Sofia Samatar returns to the podcast to talk to us about her new book, Friendly City: A Year of Walks. She shares some of her writing strategies, some behind-the-scenes of book publishing, and of course - why this town is worth writing about in the first place!
“Anyone can write about a large city—large cities are open to everyone—but small cities can only be portrayed by people who love them.”
A few mentions:
Ruby’s Arcade - A Harrisonburg original. - https://rubysarcade.com/
About Sofia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Samatar
https://www.jmu.edu/english/people/samatar-sofia.shtml
Parentheses - A Harrisonburg Bookstore: (Sofia's book launch is on December 5, 2025 at 5pm.)
https://www.parenthesesbooks.com/
If you don’t buy the book at Parentheses in person, you can still support the store by ordering it here:
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.