if you had a podcast

what would you talk about?

Author

Leann Schneider Webb
October 19, 2025

If you want me to read to you instead of reading with your eyes, that’s an option:

Scioto Audubon Metro park after smashing lanternflies with the park ranger.

Thank you!

Jesse Vogel and me after the race.

If you donated or supported the CRIS 5k two weekends ago, thank you! I achieved my goal of running the race in under 45 minutes (38 minutes) and to run (not walk!) the whole time. I also ran (hep hep) into Democrat running for Columbus City Council Jesse Vogel, who is an immigration attorney at CRIS. 😄Early voting is open now, Franklin County!

Sarah, Keith, Me, Brandon, and Kyle at Scioto Audubon Metro park before Scioto Fest in September.

If I had a podcast, here’s what I’d talk about:

  1. “Courses” have gotten out of hand. I’m not sure everything we do and talk about needs to be behind a paywall, actually, even if you are a “professional” and your time is “valuable.”

  2. Don’t pay someone to publish your book (a.k.a hybrid press). You are better off self-publishing. Hybrid presses are the worst of self-pub and trad-pub. Sorry!!!!!!! Sorry the publishing industry sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t invent publishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. I’d rather receive an email from an animated turd than someone using generative AI. That’s second-hand thinker nonsense. If you don’t want to use your brain, give it to someone else.

  4. A library director/admin/board that won’t stand up to fascism is more useless than a frying pan to the head. At least with the frying pan, you end up unconscious.

  5. Your housecat doesn’t want to go outside. Be so serious with yourself.

What would you want to talk about if I had you as a guest on my podcast? I really want to know so text or email or voice note me lol

Fall flowers at Szlays in CVNP in October.

I ran into Elisa at the No Kings rally at the Ohio Statehouse on 10/18/2025.

READ IT.

Or don’t, but here’s what I’ve read recently.

A Great Big Beautiful Life

by Emily Henry

Two writers are competing for the same job: writing the memoir of a reclusive, infamous socialite. The heroine is refreshingly unabashed without being pick-me. This book is for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid (Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Atmosphere) who want slightly lower emotional stakes. I especially enjoyed that Henry played a little bit form. This is a book to cozy up with and let the storytelling wash over you.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

I did not finish the life and times of Audie La Rue. (V.E. Schwab’s incredibly beloved 2020 doorstopper-of-a-novel.) I tried her A Darker Shade of Magic, and liked it fine, but then my hold ran out so I also DNF. And here comes 2025 waddling along with Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil and someone said “lesbian vampires” and I sighed deeply and said, fine.

While reading it, I complained about it’s length and I continue to complain about it’s length. It’s over 500 pages and it gets repetitive. But there is something luxurious, nostalgic even, about spending so much time (vampires, remember, so, lol) with the same world.

Midnight Soil is everything the cover says: broody, sapphic, sexy-enough, vibey. Great for October and anyone who’s been considering a Vampire Diaries re-watch.

The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore

I mean, yeah, it’s a good book. It’s good fiction for lovers of multi-POV, dual timeline, grounded mysteries. Fans of Anita Diamant (The Boston Girl), Jodi Picoult (Mad Honey; Nineteen Minutes), Kristen Hannah (The Great Alone) will enjoy the sweeping, dramatic narrative and cast of characters.

Sometimes, though, a book gets so much hype you’re expecting Life Changing Fiction and for me, this was not Life Changing.

Book People (Are the Best People)

With Diane Callahan at her book launch for THE SHIP AND THE STORM.

Anne from Wandering Quills, me, and author Jess Everlee at the Adult Book Fair in September.

Authors Elisa Stone Leahy and Dr. Ashley Hope Perez at a Banned Books Week event at CML.

Author Libby Kay and Podcaster Liz Donatelli in convo for Libby’s book launch at Blue Couch Bookshop in Grandview.

At the Ohio Book Awards with author and sports journalist Keith O’Brien who wanted a photo because of my shirt: “Nobody is free in a society that bans books.”

Author Meg Cabot (Princess Diaries), Hannah, and me at a Westerville Public Library event in September.

Szalay’s Farm in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Who took the better photo? Kyle or our 6 year old nephew, Parker.

Kyle’s photo (after I told him what to do)

Parker, shooting from the hip. Because he is hip height.

Do something, something isn’t nothing.

Some people are committed to misery. Don’t be “some people.” Do something! Something is, famously, not nothing.

If you’re looking for something, I’d like to direct you to The Woman’s Fund of Central Ohio. I participated in their community grant reading session on Saturday. I met the CEO, Kelly Griesmer, when I interviewed her for the library’s podcast in 2021. (Listen here.) The thing I like about Women’s Fund is that I think they operate much more like institutional mutual-aid than a traditional foundation. Yes, there’s red tape, yes, there’s a board (yuck), yes, you still have to apply for grants (boo) but they are laser-focused on trusting that women know what’s best for them and their communities and that investing in Women of Color is the best investment we can make.

CEO of Women’s Fund of Central Ohio, Kelly Griesmer at Community grant reading, 10/18/2025.

As Kelly said on Saturday, the gaps in funding have become gulfs. We (you, me, everyone) are the bridges. It sucks, but as much as we’re doing, we have to do more.

Women and children are dying because our social safety net might as well be two toothpicks and a piece of dental floss.

Women’s Fund has four staff members, lol. But they do profound research and make big change by grantmaking.

Thank you for being here! 🥰

Katie and I are loving this apple cake.

Apples.