Good evening and welcome to another expanded edition of Inside the Cover.

We always appreciate th opportunity of being with you, and we really enjoy visiting with talented and interesting people who share our love for books and reading.

Tonight's guest has long bee a determined and devoted reader.

During her exemplary career as a journalist and radio personality, we are privileged to have as our guest this evening.

Suzanne Perez.

Suzanne Perez is a long time journalist covering education and general news for KMUW and the Kansas News Service.

Before moving to KMUW Suzanne worked more than 30 years at the Wichita Eagle, she must have started when she was 12, where she covered school and a variety of other topics.

It was during her tenure at the Eagle that I first met and interacted with Suzanne.

I always found her to be straightforward, determined, and a fai journalist, one you could trust.

In addition to her news reporting, Suzanne reviews books for KMUW, co-hosts the monthly Books and Whatnot podcast, and helps lead the station's monthly Literary Feast Book Club.

She also created the ReadICT Reading Challenge, an annual partnershi with the Wichita Public Library that encourages adults to read more broadly.

Suzanne has been honore with a National Edward R Murrow Award for her story about socia emotional learning in schools.

She won a National Society of Professional Journalists award for her writing about kindergartner and preschoolers falling behind, and she has won a National Public Media Journalist Association award for her coverage of a schoo board meeting in Derby regarding white privilege.

Suzanne has also won numerous Kansas Association of Broadcasters award for her coverage of education.

I'm anxious to visit wit Suzanne because, as you can see, she is a talented and busy woman who appreciates books and reading.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Suzanne, welcome to the show.

Oh, it's so great to be here, Ted.

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure.

And we've got a lot to talk about, so if you're ready, let's get started.

Let's go, let's go.

A little bit of background.

Where did you grow up?

Oh, goodness.

Okay.

I grew up in North Carolina.

I am the daughter of a career-- I'm an army brat.

My dad was a drill sergeant, so I grew up in Fayetteville, which is, was formerly Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty.

And I yeah, I went to a public schools in North Carolina.

I went to NC State University and I, where I majored in English.

I went there actually, to be a veterinarian.

Really?

Because.

Yeah, because I loved animals.

And I thought, oh, I want to be around animals.

And then I took organic chemistry and it was over after that.

Yeah.

That's a message.

That's right.

So, but I got involved in newspapers, college newspapers, and that's kind of where I got my start in journalism.

And I majored in English and then came out to Kansas right after college.

Fantastic.

Not when I was 12, but after that.

Did you come to start at KU?

I did, yeah, I kind of threw my resume to the wind.

I was, you know, an eager young journalist.

And those were the the glory days of newspaper journalism.

And I sort of applie to all sorts of different papers and, got an interview in Wichita, Kansas.

I had never been west of Tennessee in my life.

And I came out to Wichita for an interview and, you know, loved it, loved the paper.

And I had so many opportunities there, covering so many different things that I just really fell in love with Wichita and stayed.

Isn't i interesting how life progresses and we just don't understand where we're headed?

Exactly.

I mean, I always said, ‘oh, you know, I'll work out in Wichit for a couple years and go home.

And, and now this is home.

I understand completely.

Suzanne, was reading always important to you?

It was.

You know, I think about some of my most vivid childhood memories are trips to the library.

I remember, very vividly, certain books, reading certain books.

Phantom Tollbooth is on that I keep pointing to is like, I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and just thinking, oh, this is wordplay.

These are I sort of ge what he's doing here with words.

And I just love the whole magic of of, you know, of sort of going into book and having all these adventures.

I was the kind of kid that, my mom would have to tell me to turn the light out and stop reading.

But yeah, I read a lot as a kid.

Well, you touched on a just a little bit there.

Let me, have you elaborate.

When did you realize the importance of books?

Oh, gosh.

You know, that's not.

There's no particular time.

Although there were sort of, you know, definite milestones along the way.

I mean, books were always important to me as a child.

I remember you know, as my as a treat.

We would go to the library or the bookstore and I would get the, you know, the next I read the Blac Stallion series, and I read the Little House on the Prairie series, and I just loved, you know, reading book as a child and those adventures.

