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(bright music) - On this episode of American Stories: A Reading Road Trip, we're heading to the American paradise.

- The US Virgin Islands have been an official US territory since 1917, but their deep and complex history stretches far beyond that.

From shaping a young Alexander Hamilton to elevating powerful local voices like J. Antonio Jarvis, who championed free press for the people.

- [Fred] We'll hear from writers of today whose voices have been honed by the sea and reflect the beauty and complexity of a storied past like Cadwell Turnbull's Convergence saga, and Angela Golden Bryan's powerful retellings of the Fireburn Uprising.

- Join PBS books, the Library of Congress and the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands on a literary adventure through the US Virgin Islands.

This is American Stories: A Reading Road Trip.

- Well, hello and welcome.

I'm Fred Nahhat here with Lauren Smith from PBS Books.

- We are taking you on a literary journey of America's storied past and celebrating the writers of today.

Be sure to like, share and subscribe right now, so you never miss an episode of American Stories: A Reading Road trip here on PBS Books.

- [Fred] Well today it's sunshine, sea breezes and stories galore as we explore the territory of the US Virgin Islands.

Consisting of three main islands and numerous keys, it's quite literally a book lover's paradise.

- And there's no passport required for this island getaway.

But beyond the beaches and coral reefs lies a deep and story past.

- The Virgin Islands consists of three main islands, the island of St.

Croix, which is all largest geographic island.

St.

Thomas, which is the state capital.

St.

John, which 70% of St.

John is National Park.

- And there are approximately 50 small islets and keys.

Visitors can also find coral reefs just offshore, adding to the territories natural wanders both on land and beneath the sea.

- So every day you can go to a different island setting and then on the western part of the island when the sun is setting, oh wow, I mean like in heaven and you're on the beach and just looking at that big orange ball kind of going down, down like it's going in the ocean.

See, it really captivates you.

- You can't really drive around, walk around most of any of the islands in the Virgin Islands and not feel the presence of the sea.

So that's a really huge part of our lived experience and it's there in our literature too.

- In addition to the beautiful beaches and world class snorkeling and diving spots, islands are known for the remarkable depth and diversity of the people.

- And I think that the surprise is the cultural richness, which is very much available to visitors.

- The fact that we were under seven different flags and with that, we have influences in in the food in the culture, in the architecture.

- [Tiphanie] We live in a very old place.

Now, we think about a lot of the places over here on the western side of the Atlantic as being the New World, but in the Virgin Islands, we're walking around amongst buildings that were built in the 1500s.

So we're walking around really within an archive.

- We have this kind of like liminal space that we navigate all the time between being very Caribbean and also being American.

We're kind of like our feet are in boat waters, so to speak.

- Whether you're wandering through centuries old streets exploring plantation ruins or admiring the legacy of diverse communities, the US Virgin Islands is a great resource for those who love a good story and enjoy writing and research.

(bright music) - The US Virgin Islands offer a rich tapestry of history and heritage reflected in the voices that have persevered through the ages, whether passed down by word of mouth or written in prose, it's a legacy to be celebrated.

- We are a wonderful place for book lovers to visit because of the rich history of storytelling in the Virgin Islands.

- Well, the foundation of the writing tradition comes from the oral tradition.

We first sat at our grandparents' knees and we were told stories and sometimes this is how parents passed down tradition to their children and it was the first tradition that really helped to cultivate the kinds of aesthetics that societies that exist in Virgin Island, the post-colonial, post-slavery societies.

- Our other book is a person.

You got that person that 90 years old, a hundred years old, you're sitting there with a tape recorder or you got your phone and you talk, "Granny when you're back in 1910, how life was back then?"

And interview them and they talk about life, how life was.

- The stories of resilience, the stories of strength, how our character is built.

When we tell the story, we are the heroes.

So I think it's so important to be able to articulate that verbally, pass it down, but also to write those oral traditions down so that they're not lost.

- We are really big on doing historical reenactments of our cultural history.

Like there's an amazing cultural reenactment of the coal carriers revolution that happens every fall.

There's music, there's acting and it's happening in the streets and Virgin Islanders are observing but also participating.

It's really beautiful and I think cultural reenactment is really one of our major ways of holding onto our culture, but also it's part of our cultural landscape.

