Library Limelight: Tracy Walker, Programming Manager, Library Headquarters

Library Limelight is intended to be a quick read to help FCPL patrons get to know our librarians, staff, and volunteers. We hope you enjoy learning about the people who make our libraries great!

Tracy Walker
Programming Manager
Library Headquarters

Where is your hometown?

I was born in Athens, Georgia, and grew up in DeKalb County.

How long have you been at FCPL?

I’ve been the Programming Manager for about a year-and-a-half now.

What other jobs have you had at FCPL?

Many moons ago, while in graduate school, I was a part-time shelver. I am happy to be back!

Why did you choose to work in a library?

Growing up, I practically lived at the Maude Burris library in Decatur. When I began storytelling, I worked with Head Start centers in Southern Appalachia, and that work led me to sharing programs in libraries. For the first time I witnessed the truly profound, life-changing role public libraries can play in people’s lives – particularly the lives of underserved children.  

Describe your job in five words or less.

Varied, creative, collaborative, busy!

What is unique about your job?

I love getting to work with both youth and adult programming.  

What is your favorite part of your job?

The amazing, talented, kind people I work with!  

What’s the most interesting place you’ve lived or traveled?

I travelled to India several years ago to visit a dear friend. Before I leave the planet, I hope I’m able to return. I also love Yellowstone.

What are your hobbies?

Writing, kayaking, and road trips. I love road trips!

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading two books on the history of color at the moment, Color: A Natural History of the Palette and The Secret Lives of Color, and enjoying both!

Paper books, eBooks, or audiobooks?

All three! But there’s something lovely in the tangibility of paper.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

All of my houseplants are named after former first ladies. Martha Washington is in my office. (Maybe that’s something I shouldn’t share…)

Author to Share Addiction and Recovery Story in Forsyth County

Texas Stready ran away from home at age 17. Her addiction was financed by drug dealing. For 28 years she traveled a path that took her to places from which few return.

Stready will visit Forsyth County to speak about her experiences with addiction and recovery and share stories of grief, loss, and redemption from her memoir, Deep in the Heart of Texas. Stready will give listeners an unvarnished look inside the mind of an addict on Wednesday, August 21 at 7:00 p.m. at the Sharon Forks Library, 2820 Old Atlanta Road, Cumming.

Her journey will confirm that change is possible.

After all, Stready overcame addiction and went on to co-found A Radical Difference, an online community devoted to changing perspectives and helping people achieve a new life.

“Being hooked on anything bites. I know, because I was strung out on every kind of drug you can imagine for almost three decades,” Stready says on ARadicalDifference.com.

“Living this way for so long twisted all my life concepts, and being different required I get good at change. So I did. No matter what you’re trapped in there’s a way out, and it’s nowhere near as painful or difficult as it seems,” Stready explains.

Stready’s talk is open to the public, but she encourages anyone struggling with addiction, as well as those who are close to someone struggling with addiction, to attend. She will discuss where wrong beliefs start, why it’s so important for an addict to want a different life for themselves, and when change really begins.

Admission to An Evening with Texas Stready is free. Copies of Texas Stready’s memoir, Deep in the Heart of Texas, will be available for purchase at the event. 

“In Her Father’s Eyes” Exhibit at Sharon Forks Library

Visit the Sharon Forks Library August 2 – 22, 2019 to view In Her Father’s Eyes: A Slovak Childhood in the Shadow of the Holocaust, on loan from the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University.

This photographic exhibit documents the short life of Kitty Weichherz, a Czechoslovakian girl born in the same year as Anne Frank. Family photographs and entries in Kitty’s diary offer a window into the everyday life of a child: birthday parties, the first day of school, a first boyfriend.

In Her Father’s Eyes: A Slovak Childhood in the Shadow of the Holocaust was curated in partnership with Dr. Daniel Magilow of the University of Tennessee and graduate students in Youngstown State University's Public History Program.

Kitty’s story is told through the loving eyes of her surviving father and story paints a portrait of a young girl’s innocence in the face of increasing anti-Jewish sentiment on the eve of World War II. The touching story of just one girl, one family, emphasizes the humanity of millions just like Kitty who were lost in this tragic war.

Andrea Miskewicz, Onsite Education Coordinator for the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University, will visit the Sharon Forks Library on Saturday, August 17 at 3:00 p.m. to speak on the history of the Holocaust (1933-1945), as well as stories of children who were victims and survivors of the Nazi regime.