© 2024 Peoria Public Radio
A joint service of Bradley University and Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Peoria Reads selection focuses on enjoying where you live

Jeff Smudde / WCBU

When Melody Warnick moved to Blacksburg, Va., over 10 years ago it was just the latest stop for a family that she said had always been on the move.

“After college, my husband and I started a 13-year period of moving frequently every two or three years,” she said.

With previous stops in Maryland, Utah, Iowa and Texas behind her, Warnick said the move to Virginia, where her husband had a job, prompted her to do the research that led to the book, “This Is Where You Belong,” the Peoria Public Library’s Peoria Reads selection for 2022.

“I was really interested in the process that has to happen for someone to feel at home in a place, especially when it’s new,” said Warnick, a freelance writer .

“I realized there are concrete things that people can do to increase that sense of place attachment for themselves,” she said.

Warnick’s book covers a variety of topics from volunteering in your community to enjoying local food to enhance satisfaction with where you live. Chapters include “Do Something Fun” and “Commune with Nature” as well as a section dedicated to getting to know your neighbors.

Warnick said banana bread was what she provided to some of her neighbors in Blacksburg. “I was surprised at how well it went over. It’s the universal symbol of good will: a homemade baked good. People really do crave this connection,” she said.

One of the things she sought to do with the book is help an individual deal with all the lists that spring up online regarding the best cities in which to live, she said, adding that here’s no shortage of material designed to guide one to the optimum place to live. “Print publications as varied as Money, Outside, Bicycling and Forbes regularly weigh in on the nation’s top cities to live, work and play in,” noted Warnick.

Having found success with “Where You Belong,” a book published in 2016, Warnick has a new book coming out this summer, “If You Can Live Anywhere.”

“I’ve come to realize there’s this whole world of talent attraction and retention from communities all over the country that are working hard because they want you to live there,” she said, pointing to the growing class of remote workers and the arrival of “zoom towns.”

“I try to give some guidance on how to make those tough decisions on where to live,” said Warnick.

Additional information on Peoria Reads programs can be found at peoriapubliclibrary.org.

Steve Tarter retired from the Peoria Journal Star in 2019 after spending 20 years at the paper as both reporter and business editor.