Join Chris Lynch (WFYP, MFA Writing Faculty) in conversation with Michael Mercurio (Poetry, January 2017) as they discuss Chris’s new middle grade book, Walkin’ the Dog at Broadside Bookshop.

In this charming middle-grade novel, Louis, a bit of an introvert in a family of assertive personalities, has  been home-schooled up until now, but is about to start high school in the fall. In the meantime, what begins as a favor to a friend turns into a bustling dog-walking job.  Louis meets all kinds of people as he walks the dogs (who have as many varied personalities as the people). As he interacts with all these new influences, Louis begins to re-think being a lone wolf.

Chris Lynch is the award–winning author of several highly acclaimed young adult novels, including Printz Honor Book Freewill, Iceman, Gypsy Davy, and Shadow Boxer—all ALA Best Books for Young Adults—as well as Killing Time in Crystal City, Little Blue Lies, Pieces, Kill Switch, Angry Young Man, and Inexcusable, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of six starred reviews. He holds an MA from the writing program at Emerson College. He teaches in the creative writing MFA program at Lesley University. He lives in Boston and in Scotland.

Michael Mercurio  lives and writes in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. His poems, critical essays, and interviews have appeared in Palette Poetry, the Common, Sierra (the magazine of the Sierra Club), Lily Poetry Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Sugar House Review, Coal Hill Review, and elsewhere. Michael curates What The Universe Is: A Virtual Reading Series, which happens monthly on Zoom. He is the Director of Community Engagement for the Faraday Publishing Company, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering discourse of enduring value rooted in the work and experiences of the global majority, and he also serves as a member of the steering committee for the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival, held each September at Emily Dickinson’s house.