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Devon Halliday, whose debut novel To Stay, To Stay, To Stay goes on sale October 27th, 2026, has worked as a literary agent, editor, essayist, critic, short story writer and educator. Halliday is also a Pushcart Prize winner among receiving other awards. Her work has appeared in online and print publications, including Plowshares and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and her popular self-titled Substack newsletter has over 6,000 subscribers. This is the second time Halliday has appeared on Page Count, the first being our episode in 2022 on query letter critiques when she was an agent at Transatlantic Agency. The conversation ranges over a number of topics from letting stories become what they want to be and using real life to inform one's writing to the stress of running a bakery and more. Devon Halliday (official website) Devon Halliday (Substack newsletter) To Stay, To Stay, To Stay on McSweeney's website showing the innovative cover design discussed in the episode "Who Are MFA Workshops Really For? Devon Halliday Considers the MFA and Its Discontents" (LitHub, September 16, 2026) Query Critiques with Devon Halliday (Page Count episode from 2022) Athens, Ohio, sites mentioned in the episode: Donkey Coffee and Espresso Casa Nueva Avalanche Pizza Ellis Hall, Ohio University Athens Bread Company

Our guest this episode is New York Times bestselling science fiction author and Hugo award winner John Scalzi. Scalzi's work includes the Old Man's War series, the Lock In universe, the Interdependency series, and stand-alone novels like Redshirts, The Kaiju Preservation Society, Starter Villain, and When the Moon Hits Your Eye. His nonfiction work has included The Rough Guide to the Universe and Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. His blog, Whatever, having started in 1998 and still usually updated daily, makes it one of the longest-running personal sites on the Web. His newest novel, Monsters of Ohio, is set in Darke County, Ohio, where Scalzi has lived with his family since 2001. The book will be released on November 3, 2026. The conversation ranged over numerous topics, including living in rural Ohio, the intersection of humor and horror, the process of adapting books to the screen, the business and craft of writing, getting the science in science fiction right, the status of Pluto as a planet, and much more. Featured image is an excerpt of the cover of Monsters of Ohio by artist Michael Koelsch. In This Episode Whatever (John Scalzi's official website) Books and Other Projects by John Scalzi (from Whatever) John Scalzi's namesake asteroid: 52692 Johnscalzi - "John Michael Scalzi (b. 1969) is an American science fiction writer. His humorous and heartfelt works speak to the deeply personal impacts of global social issues, encouraging laughter at the absurdity of existence and deep thought about affecting change in our world." (from its entry in the Small-Body Database)

The Ohio Center for the Book presented Ohio authors Aubrey Hirsch and Virginia Konchan in conversation "On Genre, Gender, and More" at Literary Cleveland's Inkubator Writing Conference in September 2026. Held at Cleveland Public Library, Inkubator is the largest free writing conference in the country and continues to grow every year. Their conversation touched on adult topics and includes adult language, so listener discretion is advised. Aubrey Hirsch is the author of Graphic Rage: Comics on Gender, Justice, and Life as a Woman in America, and the story collection, Why We Never Talk About Sugar. Her stories, essays, and comics have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Vox, Time, The Nib, Black Warrior Review, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere.  Virginia Konchan is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Requiem, and the short story collection Anatomical Gift. Her publications include poems in The New Yorker, The New Republic, and The Atlantic, essays and criticisms in the Boston Review and American Poetry Review, and her translations from French in The Brooklyn Rail, Asymptote and Circumference, and fiction in Story Quarterly, Joyland, and Memorious. In This Episode Aubrey Hirsch: Stories. Essays. Comics (official website) Graphic Rage with Aubrey Hirsch (Substack) Virginia Konchan (official website) Inkubator Writing Conference (official website)

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")