It's the Maxwell Institute podcast.

I'm Blair Hodges.

In this episode, I'm talking to Ashley May Hoyland.

She's the author of the Maxwell Institute's newest book,

100 Birds, taught me to fly.

The book is part of the Maxwell Institute's Living Faith series,

but it's unlike any other book in that series.

Ashmay joins us in this episode to read

excerpts from the book and talk a little bit about how it came to be. We're joined today by

Ashley May Hoyland. She's the author of a new book from the Maxwell Institute called 100 Birds

taught me to fly. Ashley May Hoyland, but I call you Ash May. Welcome to the program. Thank you.

Happy to be here. It's good to have you. So we're talking about this book, and I should let people know from the

beginning that this is part of the Maxwell Institute's Living Faith series, and I'm the co-editor

of that series. And so I've been involved in this book from beginning to end, so this is a little

bit different than most of the interviews I do where I don't know the authors and I'm not involved in it. But I'm really glad to be doing this. And Ashmae, you just sort of got back from a little whirlwind tour of book events.

You just did a ton of book events.

I did.

I guess the basic idea is you'd take the book and people could pick up copies of the book,

but you'd also spend time reading from the book and talking a little bit about how you wrote it and that sort of thing.

Yeah. from the book and talking a little bit about how you wrote it and that sort of thing. Yeah, so originally I was pretty anxious about the idea of standing up and reading my book in front of people,

in part because I don't love being in the spotlight, and in large part because I have never been able to read my own work aloud without my voice shaking really badly.

And so I thought there's no way that I'm going to stand up 20 times and have my voice shake and be emotional in front of all those people.

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