Radio Bristol Book Club

Tune in to WBCM Radio Bristol as our Book Club explores Peter Stevenson’s The Moon-Eyed People: Folk Tales from Welsh America.

Date: Thursday, October 28, 2021

Time: Noon – 1:00 p.m. EDT

Location: Tune in to WBCM Radio Bristol

Readers from Birthplace of Country Music Museum and the Bristol Public Library are coming together to explore books inspired by our region with the Radio Bristol Book Club, a monthly program that airs on WBCM Radio Bristol.

Hosted by Bristol Public Library Executive Director Tonia Kestner and Birthplace of Country Music Museum Head Curator Dr. René Rodgers, the Radio Bristol Book Club airs weekly every 4th Thursday at noon.

Anyone can join the Radio Bristol Book Club simply by reading along and tuning in! Look for this month’s selection at your local library and read prior to show. Be sure and join the conversation by emailing your questions or comments to info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org with the subject line “Radio Bristol Book Club Comments” and we may address them on the air!

Book discussions will dig deep into the feelings and questions raised by each selection, highlight more about the authors, and celebrate the joys of being a bookworm! The discussion is often followed by an interview with the author or others related to the book’s content.

Listeners may tune in to Radio Bristol at 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, online at ListenRadioBristol.org, or download the free Radio Bristol mobile app.

About the Book:

A mining settlement in Appalachia is described as being unfit for pigs to live in, Welsh weavers make cloth for enslaved people, a monster is defeated by a medicine-girl, a Welsh criminal marries an “Indian Princess,” Lakota men who witnessed Wounded Knee re-enact the massacre in Cardiff, and all the while, mountain women practice Appalachian hoodoo, native healing, and Welsh witchcraft. These stories are a mixture of true tales, tall tales and folk tales, that tell of the lives of migrants who left Wales and settled in America, of the native people who had long been living there, and those curious travelers who returned to find their roots in the old country. They were explorers, miners, dreamers, hobos, tourists, farmers, radicals, showmen, sailors, soldiers, witches, warriors, wolf-girls, poets, preachers, prospectors, political dissidents, social reformers, and wayfaring strangers. The Cherokee called them “The Moon-Eyed People.”

About the Author:

Peter Stevenson is a storyteller, children’s writer, book illustrator, folklorist, filmmaker, crankie maker, purveyor of Magical Lantern Shows, concertina and banjo player, organizer of the annual 3-day Aberystwyth Storytelling Festival and Y Mabinogi Project in collaboration with Aberystwyth Arts Centre, and runs Stories@Medina, a storytelling club that encourages collaborations with visual artists, musicians, dancers, and puppeteers. He has illustrated, compiled and written many children’s books, travelled the country with storytelling shows for adults that use hundreds of projected illustrations, crankies, and live music, has written two books for the History Press, Ceredigion Folk Tales and Welsh Folk Tales, and tramps the roads with mud on his boots and his head in the clouds. Peter is an associate partner with Aberystwyth Arts Centre.