On the Teri and Edith Show, Teri recaps a Weymouth, North Carolina writers’ retreat where she chose activities beyond writing, including library visits, a retirement village book club, an author talk, a craft fair book table, a poetry group, a bookstore event, and a local podcast, gaining networking and submission tips and selling books. She discusses feedback on Daughters of Green Mountain Gap (noting it won a major North Carolina award) and her new, funnier book Pagan Hinged, and warns listeners about Netflix scam emails, especially those from Gmail addresses. The conversation shifts to reading: library audiences skew older; many young people prefer fantasy or avoid reading, influenced by phones, instant gratification, and shrinking attention spans. They argue reading builds vocabulary, imagination, critical thinking, and cultural understanding, praise reading aloud and audiobooks for kids, criticize flat AI narration, and share current book recommendations.
00:00 Welcome Back Intro
00:10 Retreat Goals Tradeoffs
02:14 Readings Libraries Events
03:45 Networking Author Lessons
05:54 Artsy Southern Pines Vibe
07:53 Greece Roots Dreams
09:15 Netflix Scam Emails
12:12 Audience Feedback New Book
13:53 Herbal Remedies Disclaimer
16:04 Who Reads Today
19:56 Kids Reading Habits
21:58 Books vs Movies Debate
23:28 Is Reading Coming Back
25:36 Instant Gratification Worries
30:18 Why Reading Matters
36:55 Phones Attention Spans
38:15 Text Speak and Vocabulary Loss
39:32 Reading Builds Young Minds
42:01 Phones Replace Conversation
44:09 Reading and Math Foundations
46:58 Stories Over Screens
50:43 Why AI Narration Falls Flat
55:02 Future of Reading and Patience
01:00:08 Book Talk and Recommendations
01:05:21 World War I and Learning History
01:11:04 Read and Write Goodbye
Music: artlist.io
