Kortney Morrow is the Program Director of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, the nation's only juried literary prize dedicated to honoring authors that are writing about race and diversity. The Awards were created in Cleveland and sponsored by the Saturday Review from their founding in the 1930s to 1963. At that time, Ohio became home to the Awards with the Cleveland Foundation taking over administration of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Morrow herself is also a poet, arts advocate, and organizational strategist with over ten years of experience advocating for literacy and the literary arts.

Morrow talks with Ohio Center for the Book Coordinator Don Boozer about her work, the history of the Awards, how they're chosen, the unique venue where the Awards Ceremony is now held, and much more.

In This Episode

• Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (official website)
• Announcement of the 2026 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards finalists (Cleveland Foundation, March 3, 2026)
• 2025 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners examine race amid complex times (Ideastream Public Media, April 10, 2025)
• Why One of America’s most important literary awards calls Cleveland home (Signal Cleveland, Sept. 1, 2026)
• Kortney Morrow (official website)

In this episode, Page Count welcomes Suzanne Walker, Center for the Book Program Manager at the Library of Congress. The conversation with Ohio Center for the Book Coordinator, Don Boozer, highlights the National Book Festival, the signature event of the year for the affiliate Center for the Book network. Suzanne and Don talk about what goes into planning the National Book Festival, what attendees experience there, and the activities that the Centers for the Book take part in while in Washington, DC. They also discuss The Source, one of the newest "attractions" at the Library of Congress. Suzanne also recounts her history with libraries and the Centers for the Book, first in Indiana and now in Washington, DC.

• The official Center for the Book website (Library of Congress)
  • Affiliate Centers for the Book (Library of Congress)
• The Source at the Library of Congress
• Library of Congress National Book Festival
  • Videos from the 2026 National Book Festival and prior years as well
• The Center for the Book is a State of Mind with Guy Lamolinara (2024 Page Count episode with Suzanne Walker's predecessor at the Library of Congress Center for the Book)
• Escaping the Drawer with Sammy and Annisha (2022 Page Count episode featuring Suzanne Walker as Manager of the Indiana Center for the Book and "Sammy the Toucan")

If you're listening to this episode near its release date, I want to encourage you to check out the National Book Festival coming this Saturday, August 22. We'll be gathering with the other affiliate Centers for the Book in Washington, DC. In addition to all our booths celebrating our states' and territories' literary heritage and Great Reads from Great Places selections, there will be over 80 featured authors at the Festival with many of those panels being livestreamed and recorded. Find out more at loc.gov/bookfest.

For this episode, Page Count welcomes a special guest host, Jen Jumba, Manager of the Popular Department at Cleveland Public Library, home of the Ohio Center for the Book. Jen has a wealth of library experience including in marketing and in readers advisory; is an adjunct faculty member of the Library Information Science department at San Jose State University; and has moderated author panels for Library Journal. Jen also hosts her own podcast, Storied Account, "where writers share their craft," available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Jen was in conversation with the author of our 2026 Great Reads from Great Places Adult Selection, The Musical Mozinskis by Susan Petrone which tells the story of a family of gifted (in more ways that one) musicians who go on to have their own musical television variety show in the 1970s with the ups and downs and family struggles that entails.

Susan Petrone is also the author of the The Heebie-Jeebie Girl, The Super Ladies, Throw Like a Woman, and A Body at Rest, which won a bronze medal for regional fiction from the Independent Publishers Book Awards. The Super Ladies was a General Fiction finalist in Foreword Reviews’ 2018 Book of the Year Awards. Petrone's short fiction has been published by Glimmer Train, Muse, Conclave, Cleveland Review, and Whiskey Island. Her short story “Monster Jones Wants to Creep You Out” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her non-fiction has appeared in CoolCleveland, Belt magazine, and ESPN.com. She is also one of the co-founders and a former president of Literary Cleveland.

IN THIS EPISODE

Storied Account (Jen Jumba's podcast)

National Book Festival (including links to streaming videos for authors)

SusanPetrone.com: Susan Petrone's official website

Cleveland Reads: An Upcoming Book About a Musical Family (An interview with Susan Petrone by Leon Bibb of WKYC)

Tiger Beat (Wikipedia article)

The Gene Carroll Show (News 5 Cleveland video)

Chuck Berry doing a version of the "duck walk" in a 1956 performance (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame video)