And then I also remember, you know, certain books, really turning a light bulb on as you know, as a student, as a young student, we in I think sixth or seventh grade in junior high, junior high school must be in seventh or eighth grade.

I remember reading The Outsiders by S.E.

Hinton aloud.

That was when kids used to rea entire books aloud as a class, and we were-- All the students in this English class were crying at the end of this book, and I remember just thinking, wow, how magical is that?

I know, yeah.

And when this book still I was crying the other day reading a book.

And my husband looks at me and goes ‘Are you crying?

I was like, ‘yes.

It's just so powerful.

Suzanne, that, to me, is the one of my marks of a powerful read when I find myself weeping.

You know, either or laughing out loud.

Yeah, yeah.

What is.

Well, we've touched upon it a little bit, but, be more specific.

What is the first book that made an impact on you?

There have been several.

Phantom Tollbooth I mentioned, as as a child.

The Outsiders was one that really sort of, you know, made me think of th power of literature, throughout.

You know, I think abou reading novels and it's always, it seems to me it's always books that, you know, I finish.

It's either books that I finish and I want to hug to my chest or, or ones that I don't really know what to think of until, like, start talking about it to other people.

I think books are it's such a solitary, pastime reading.

But to really appreciate it, it's a social, you know, a hobby as well.

I think to really gain you like to get other people's opinions of it.

You know, that's interesting.

Solitary, but yet so gregarious because reading a book expands your life so broadly.

Do you have a favorite genre?

You know, I would have to say literary fiction.

I know that's very, very general.

I've really been kind of getting into into magical realism lately, which I used to say I think even 5 or 6 years ago I would have said, ‘oh, this book has, you know, magica realism in it, which is like, you know, just sort of weird things happening.

But on the whole, it's a realistic story.

Kevin Wilson comes to mind.

He wrote a couple of novels.

Nothing to See Here, which is so such odd premise, but, yeah.

You know, a woman whose childre catch fire when they get angry and she needs someone to take care of them.

But it's really about so much more than that, you know, there's this little thing happening, but it really mean so much more.

It's metaphorical.

I love that.

So, I really love, mostly I read fiction.

I know you read a lot more nonfiction than I do.

I like to say my my life in journalism is so nonfiction that I like to read as... As an escape.

Absolutely.

So I love fiction.

This is not fair, Suzanne.

But I ask you anyway, do you have a favorite book?

A favorite book?

I actually do.

I went, you know, I mean, it's I always say it's probably the last book I read that I gave five stars to.

But this book here, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, it came out in the early 90s, and it's nonfiction.

Go figure.

So but Anne Lamott wrote this book.

It's the subtitle is Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and it is kind of a memoir, but kind of just as it says, writing instructions.

And I remember reading this for me was journaling.

Exactly.

And it was just that part of my career.

When I was a young journalist, and I was still really trying to understan how to tell stories and how to, you know, make them as impactful as you can.

And, and Ann Lamott is a wonderful essayist.

She's still writing, just love her stuff.

Strong writer.

Yes.

But I remember reading this and just going, ‘oh, oh, oh, oh, that's an interesting way of putting it.

And then there's so much humor in it as well.

And I love a book with with humor.

So that is one of my many, many favorite, excellent.

You know, I've got several here.

So tell us a little bit abou KMUW Monthly Literary Book Club.

Oh, I love it.

Okay so we meet on the last Wednesday of every month at the KMUW studio.

Okay.

And it's it's kind of a partnership with, with Public, which is a restaurant in, in Old Town.

They make a big feast so thats the feast part of literary feast.

And they'll bring, a meal that is, somewhat related to, to the book we've been reading.

My, colleague Beth Golay and I and Haley Crowson basically put on this club, it's about 20 people or so.

But you sign up online at UW and we get together last, and our last meeting was about Haruki Murakami, whose newest novel, The City and its Uncertain Walls.

And it was it's so amazing because that is one of those books where I was like, ‘okay, I don't kno what to think about this one, but you get together with a couple a dozen people and you get their takes on it.

