{"id":21046,"date":"2025-10-03T11:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T15:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/?post_type=wfsu-news&#038;p=21046"},"modified":"2025-10-15T14:41:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:41:20","slug":"mary-ann-lindley-shares-insights-about-tallahassees-political-and-social-dynamics-in-her-new-book","status":"publish","type":"wfsu-news","link":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wfsu-news\/mary-ann-lindley-shares-insights-about-tallahassees-political-and-social-dynamics-in-her-new-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Ann Lindley shares insights about Tallahassee&#8217;s political and social dynamics in her new book"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-21046-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/cpa.ds.npr.org\/s390\/audio\/2025\/10\/lindleybook1002full.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cpa.ds.npr.org\/s390\/audio\/2025\/10\/lindleybook1002full.mp3\">https:\/\/cpa.ds.npr.org\/s390\/audio\/2025\/10\/lindleybook1002full.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>Former Leon County Commissioner &#8211; and Tallahassee Democrat writer &#8211; Mary Ann Lindley has written a book. Ask her about her first-ever book, &#8220;Fragments: Then &amp; Now,&#8221; and Lindley&#8217;s first instinct is to direct the conversation away from herself.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s 156 pages. It has a beautiful original oil painting by Jennifer Clinard, a wonderful friend who painted sets for the San Francisco Opera and movies in the Bay Area for 30 years, so she&#8217;s no slouch. And I tell Jennifer, &#8216;The cover&#8217;s selling my book.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lindley continues crediting all the people who helped her with the project.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mary Jane Ryals who is the publisher of Apalachee Press heard I was writing a book and she invited me to lunch about a year ago and said, &#8216;Apalachee Press would like to publish your book.&#8217; It was a gift to have somebody offer. That meant that a beautifully experienced book designer, Carolyn Knight, started working with me. And we spent about a year in design of this book. I had 4 editors including Ron Hartung who was the most ingenious and tremendous editor at the Tallahassee Democrat for many years. We called him &#8216;Grammar Man.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With all the credits out of the way, Lindley finally gets around to describing what &#8220;Fragments: Then &amp; Now&#8221; is actually about.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The book is divided into 8 sections. It has fragments from &#8216;Then&#8217; with datelines during my many years of reporting and writing. The second is &#8216;and Now,&#8217; which is reflections on how things turned out or didn&#8217;t turn out; regrets, happy endings, the more things change, the more they stay the same.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most unique aspect of Lindley&#8217;s book, however, is her own singular experiences: first from her 30 years of journalism and then from two terms as a local elected official. Not to mention her many community involvements along the way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We listen to people. So you and your family life or your business, you just say, &#8216;Time to move in this direction or cut out that.&#8217; In government, you can&#8217;t act that fast. You&#8217;re listening to people and hearing people if you&#8217;re doing it right. You&#8217;re not jumping into things, which is tempting because with the big, ugly issues, sometimes you want to say, &#8216;Let&#8217;s just make the call and move on. This is really not any fun!&#8217; And we have examples of that in our city right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lindley says she comments on a number of these issues, bringing a considerable historical background to bear to how they arrived at the present time. Which is also when the book makes its official debut.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m having a launch of the book on October 4th at Midtown Reader, our local lovely indie bookstore, 4:30 in the afternoon. It&#8217;ll also be in Hearth and Soul on Market Street and I&#8217;ll be having a conversation with Serena Moyle, who&#8217;s their librarian out there. And I&#8217;ll be having another event at Goodwood in November.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In other words, plenty of in-person chances to ask Mary Ann Lindley about her book, &#8220;Fragments: Then &amp; Now.&#8221; <\/p>\n<div class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2025 WFSU News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[],"tags":[1136,1135],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mary Ann Lindley shares insights about Tallahassee&#039;s political and social dynamics in her new book - WFSU Local Routes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wfsu-news\/mary-ann-lindley-shares-insights-about-tallahassees-political-and-social-dynamics-in-her-new-book\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mary Ann Lindley shares insights about Tallahassee&#039;s political and social dynamics in her new book - 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