Eliot and poetry of the beat generation and close reading of poetry and as well as the advanced poetry writing workshop. He's done other things. He happens to be the poet laureate of Davis and he also has the time for a radio show. Now what radio show do you host? Thank you and I host Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour on KDVS and I've been there since the year 2000. So 15 years now on the air talking about poetry and technology. A lot of poems flowing. Absolutely, any poets. Like your show it's an interview show so I get to welcome new people every week. Oh that's fantastic. Shelly Dunning, she's the co-sponsor of the event with the avid reader, a resident of Davis, the mother of four and the well-known promoter of frugal February and you might wonder what this is. It's an experiment that Shelly has done with family and it was so interesting that it made ABC Good Morning America and you might wonder what that is. It's a story of a family trying to beat the lures of consumerism by not spending any money during a whole month. Welcome. Thank you. And then we have Kate Durin. She's a writer, a communication director and board member of the Smith-Lemley-Opese Syndrome Foundation and she's also the coordinator of the new parent support group I believe Mother and Baby Source. Andy and Kate are co-authors of the book of poems and essay titled Where is Duke? Yes, which is one of the books entered in the battle of the books. Welcome all. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Now Shelly, I'm going to start right with you and ask you, tell us more about the battle of the book. Sure. And yeah. Well, Battle of the Books will be a first event sponsored by the Davis Store. The Davis Store is a little project that my family and I started this past summer. It's in progress but it's basically a little souvenir shop and the goal of the Davis Store is to make enough money to put on events to raise more money for local nonprofits. So our first event, Battle of the Books, is to benefit our very special Hattie Webber Museum and it is a take on an event that we, the authors and myself and many, many parents in Davis have long wanted to be a part of our elementary schools in Davis and our junior highs participate in Battle of the Books at those levels and every year we as parents are fortunate to be judges in our children's activities. So rather than reading children's books, we have taken six wonderful Davis authors. The talent in Davis is amazing. Chosen five books and we have challenged Davis readers to form teams, divide up the book list, read a book and then come to the event where the authors will challenge their knowledge and their comprehension. So the author themselves will be present. Yes and that's the exciting thing about this event is Davis has some pretty impressive talent and to be in the same room with all of those authors while they're quizzing you on their works is very fun. It's very thrilling. It's very thrilling. What a wonderful initiative and you, so if say I would like to participate Shelley, what would I do? Well when you choose to participate and I know you will, you will simply find a group of friends and your team can be three to five people and we're very flexible. So if two of you would like to form a team and you'd like to read all the books that's great. If you'd like to get five people on your team, choose the book, get your team members names, go to the davisstore.com and click on the events tab and register and then read the books and show up. That's fabulous. Now we have a poster of the event and I would like to show it so that we can get the dates and the wear and all that and so it's October 15th and as Shelley just mentioned you can go to the davis store and register and I believe it's a very when very minor registration fee. Yeah and so this is how you do it and on October 15th seems very very soon to have read all these books but you can read only one. That's right. The way I understand it. Okay well that is good. Now Shelley one more question for you and then I'll go to Andy and Kate. Where's the battlefield? The battlefield is St. James Memorial Hall and that's located on B Street next to St. James Church. Yes. The event will begin at six o'clock. We'll have food, we'll have wine and the focus as Andy and Kate will tell you is really on fun that night. So if you choose not to compete that night you would just like to come support the Hattie Weber Museum. Sign up on the website, come have a glass of wine, root for your friends and meet the authors. That's really going to be the highlight of the event. That's wonderful. Now Andy and Kate have co-authored and before I come to your book which I haven't read but I'm looking forward very much to reading it. I would like to direct our camera to the five books that have been selected for this event and one is Indelibly Davis by former Chancellor Larry Vanderhoof and then the other one is the very famous by the very famous author John Lesquaw and this time it's The Fall I think it's his latest book, isn't it right? And then another famous author is Stan Robinson, Kim Stan Robinson and this is Aurora again his latest book and perhaps you can help me Andy with the other two books and what are they? Sure one is Land Falls by Naomi Williams. She's also a Davis. She's a Davis author and she's been a member of many writing groups and Land Falls has really worked its way into the adoration of the critics. People across the country have highlighted it for praise. It's a historical novel about a French sea trip that took place in the 18th century. At first blush it might not seem like an enthralling topic but I'm reading the book now and I think it's very engaging and I've heard Naomi read from it and it's it's just terrific so I would encourage people to check that out. And then the fifth book is Where's Juki and as you mentioned before this is a book that Kate and I wrote together about the joys and challenges of raising a son with special needs and as a poet I've contributed