(gentle music) - J. Antonio Jarvis lived in the Virgin Islands from 1901 till 1963.

He was a poet, a playwright, and a cultural activist, which I would say most of our voices from the past will include that cultural activism - J. did, for example, he did a book called The VI and Their People, published in 1944.

Then he got other one, The Brief History of the Virgin Islands, 1938 and then he was recognize by the US Library of Congress for his work, his influence and still is today.

- The Brief History of the Virgin Islands, when it was published, it was a very controversial book at the time.

It has been celebrated as a work that really shines a light on the history and culture of the people of the Virgin Islands.

- J. Antonio Jarvis was a really important figure in the Virgin Islands because he brought our free press to the Virgin Islands by establishing the Daily News.

He gave us a newspaper that was for the entire Virgin Islands and that had Virgin Islands voices in it.

It is a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper.

It's a really great paper and it's still being in print now.

- [Dee] Alexander Hamilton, which probably needs no introduction, a statesman, he was born in Nevis in the Caribbean and he spent his early life on St.

Croix.

- We need at least couple years to talk about Alexander Hamilton.

His mother died young from yellow fever and you see, he was so bright child that he was sent to the US to Columbus University to go to school and the rest is history where he met General Washington one in the founding fathers.

He was the first treasurer, he was a lawyer, a scholar, and the list go on and on.

Plus, he is now a $10 bill.

So there's a lot of things to talk about him - In the Virgin Islands, we've known about Alexander Hamilton and about his mother in particular as a Crucian, a Virgin Islander.

So we claim him as definitely one of ours.

But what your people might not know who are looking at this, is that there's another Hamilton from the Virgin Islands who was also a writer and that is D. Hamilton Jackson.

He also, like J. Antonio Jarvis, started a free press paper in the Virgin Islands.

In fact, he started the first one.

But Alexander Hamilton and D. Hamilton Jackson were both radical politicians who really changed the way we understand how politics work in the US and in the Virgin Islands.

- [Dee] Marilyn Krigger is an author, she's a scholar, she's a historian.

She's many things for many of us in our community.

One of her key books was Race Relations in the US Virgin Islands and CFVI was fortunate to have her selected as our great read for adult literature in 2025.

- She's actually a retired professor at the University of the Virgin Islands and her book Race Relations in the US Virgin Islands is a very important contribution to the Virgin Islands through Canada Virgin Islands literature.

She's well respected and she's touched a lot of lives of students in the Virgin Islands.

- I remember going to see Marilyn Krigger give a talk about our cultural history in the Virgin Islands and I have to say, listening to her talk so incredibly eruditely, so wise, but also she was really cool.

She looked like a person that I could grow up to be and she also was talking about us in the Virgin Islands.

So I would say listening to her give her talks was really inspirational for me.

(gentle music) - The lush landscape of the US Virgin Islands carries echoes of the past, voices that are still empowering and inspiring writers of today.

Among them is Angela Golden Bryan.

- [Dee] Angela Golden Bryan is a playwright, a director, a cultural storyteller, and her work is deeply rooted in the Virgin Islands history and traditions.

- In 1878, on the island of St Croix, there was a revolution that occurred and it is known as the Fireburn.

These four queens, and many others, rose up as leaders so that there could be justice.

Because even though the enslaved had been an emancipated in 1848, they were still being treated very poorly.

They lived in very harsh conditions.

And so in 1878, this revolution took place and half of the island of St.

Croix was burned down.

It took place in three days until finally the Danish military did put an end to that event.

But because of that, change did come in the labor laws.

That event is definitely pivotal for the Virgin Islands when it comes to labor and how the once enslaved were treated.

I'm at this family party and they start talking about the Fireburn and how our ancestors were involved in it and what she did, and my eyes got big.

I had heard about this pivotal event and I embraced it in a completely different way when I understood that not only was it island history, but it was family history.

And so I wrote a short story that I could give as a speech.

Well, that speech went on to win awards and people wanted to know more and more about it and that's how my writing actually started was with the idea that I would create a screenplay.

And from there, I wrote my first book and I enjoyed the process and I just started writing more and more and I'm just having so much fun with it.

I hope that my readers take away that life teaches, and even in the most mundane experiences, we can learn if we're willing to, and how important it is to share these experiences with others.

Because so often when I'm experiencing something, someone else is going through that same thing.

