Episode Details

Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves College of the Atlantic provides help with production. Engineering by Joel Mann of WERU Community Radio. Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording. Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities This month: What inspired Dar Williams to write her 2017 book What I Found in a Thousand Towns? Why is “positive proximity” such an important factor in building healthy communities? What kinds of projects foster connections for community members? What kinds of “spaces” help build communities? How has A Climate To Thrive exemplified some of the lessons that Dar Williams has written about? How might resilient communities respond to the consequences of climate change? Guest/s: Dar Williams, singer, songwriter, author of What I Learned in a Thousand Towns. Andy Revkin, journalist, musician, host of podcast Sustain What. Johanna Blackman, Executive Director, A Climate to Thrive. FMI: www.aclimatetothrive.org darwilliams.com revkin.substack.com/podcast criteriontheatre.org About the hosts: Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals. Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.

The post Talk of the Towns 7/8/26: Stories from a Thousand Towns, with Dar Williams first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.