the 30 or so poems in here and Kate is an essayist and blogger and so she's got about eight or so essays in here. Yes I was intrigued by the fact that it was this different format poems and essayist and I'm looking forward to talking a little more about the book itself but just as a note and it's sort of a note but a question too these are all Davis authors right? We live in a very interesting town I must say and I I have looked I have read several of the books by John Roskra and I haven't read anything by Stan Robinson because oh I don't know I like romance rather than science fiction so now one other thing that that is very important and perhaps I should ask Kate but please jump in what were who selected the books and what were the criteria I know I'm being on shaky grounds here I don't have to you don't have to reveal everything. You know I think when we first came up with this idea these were the only authors we invited and I think because they all had first of all they're all very well known but they all had very recent works and so that was that was kind of the the criteria is they they had very current works out there that people hadn't read yet and so that was that was a fun way for us to bring in readers and and have them read new works so. A great deal of coordination and perseverance I suppose to organize all this. Yes definitely but I have to say I'm so impressed with with the authors I think you know I talked to friends across the country who know a lot of these names and they're they think it's phenomenal that they're participating and I think for them they think this is Davis this is our Hattie Weber Museum of course I would love to be a part of this so it's really been a very easy very fun process to organize. Well I'm glad to hear I'm glad to hear so Kate let's talk a little bit about this book is it particularly about your son. Yes so Andy and I have a son who was born with a rare genetic syndrome he's now 14 years old and I find that what helps me sort of just get through those challenging days is to think as I'm going through the day I often actually think about writing it in my head maybe that's a little odd or maybe that's just what writers do but sometimes I'm just I'm actually taking notes in my head and thinking this moment is so odd or so crazy or so funny that I have to write it down and so I started writing essays and I started collecting them together on a blog and all about the sort of joys and challenges of raising this very special but kind of rascally rascally boy right and you know life is not always easy with him but I wanted to share some of the joy that I think is sort of hidden for families like ours because people sometimes see us on the street and think you know you know oh that poor family has that huge challenge thank god that's not my kid you know yeah I think there's a lot of that. I dislike that attitude totally because it is very demeaning and it it doesn't doesn't make sense sorry this is just my editorial here but you're I say so they have different themes different topics I wanted to share some of the some of the things that I think people don't know about about raising a child like Juki so I wrote about some of the happy times with him you know some of the times that we have caused to celebrate but I also write about some of the deeply sad moments moments of course and Juki is Juki the name of yourself so his name is actually Jackson but his sister nicknamed him when Juki yeah when he was a baby and it's stuck now I understand you have a short excerpt that I've asked you to read I do yes we our time is very limited but hopefully it is short because I'd like to go to Andy and have a little bit of his a little snippet of his poem as well so please go ahead okay so this is titled meet Juki meet Juki probably more than any other photo I have this one shows Juki's true self yes he is sitting inside a box on the top shelf of his closet yep that box is dangerously close to falling off the shelf notice the artful balancing act with his right foot Juki lives on the edge he's never happier than when teetering on the brink the edge of a high shelf a rooftop at midnight or the limit of his mom's patience we're used to the quizzical looks from strangers Juki calls attention to himself I'll have to stop you because we are running out of time but very quickly Andy would you like to read a little bit and but this already you can see how you want more yes exactly well that's the purpose you know the 15 minutes it's such a short time and I apologize for that I'll read some from the first poem in the book which is called my entropy elephant about 30 seconds or so he is my entropy elephant my kangaroo of chaos the contents of all drawers will be revealed all shirts become t-shirts all gowns strapless if a tree falls in the forest run to take the axe from his hands if the water main has broken he has taken a break water seeks its own level and this boy is a guide so that's a little bit from the first poem and where lovely absolutely roughly well I'm afraid our time is up it went very quickly I am so grateful that you took the time to be on my show and I wish you the very best of success for this I think it's going to enrich the life of Davis literary and level of you know intellect and Davis and hopefully you'll have it next year as well that's our hope yes October 15th is the date I want to remind your viewers and that they're all welcome to come join us over excellent so Dr. Randy Jones Shelley Dunnan and Kate During thank you so much and thank you all for being here and for watching in the studio if you'd like to stream this episode you can go to dctvdctv.davismedia.org and we're also we will be on YouTube and while you're there you might want to check out some of our other shows we have very illustrious guests and fascinating topics so and please I don't want to forget to thank our prestigious technical crew Kevin Calvin and Matthew and of course Diane who is the technical director thank you all so much and see you next time