So if I can tell them how I went through it, how I grew through it, it can help them as well.

So it's about sharing, uplifting and encouraging one of another.

- Another writer weaving deep island roots into something boldly imaginative is Cadwell Turnbull whose stories transform Caribbean history into layered speculative worlds.

- [Dee] Cadwell Turnbull, who is a novelist and a speculative fiction writer whose work creatively blends science fiction with Caribbean history and politics.

- The convergence saga is like, well, how would the world respond if they experience a threat from within?

And so there's all of these fantastical, what in the series are called monsters, that come out of hiding.

They like reveal themselves to the world and they say, "I exist."

Vampires, werewolves, which is all of these monsters from popular folklore, some monsters from Caribbean folklore.

And it's about, over the course of three books, how society responds to that.

You know, there's all of these ways that the existence of these new people warp the reality of the world or the sense of reality that the world holds.

Of course, there's like, you know, parallels to things that we are experiencing in real life.

I see it as intersectional.

So like people are monsters and they are Black and they are queer, you know, and they are rich and they are poor, right?

So like, you know, and those different relationships affect how these monsters navigate the world.

So like vampires tend to be wealthier and they come from power and so they don't have the same conflicts or they don't have the same issues as like werewolves or shifters who tend to come from more poor backgrounds or more difficult backgrounds.

It's definitely a metaphor for society.

I think my novels are more interested in asking questions than answering them.

And I think that's something valuable for readers.

I think it's valuable for anyone to like ask the question and not assume the answer or not assume that there is one answer and that there's actually something quite revelational in the question in itself, right?

The question reveals something, even if you don't answer it.

- Among the voices of today is Tiphanie Yanique, a novelist, poet and atheist whose work bridges the complexities between a mixed Caribbean and American identity.

- Tiphanie Yanique also grew up on St.

Thomas.

She is another nationally acknowledged, award-winning author.

Her work also it explores love, loss and it explores identity in the Caribbean.

- I'm a writer, so for me it's working in whatever genre or method that makes the most sense for the thing that I'm trying to do.

So my first book is How to Escape from a Leper Colony.

It's a collection of stories.

In this book, I really wanted to place the Virgin Islands in the region of the Caribbean because really quite often we're kind of forgotten by the rest of the region because we're Americans.

So being American kind of alienates us from the rest of our region, but then being Caribbean kind of alienates us from our nation.

And so in that book, How to Escape from a Leper Colony, the stories are set throughout the Caribbean, not just in the Virgin Islands.

And that was really important to me 'cause I really wanted to locate the Virgin Islands in its space.

My more recent book, which is called Monster in the Middle, is really doing the other part of it, locating the Virgin Islands within the nation and thinking through how Virgin Islands are connected to Americans from the continent or currently living on the continent.

Because I think that's also an important part of our identity that often gets sidelined and that those two things which are sometimes in conflict are still our truth.

Our lived experience was not one that we got to see reflected back at us.

And you know, we know, we know, the scientists, even the Western scientists have told us that the reason why humans invented storytelling, invented poetry was so that we could see ourselves and know that we are real, so that we could know that we're worthy and that our stories tell us that our communities are worthy and that we as individuals are worthy.

And that's what I want my literature to do for the Virgin Islands.

Even when I'm not always saying pretty things, I still want us to know that we're worthy of literature.

Even at our dottiest, we're worthy of literature.

Even at our ugliest, we're worthy of literature, but also we're pretty beautiful too.

- While we've highlighted just a few of today's Island voices, The Caribbean Writer is an annual journal that continues to amplify many more across the region.

- The collection that I am currently editor of is the Caribbean Writer, which is an annual literary journal published by the University of the Virgin Islands within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Science.

And the Caribbean Writer was established in 1986.

The journal has now reached a 40th year of continuous publication and we're so proud of that.

It's a record maintained even in the face of challenges such as hurricanes, dedicated to showcasing the rich and diverse voices of writers from the Caribbean and in this diaspora.

The Caribbean Writer features poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews and visualize art.

- It pays respect to like local talent and a lot of Caribbean writers, a lot of Virgin Island writers get their first publication with the Caribbean Writer.

And it's one of those fixtures, it's, I would say the linchpin of the artistic community in the Virgin Islands.