And what I love about it, I'm a member of a lot of different book clubs and organizations, but, you know, groups and this one, it's men and women.

It's people of all ages.

I love the variety of perspectives that we get at that.

And it's so nice to come together and, and really hash out a book.

But it was so funny this past meeting because it was like, wait, is that what happened?

Oh, okay.

I see and then you sort of get a whole new perspective on the book.

Well, and as we were talking earlier before the show, so many books out there.

I mean, I know the time honored expression, ‘so many books, so little time.

Yes.

And so what a great way to share interpretation and books.

Okay, let's move to ReadICT.

Okay, how long has it been going?

Okay, so it started nine-- This is our ninth year of the challenge.

And it started nine years ago.

I was a reporter at the Wichita Eagle.

I had also had a weekly column that was kind of about, you know, about parenting.

I had young kids at the time, and it was about just sort of it was a lifestyle column.

And I also incorporated reading into the column somewhat as well.

And at that time, I had been seeing online a lot of these book challenges, these, you know, little prompts to get you to read certain kind of books.

And I thought, well, how about if I just put 12 categories completely off the top of my head?

I remember one of the categories was a book with a blue cover.

It was just like, here are 12 categories.

Let' see how many people in this city can get all these done in no particular order.

You interpret the categories as-- They're always been 12?

There's always been 12 with the with the intention of a book per month.

And that, you know is more than most people read.

What I was going to say the challenge to read 12 books in 2025, For some of us, that's not a challenge, right?

Oh, yeah.

But for, you know, I think that there are people that maybe this is a stimulus to get a book in their hand.

And that's exactly right.

I also thought about, you know, you think about all the incentives you have to read as a child and as a student.

But once you get out of school, for me, there was a time period when I didn't read at all because I was so tired of reading.

You know, I'd graduated college with an English degree, and everyone had told me what to read my whole life, and I was just, you know, I' going to watch TV for a while.

And then when I came back to reading, I became so passionate about it.

And you just want to share that with others.

You're the same way.

And you just there's so much out there.

And I just wanted to I wanted to encourage adults in particular to rediscover that magic of readin and then to read more broadly.

I mean, we all get in our ruts and we have our favorite, you know, sort of genres and things like that.

But, you know, I wan I like to challenge myself to, you know, to read, get outside our boundaries.

Exactly.

To read science fiction, if you've never read science fiction, to read a memoir to, you know, to also.

So when we get together now this is a partnership with the The Eagl and the Wichita Public Library.

So the Eagle is still involved.

Yes.

They are so because they publish our challenge categories at the first of the year and now it's, there's all this excitement, with the challenge, there's a Facebook group where people go online and talk about it.

But the, the basic idea is we're going t just have these 12 categories.

One now is generally related to the Wichita Big Read.

So the category this year is a book, a book, by or about a person with a disability.

Sitting Pretty.

Yes.

Have you read it already?

Oh, I read it several years ago.

We wanted to get, we asked Rebecca to be on our show.

Yeah.

We would go to Kansas City, but we just couldn't work it out.

But fabulous book that's going to be suc a great community conversation.

So we sort of like a tie in.

Thats the Big Read.

Yes.

So that we like a tie in to that in the categories.

And then really we just like to, you know, just one of the categories this year is a book that scares you, that can be interpreted so many different ways.

It can be a horror novel.

If you'd like to sort of dip your toe into that genre.

Or a political novel.

Lord knows.

It can be, you know, Anna Karenina.

It can be, you know, something that's intimidating.

I want to get into the categories here.

Yeah.

But, you know, your comment about you didn't read for a while strikes such a chord because, And I, I can almost to the moment tell you that, you know, college, law school.

And I was in a grocery store one day after law school, August maybe studying for the bar exam, but in a grocery store and went by a rack of paperbacks and I thought, ‘I can read again!

And of course, the rest is history.

You know, it's so silly.

You know, I, I can so identify with what you were saying.

Well, let's talk about the categories in the time we have left.

Sure.

