I started this blog as a place to combine who I am, a below-the-knee congenital amputee, with what I do, a librarian who assists patrons at the reference desk at the Fairhope Public Library in Lower Alabama (LA). It has taken ten years but I have finally published a book, which includes some of my blogs, but also poetry, and other creative writing, all thematically driven by librarianship and leg amputees. Chapters are organized as though the reader were in a library.
I look at my book, writing, and my role as a librarian as a conversation starter. I would love to come to your public or academic library or private event to engage audiences on a range of topics within the book, including librarianship, amputees, Fairhope history, or creative writing. Please contact me at alansamry@gmail.com.
I mean no offense to other amputees when I use the word stump. Stump the Librarian is recognized around the world. It’s also far more catchy than Residual Limb the Librarian.
I’ve also discovered that people around the world are finding the site because they are searching for questions to Stump a Librarian. I’ve tried to accommodate these searches by adding a Question and Answer page.
For more information visit my author page, Alan Samry.
Thirteen years ago, Susan and I moved to Fairhope, Alabama from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where I was born and raised. I earned an AA in 1990 from Cape Cod Community College and a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of South Alabama, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Spalding University in 2012. In 2017, I graduated from the Online Masters of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) Program at the University of Alabama.
My writing has appeared in Disability Studies Quarterly, Obsession: An online Literary Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. In 2015, two Poems were published in Kaleidoscope Magazine. Oracle Fine Arts Review, the University of South Alabama’s literary magazine, published “Beauty Scars” in April 2016.
Stump the Librarian is not endorsed by the Fairhope Public Library or the City of Fairhope. I speak for himself and write of my own experiences.
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I’m a fellow monopod living in Alabama (near Tuscaloosa), and I also collect esoteric and obscure one-footed references, mainly in world mythology and religion. I’d love to compare notes! I assume you already know about the Aztec god with one foot, Tezcatlipoca, and the famous one-footed tap dancer who used to appear on the Ed Sullivan show, Peg-leg Bates, as well as the entire chapter on one-legged Sages from the Taoist scripture Zhuang Zi (chapter five), but maybe there are some others more obscure I can share with you. My long neglected blog about synchronicity (and lots of books, I’m a bibliomaniac) will eventually have some whoppers dealing with amputees, including a three legged coyote named Don Coyote (I forget the author).
Greg, So good to hear from you. You mentioned a few I had not heard of, so thanks for that. We should have a conversation some time about our famous, infamous, and obscure list of Unipeds.
Hello I stumbled across your site here and read something about your grandfather and grandmother Mary Walouke. I am really shocked because my last name is Walouke, spelled the same way,and my great grandfather came from Poland as well. His wife’s name was Mary but his name was Charles Walouke. I have never seen our last name anywhere else on the internet. Can you contact me via my email to talk?