- And a lot of writers who've gone on to have really major careers, like Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, published some of their first writing in the Caribbean Writer.

It's been hugely influential, not only in the Virgin Islands and the region, but as I just named these famous writers, in the US and internationally.

- It's really a tool which again, brings literature into the general day-to-day living in the Virgin Islands, - We've digitized from volumes one to 30 of the Caribbean Writer is available free at Digital Libraries of the Caribbean, so you can go and download one to 30 free of charge.

And at our website you, can purchase a digital version of whatever volume we have at a particular time.

(bright music) - The library scene in the Virgin Islands is in a recovery phase.

Things like extreme weather events, staffing and funding issues, as well as prolonged restoration efforts tied to historic buildings have challenged the territory's library system, but that doesn't mean libraries aren't vital resources that the community is eager to see fully revived.

- The library on St.

John is the Elaine Ione Sprauve Library.

- The Elaine Ione Sprauve Library and Museum of Cultural Arts is housed in a beautifully restored 18th century plantation house in Cruz Bay and it also serves as a museum.

- Mrs.

Sprauve, who was a Virgin Islands leader, she was an educator, a librarian, a historian.

The library is named in her honor to acknowledge that she was a passionate advocate for education, cultural preservation and and civic engagement.

A little living history is that Mrs.

Sprauve's only daughter is working to support the work of the library and help bring it back to its prominence in the community.

- Enid Baa Library is the first public library in St.

Thomas.

It's where my grandmother worked her entire library career.

I wrote my novel Land of Love and Johnny using the archives there in that library.

- There's no Virgin Islander who grew up in St.

Thomas who's now in their fifties, sixties, seventies, who doesn't talk about the importance of Enid Baa Library in their experience and in their education.

It was originally a private residence but became a library in the 1940s and then was officially named for Enid Baa in 1975.

- Our other main library in St.

Thomas is a Turnbull Library where the children's section of that library has been named for my grandmother, which is really exciting and beautiful.

Her name is Bula Smith-Harrigan - Turnbull, Governor Turnbull, he was a historian and a governor and so the library was named after him.

- The public library such as the Charles Turnbull Library on St.

Thomas is currently under repairs and the Florence Williams Public Library in St.

Croix has just recently reopened.

So we're looking for great things from that space.

- It has the largest collection of works in the US Virgin Islands.

That library is named for Florence Augusta Williams, who was an educator and a librarian who championed literacy and education in the Virgin Islands (bright music) - And the US Virgin Islands literary culture extends well beyond its libraries.

Across the territory, bookstores offer welcoming spaces where island stories, culture and community come together.

- [Dee] I'm always interested to hear how many people who come to visit do make an effort to go and visit the bookstores and I think they understand they're uniquely Caribbean.

- Island Booksellers is in the Haven site area of St.

Thomas.

It's such a gorgeous bookstore, but also has so many different cool books.

The folks who run it, the family who runs this bookstore are like really serious readers.

You know the kind of bookstore where you can go in and you can say, "I'm in the mood for..." and they just have something for you.

Like that's the kind of bookstore.

- The Bookstore offers a wide selection of books catering to diverse interests and readers.

It's interior is thoughtfully designed.

It's beautiful, creating an inviting atmosphere for visitors.

In addition, the store features a dedicated area for book signings and readings make it a welcoming space for literary events and author engagements.

The staff there are very inviting and and very helpful.

- So in our downtown area in Charlotte Amalie, the bookstore there is called The Reading Room.

It's such a cute little bookstore because it's like buried inside of a lot of like typical touristic kind of places.

But in these old buildings in Charlotte Amalie, buildings that are hundreds and hundreds, I mean like hundreds and hundreds years old, it's like a little tiny bookstore that you can kind of almost stumble across, which is how I found it.

- [Alscess] It offers books, gifts, and local art in a spacious inviting setting, make it a perfect stop for those seeking a relaxed literary atmosphere.

- The bookstore on St.

Croix is called Undercover Books.

I absolutely love undercover books.

I love going in there looking at all of the books that they have and they've been very special.

We have a great relationship.

I love to do book signings with them - Because I live on St.

Croix, it's one of my favorite places to be.

And this shop is known for its inviting layout, community events and curated collection of Caribbean themed books for fiction and fiction and gifts.