And I also want to note that, going to your device, electronic device.

I thought it was really nic how the Wichita Public Library has coordinated with ReadICT, and you can actually go and fin suggestions for each category.

Right.

And I thought that wa really helpful and a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And like the librarians love brainstorming the categories.

That's what's been so great about this is sort o like the community aspect of it.

So you have the the display at the library with suggestions.

We had our local bookstore sort of had a display on New Year's Day.

Yeah.

There's so many different ways you can interpret these that it's nice to get some suggestions.

Well, let me follow up the, Wichita Public Library.

Site.

And the various books, they're shown as examples.

They came up with those or did you interact?

They did.

So the librarians did.

When I launched the the each year challenge, I write a story that runs online that has sort of some suggestions, either books I've read that would fit the categories or ones I'm planning to read.

It's always nice to look back at those stories and think and see if I actually did read this.

But yeah, it's sort of here's what I'm thinking for these different categories.

And then the librarians do the same.

And then we have this Facebook group, the ReadICT Challenge Facebook group, which is a whole other just sort of plethora of, you know, discussions.

And oh, I just found this book.

You know, how many people are following it?

Well, that was kind of interesting too, because, two years ago, or a year ago, one of the posts on that page went viral and we went from 2000, about 2000 members to more than 8000 members.

One of our members, got a Christmas gift from her family, which was 12 books wrapped individually.

And it was she was ‘oh I just got my own sort of book of the mont club from my family.

And each month of 2024, she was going to and it kind of went viral.

And peopl we have members from Australia, all different continents, countries, they saw ‘ReadICT and not knowing that IC is the call letters for Wichita, they thought it was read i like read-ict, Reading Addict.

So a lot of them were like, ‘oh yeah, I'm a reading addict.

I'll join this group.

And what's funny is they've stayed.

We have people in Ireland and and great, great stories.

Just so sad.

Yeah.

It's just so wonderful.

Your little creation has expanded.

And it's such a friendly place on the internet.

Which don' we need that right now?

We do.

Well, and generally speaking, readers are good folks.

Reading people are the best people.

And I want to in the time we have.

And I know we're cutting close here, but I wonder, Suzanne, if you'll bear with me.

I wanted for our audience to go over the various covers or categories, and then we'll come back in the time we have left.

So a book with a flower or plant on the cover, a popular book you have never read a book by or about a person with a disability, a graphic novel, book adaptation, or memoir.

A book set on a different continent.

Cozy mystery, romantic or true crime?

A book featuring a strong woman.

A book with two or more points of view.

A book featuring group dynamics.

A book that scares you.

Let me just stop right there immediately when I saw that Helter Skelter.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah, I can remember reading that.

For audience, it's about the Manson situation and, California.

And I was in an apartment in Saint Louis, Missouri, as an adult single man working at Southwestern Bell and being scared.

When I read that book, I mean, it was, a book was a month in the title and a book recommended by KMUW or your local library.

Fascinating list.

I'm glad you like it.

I give you plaudits for that.

Thank you.

So let's go back.

And, of course, I made notes when I was going through.

You participate, right?

You're going to read that to read the 12?

Well, I do, I don't, I'm not formally in, but I always follow and I always, go after your books and, let me go back to a popular book you have never read.

What is a popular book?

You know, I did a story a while back for came about the the the rise of Booktok.

This is TikTok.

These are ebook readers on TikTok, and they have, basically, there are author whose careers have been made by, these TikTok videos, tha Colleen Hoover is one of them.

The the Rebecca Yarros Fourth Wing series.

They she just had the third, the third, chapter of that series come out, Romantasy is big, romance and romantasy is big.

But there are whole othe categories on Booktok as well.

Also, you know, if you're on Instagram, bookstagram they call it, there's a hashtag, you know, for all kinds of different people that you can follow on there or just, you know, some book in the news that you hear about, you know, last year it was Prince Harry's, you know, Spare any sort of popular book that is in the zeitgeist really well.

And of course, popula is a matter of self-definition.

Absolutely.

All of these are.

Yeah, all of these are subjective.

