In this episode of our “Inside the Writer’s Head” podcast, Dani McClain reflects on her time as Writer-in-Residence in a tumultuous year, and announces that her residency has been extended through 2021!

In this episode of our “Inside the Writer’s Head” podcast, Dani McClain speaks with Streetvibes editor Gabriela Godinez Feregrino. Gabriela graduated from Ohio University in May of 2018 with a communications degree in media. In school, she studied media production with an emphasis on social change, and also finished a minor in English. She worked at the Ohio University LGBT Center where she found her love for working with and for the community around her. Her previous employment taught her how to speak on panels, teach advocacy, and grass roots organizing. She knows the importance of advocacy and hopes to spend her life working in this sort of field. She has always been a writer and she was incredibly excited when she found out that we were hiring a new editor—she jumped at the opportunity. She feels it’s a privilege to work for this paper as well as an incredible responsibility. She hopes to showcase as many voices from the community as she possibly can.

For the latest episode of “Inside the Writer’s Head,” Writer-in-Residence Dani McClain interviews Gavin DeVore Leonard. He’s the Executive Director of https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fohvoice.org%2Fanddata=04%7C01%7CKelly.Sheehy%40cincinnatilibrary.org%7Cfe4b1abf6acc4cd4fbe608d8743ceb6d%7C77eb15114aea452097fa4d1d27ae29ac%7C0%7C0%7C637387152282564577%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000andsdata=jdH3SRaeRykdW0M5%2B2QEjKmOo%2FKjvz5pIXCWVl8u9f0%3Dandreserved=0 (Ohio Voice), Ohio's 501(c)(3) civic engagement table, a job title that he breaks down for us early in our conversation. They discuss the 2020 election, voting, and more.

In this episode of our “Inside the Writer’s Head” podcast, Dani McClain speaks with bookstore owner Gregory Kornbluh. They discuss his vision and goal for opening a book store, adapting to COVID-19, and more. A product of Sands Montessori and Walnut Hills High School, Kornbluh got his start in bookselling while doing graduate work in American Studies at UMass Boston. He went on to spend a decade in the Sales and Marketing Department of Harvard University Press, a leading publisher of nonfiction in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, where he worked closely with authors, booksellers, librarians, and media members to help new books and ideas find their audience. After thirteen years on the East Coast, he returned home in November 2018 and opened Downbound's doors late the following year.

In this episode of our “Inside the Writer’s Head” podcast, Dani McClain speaks with comedian Luna Malbroux. They discuss one of Malbroux's recent performances that speaks to sex, power, desire, and also about this moment of national uprisings and police violence against Black bodies, and so much more. Named one of KQED's Women to Watch, Luna Malbroux is a comic, writer, and creator of the award-winning play, "How to Be A White Man". Winner of the Comedy Hackday Grand Prize at SF Sketchfest, Luna has made international headlines as the creator of EquiTable, an app that satirically solves the wage gap by creating 'reparations, one meal at a time.' A regular contributor to national publications, Luna has been featured on Fusion TV, AJ+ and Refinery 29. Tastefully crude, Luna is also the host and creator of the live and recording ongoing comedy talk-show, Live Sex. Originally from Louisiana, Luna has dazzled audiences all across the United States with her Southern charm mixed with her bold humor a feature at festivals and clubs alike.

In this episode of our “Inside the Writer’s Head” podcast, Dani McClain speaks with local journalist Nick Swartsell. Nick Swartsell has been staff writer and news editor at CityBeat Cincinnati for six years. He is currently furloughed due to the COVID-19 pandemic but continues to contribute to CityBeat on a regular, pro-bono basis until he can resume full time paid work. Originally from Hamilton, Ohio, Nick completed an undergraduate degree in English and Political Science at Miami's Hamilton, Middletown and Oxford campuses. Shortly after he graduated, he began freelancing for various publications, including a community press covering township government in nearby Fairfield Township. He completed two years of the Americorps Public Ally program in Cincinnati before pursuing a masters degree in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. While in Texas, he interned for The Texas Observer and The Texas Tribune, writing stories about everything from a heated political battle over an indigenous cultural site in the Texas hill country to cancer cases around a nuclear waste facility near the New Mexico border. He completed his masters thesis on media coverage in neighborhoods undergoing economic and demographic change and subsequently spent a year covering Congress and federal agencies for The Dallas Morning News in its Washington, DC bureau before returning to Cincinnati for a job at CityBeat. Nick's primary areas of coverage include law enforcement and the justice system, housing, systemic and individual issues around poverty, development and urban land use, transportation and breaking news, including coverage of protests, the 2016 RNC in Cleveland, the 2018 Fountain Square mass shooting and the COVID-19 crisis. Nick currently lives in an 11-person intentional community in Mount Auburn.