And every time we have our literary festival, the bookstore brings the books in so that people can buy the books and they offer to host our authors who sign them.

- St.

Croix has two really great bookstores, at least that I'm familiar with.

They might have more than this.

They have Mister Tea, which is a really cute bookstore in downtown Christiansted.

It sells tea, but it also sells an array of graphic novels from children's books all the way up to graphic novels that are really adult only graphic novels.

That's pretty cool that in this really small place or a place that we think of as small, that there's this really dope bookstore.

- [Alscess] And then we have Bajo el Sol, which is a little different than the other bookstores in terms of what it carries.

Bajo el Sol is in Mongoose Junction on St.

John and it offers more than just an extensive selection of books.

The shop regularly organizes poetry readings, documentary film viewings, monthly art exhibitions, and it's creating a live community space for art and literature lovers on St.

John.

- They also sell coffee and wine and have rum flights there.

So you can really sit down there with, you know, a flight of rum or a nice cup of coffee, look at beautiful art, maybe buy beautiful art by Virgin Islanders and pick up books by Virgin Islanders.

- It's a huge culture space.

There's art on the walls, there's people sell art through it.

It's a fantastic hybrid space because in some places you need that, right?

Like a bookstore might struggle on an island as small as St.

John.

But like a culture space where a bunch of things are happening and it's a bookstore, it's gonna do very well.

(bright music) - Exploring the US Virgin Islands is like stepping into a living archive filled with centuries old buildings and sites shaped by a complex past.

Here are just a few literary landmarks recommended by locals.

- [Dee] Because we are a community that really has the arts and humanities kind of as a part of our DNA, you'll find very many monuments, plaques, statues to honor our past and our future.

- So there are a number of public monuments to the Queens of the Fireburn and one of them is a Three Queen Statue.

- [Dee] Three Queen Statue is on St.

Thomas and it honors three extraordinary women, three queens, Queen Mary, Queen Agnes, and Queen Matilda who led the 1878 Fireburn Labor Revolt.

- These women are really our founding heroes in some kinds of ways, and we call them Queens because they were leaders in the community even before this revolution - In St.

Thomas, The French Heritage Museum celebrates the contributions of French settlers who arrive from St Barts.

The museums exhibits include artifacts, photographs, and oral histories that document everyday life, fishing traditions and the evolution of French town's distinctive culture.

- [Dee] And it sits on a part of the island called Frenchtown.

- It has a very cool nightlife, but it's also extremely laid back and you can kind of wander from restaurant to bar and you'll have like a nice night.

- It's another beautiful example of the cultural layers that make the Virgin Islands so unique.

- I am really partial to Whim Great House as a beautiful landmark in the Virgin Islands on St.

Croix because I grew up in Estate Whim, so that's my neighborhood.

And it was something like, wow, this is in my neighborhood.

- [Alscess] It is a well preserve example of a Danish colonial sugar plantation.

This historic estate allows visitors to step back in time and experience daily life on a plantation during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The museum features the original Great House, windmill and sugar factory ruins.

- And although they are from a part of our history that is not beautiful, I love that we can still see remnants of the past and we get insight into what our ancestors went through.

And I think that there's something very healing to be able to visit a place like that.

- In St.

Thomas, it got Fort Christian, the oldest historical structure and they have the museum to that as well and they give a lot of information about the fort 'cause the fort is really nearby the ocean.

It was build to protect the islands from pirates.

- More locally known as Fort Christian, it's actually Fort Christiansvaern because it was under the Danish rule that it was named.

- [Angela] I also like Fort Frederik in Frederiksted.

It's just an amazing structure.

The fort, there's so much history inside of it.

- [Tiphanie] The Annaberg Plantation is on St.

John and it is stunning.

It's also sobering.

- It features ruins of a former sugar mill.

Visitors can explore stone structures like big ovens and signs that detail the plantation rule and the islands economy and the lives of enslaved Africans.

- Sugar mill is still there.

There's a dungeon and a net, and we have someone there in the national park, basically every day, and they're making bread how they make the bread back in a day.

You can get a tour of the factory and they have signs kind of guide you and the other signs and so forth.

So you gonna bring back the history, the living history.

- I know a lot of people go to the Virgin Islands for the sun and the rum, but it's so amazing to really tap into some of the culture, to take the time to go to the museums, to take the the Fireburn tour and walk and hear about the history and to really take the time to talk to some of the locals, invite yourselves to be curious and actually have connections with the people and the food.

