Welcome to episode 35 of From the Front Porch, a collection of conversations on books, small business,

and life in the South. I'm Annie Jones, owner of the bookshelf, an independent bookstore in downtown

Thomasville, Georgia. And today I'm joined by Chris Jensen, a PhD student in medieval studies, and the

newest bookshelf staffer, or one of them.

We've actually expanded quite a bit since we've last spoken. So we will be interviewing Chris and

talking to him about life at the bookshelf. But before we get started, I wanted to remind all

of you to continue to rank and review us on iTunes. Thank you so much to all of our listeners

who have already done so.

We have really appreciated getting to increase our listenership.

And so if you have not had a chance, please log on to iTunes and rank and review us.

Every little bit helps and spreads the word about both the podcast and the bookshelf. So let's get

started. Hi, Chris. Hi. Okay, so Chris and I practice before we got started, meaning we

prep these questions because we're both introverts and this could get awkward. I really,

really just don't like direct questions. I clam up and it's going to get weird.

So I promise Chris that I would try to avoid direct questions and that this would be more like a

conversation, which is the goal of from the front porch anyway. So hopefully that works to our advantage.

I do have a kind of direct question though because I want you to tell people where you're from

and where you grew up and how you wound up in nearby Tallahassee.

Absolutely. Well, I grew up in Boynton Beach, Florida, which is about 50 miles north of Miami

on the East Coast. I went to all 12 years of elementary middle and high school there, and then I went to all 12 years of elementary middle and high school there.

Okay.

And then I went to college in nearby West Palm Beach at Palm Beach, Atlanta University,

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