In this episode of our “Inside the Writer’s Head” podcast, Dani McClain speaks with acclaimed artist and advocate Tim’m T. West. They discuss self-care in quarantine, moving back to Cincinnati, West's poetic memoirs, and more. Tim’m T. West is an educator, poet, youth advocate, and hip-hop artist who has spent decades traveling the nation, speaking about issues at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and social justice. A graduate of Duke University (BA), The New School for Social Research (MA) and Stanford University (MA), he is the author of several books and hip-hop projects and is widely anthologized. He has also appeared in multiple documentaries at the intersection of hip hop and black masculinity. Prior to joining Teach For America in 2014, Tim’m served as inaugural faculty at Oakland School for the Arts, impacted educational outcomes as an English teacher and basketball coach at Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy, and more recently as Director of Youth Services at Chicago’s Center on Halsted. A Board member of the LGBT Institute located at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Tim’m was named one of 31 icons during LGBT History Month in October of 2015. Tim’m currently leads Teach For America’s national LGBTQ+ Community Initiative, advancing safer and braver classrooms for LGBTQ educators and students in grades preK-12.

In this episode of “Inside the Writer’s Head” Dani McClain chats with her friend and colleague, author Daisy Hernández. They discuss memoir writing and the nature of memory, language, the differences between creative writing and journalism, the Midwest, and more. Daisy Hernández is the author of the award-winning memoir A Cup of Water Under My Bed and co-editor of Colonize This: Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. The former editor of Color Lines magazine, she has reported for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Slate, and has written for NPR’s All Things Considered and Code Switch. Her essays and fiction have appeared in Aster(ix), Bellingham Review, Brevity, Dogwood, Fourth Genre, Gulf Coast, Jute, and Rumpus, among other journals. A contributing editor for the Buddhist magazine Tricycle, Hernández is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at Miami University in Ohio and is currently teaching at Vanderbilt as the visiting writer in nonfiction for the Spring 2020 semester.

In this episode, McClain and Jan-Michele Lemon-Kearney, who gave McClain her first journalism job in 1997, discuss journalism, the history of the Black press, publishing, objectivity, the upcoming 2020 election, and more. Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney is the president of Sesh Communications, publisher of award-winning The Cincinnati Herald, The Northern Kentucky Herald, The Dayton Defender, seshPRIME magazine, and more. She is also the co-host of WLWT Channel 5’s “Let’s Talk, Cincy” weekly public affairs program and a realtor and attorney in private practice. Before joining Sesh, Ms. Lemon Kearney practiced law with the firm of Taft Stettinius & Hollister before branching out into a solo law career. She was born in Cincinnati and attended Rockdale elementary school and Walnut Hills High School. She graduated cume laude from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. While there, she attended an exchange program at an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama. She earned a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School and was selected first class marshal of her law school class and gave the commencement speech at graduation. Ms. Lemon Kearney is married to former state senator Eric H. Kearney, Esq. who now is the president of the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce and they are blessed with two children.

Welcome to season 5 of Inside the Writer’s Head with our 2020 Writer-in-Residence, Dani McClain! In her inaugural episode, McClain sits down with local author Kathy Y. Wilson, who was the Library’s first Writer-in-Residence in 2014 and a friend and mentor of McClain. Together they discuss everything from writing, health, the marginalization of the voices of Black women and girls, art, and more. Wilson is an acclaimed writer, performer, educator, and art collector, largely known for her provocative column “Your Negro Tour Guide”. Her column was published for eight years from 2000-2005 and again from 2013-2016 in Cincinnati’s alt-weekly City Beat. “Your Negro Tour Guide” was later adapted as a book and a one-woman play. In addition to her multiple creative iterations of “Your Negro Tour Guide”, Wilson has received national exposure through her NPR commentaries on All Things Considered and has been a contributing writer for the monthly Cincinnati Magazine, developing longer-form content about challenging Cincinnati issues and local profiles. She’s also taught writing as an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati. Wilson has won accolades for her writings from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, the Cleveland Press Club, and the Associated Press Society of Ohio. Twice, a fellow for the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland, she was also a finalist for a National Magazine Award for her profile on Cincinnati-based conservative talk radio host Bill Cunningham. In September of 2014 the Library Foundation named Kathy Y. Wilson its inaugural Writer-in-Residence. In May of 2016, Wilson received the Rosa F. and Samuel B. Sax Fund Prize awarded by secret committee giving recognition to her many contributions to Cincinnati’s cultural life and civic discourse.