What came to mind for me.

And we talked about it just briefly.

James by Percival Everett.

Absolutely.

And I've had already this year 3 or 4 recommendations.

I've now read it, I understand why.

So that I think is going to be a very popular book for 2025, for sure.

We've talked about a book by or about a person with a disability, a graphic novel, book adaptation or memoir.

Why did you add this?

So this is a little specific for our categories.

We have had graphic, you know, any sort of graphic novel in the past, what we were looking for people to really get at.

There's so many graphic novel treatments of memoirs, you know, so basically a life story told in illustrations, comic book style.

All the graphic novels can be widely-- Fun Home is one the Alison Bechdel which became a musical and then to widen that a little bit more and not just make it memoir.

There are so many classics now that you can buy in graphic novel form.

My husband's one of his favorite novels is Dune.

I have not read Dune.

I know I should, bu I have read the graphic novel.

There you go.

So Dune, Handmaid' Tale is a graphic novel, is it?

You can read-- It's it's a different way to take in the book.

It's not reading that novel, but it's a different way.

It's a different interpretatio and perspective on that novel.

Fahrenheit 451, 1984.

There's a lot of them out there that's interesting.

I did not know that.

You know, I apologize, but, you know, we talk about books and it brings back so many memories.

The Handmaid's Tale, I was walking down the street over a noon hour in Topeka, Kansas.

A bookstore, had a bunch o paperbacks out on the sidewalk at a reduced rate.

For some reason, I picked that book up.

It's one of my all time classics.

Oh.

Mine too.

I call that “Bookish Serendipity.

Some books are just going to find you.

I love that you feel the same way I do, which is like, I might not remember all the details of a book.

I might not even remember the characters names, but I remember how I feel when I finished it right there, like being so moved.

It goes back to one of my earlier questions, you know, an impactfu book, a book that stays with us and, you know, it's such treasure, it's such a delight.

And for a reader, it doesn't get any better than that.

No, it doesn't.

And then you have the book hangover because you read, you finish a boo and you think, ‘well, that's it.

I'm never going to read another book that was that good But we always do.

We always do.

We always say, well, here's one that I wanted a chat about a book featuring a strong woman.

And I think, which your public library one of theirs was The Red Tent.

Oh, wow.

By Anita Diamant.

But I have two suggestions for our audience.

Great.

You know the name Pauli Murray?

No.

Pauli Murray.

Amazing woman.

There's a book I learned about her.

And getting one of those out of the blue.

Learned about her in a book called The Firebrand and the First Lady and the firebrand is Pauli Murray.

And the first lady is Eleanor Roosevelt.

Okay.

And Pauli got, a law degree.

She was a, person of the cloth in some religion and a, civil rights leader, and, fascinating person.

And then, The Women by Kristin Hannah.

Oh, that i that talk about a popular book that I haven't read that's up there.

Suzanne!

I know I'll get right to it, Ted.

Added to the stack.

Great book and, the Four Winds is another.

I've read that one.

Yes, I love dustbowl.

I love dustbowl stories.

For some reason, I'm fascinated by that time in history.

And that's I did read that.

I loved it, and we've done a, program on a show about lawyers who become writers.

Oh, wow.

Yes.

Did you know Kristin Hannah had a law degree?

I did not really.

Oh, so I have learned something today.

Well, there you go.

No, I do love the whole, Yeah the lawyer turned writer, genre.

That's a whole new genre.

Got to wrap up here.

So much more to talk about, Suzanne.

But thank you so much for being with us.

Been a delightful show for me.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

I know our audience will.

And, perhaps, we'll have you back for the 2026 ReadICT.

I would love it.

We'll celebrate ten years.

I thank you so much for having me.

It's been a pleasure, ladies and gentlemen.

That's been our show.

We've had the delightful opportunity and privilege to spen 30 minutes with Suzanne Perez, a reader, a journalist, a radio personality, and a good person who we've learned hails from North Carolina.

So thanks for watching and we look forward to seeing you on Inside the Cover both our regular show and a expanded version sometime soon.

Good night.