And don't leave with unanswered questions.

Ask and learn because I believe that the more you truly learn about the people and what is inhabited there, the customs and traditions, I think you'll even love the Virgin Islands even more.

- Today's literary journey through the US Virgin Islands is part of a bigger celebration.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, we're exploring the stories, authors and books that define each corner of this nation in partnership with the Library of Congress and local Centers for the Book.

- You might know that the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, but what you might not know is that they've established a local Center for the Book in all 50 states and six territories.

Their mission, to make the Library of Congress and its resources even more accessible to all Americans.

- I'm Lee Ann Potter, the Director of Professional Learning and Outreach Initiatives at the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress is the Congressional Library and the National Library of the United States and the largest library in the world with more than 181 million items, from photographs to maps, from motion pictures to sound recordings, from newspapers to manuscripts and more.

Oh, and yes, there are books, millions of them.

In this series, American Stories: A Reading Road Trip, you will hear about many books and authors and poems and short stories and more, and how together, they make up our nation's literary heritage.

As you do, I hope you will keep in mind that while they are all unique and come from different parts of our vast country, they all have something very important in common, they all live in the collections of the Library of Congress.

You'll also hear about the library's affiliated Centers for the Book.

There is one in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

These centers promote reading, libraries and literacy and they celebrate and share their state or territories literary heritage through a variety of programs that you'll hear about in this very special series.

(bright music) - Today we're joined by the Territory's Local Center for the Book, which is part of the community foundation of the Virgin Islands, headquartered in Charlotte Amalie on St.

Thomas.

- I'm Dee Baecher-Brown and I'm president of the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, which is also known as CFVI.

And we are a community foundation serving the US Virgin Islands.

We were invited in 2022 to serve as the Center for the Book and we were so excited to have that invitation from the Library of Congress.

And we also felt it was a natural, given our foundation's history and commitment to literacy in the Virgin Islands.

We just welcomed this as an opportunity to expand the work that we have been doing since 2006.

Since becoming the Center for the Book, we have had an expanded opportunities for our Little Free Libraries.

It was in part in response to the damage that had been done to our libraries in the storms in 2017.

We started small and we are now up to 19 Little Free Libraries across the three islands.

We partner with local nonprofits who help us build the Little Free Libraries.

Then CFVI has takes the responsibility of stocking our Little Free Libraries.

We regularly stock the Little Free Libraries with high quality early childhood books.

Because our commitment to the literacy has this important aspect of early childhood, we wanted families to be able to enroll in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Program.

So CFVI partners with the Virgin Islands Children Museum to provide them with the funding that they need to enroll children in the territory with this free service.

Families who are interested can, at no cost to themselves, enroll their children to receive free, high quality, age appropriate books every month delivered directly to their home.

It's a treasure for a child to be able to have new books and new magazines, and so we are really excited to be partnering with the Children's Museum so that we can do this.

As the Center for the Book, we like to have people see us as a resource if they wanna do anything with literature, and that's how some of these things come about.

People will reach out to us and say, "I wanna do this trip for my students and I want them to have books."

And so CFVI is able to help make that possible.

- If you'd like to learn more about their Little Free Libraries and their initiatives to help get more books into the hands of children, click on the programs tab on their website, CFVI.net.

- Today's visit to the US Virgin Islands has been a sunny reminder of the power of storytelling.

Thank you again to the Library of Congress and the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands for partnering with PBS Books as we journey across the country, exploring the books, authors, and places that define America's story.

- Have you had a chance to visit any of these places?

Or if you're local, tell us your favorite spots that out of town book lovers should visit in the chat or comments.

- And if our reading road trip has sparked your curiosity about the landmarks, authors, and literary treasures in your own state, the Library of Congress is a great place to start.

Visit in person in Washington DC, search its vast digital collections online, or connect with your local Center for the Book.

- [Lauren] For more information on the authors, institutions and places featured in this episode, visit us at pbsbooks.org/readingroadtrip.

- And don't forget to like and subscribe so you never miss an exciting episode from PBS Books.

Be sure to share this video with all your friends to start planning your next reading road trip.

- Until next time, happy reading.

(bright music)