Defending Goals & Breaking Barriers with Kelcey Ervick

Kelcey Ervick, author of the graphic memoir The Keeper: Soccer, Me, and the Law that Changed Women’s Lives, is here to discuss soccer, women’s sports, Title IX, connections between goalkeeping and writing, rereading your teenage diaries, research for memoirists, her own evolution from athlete to writer to graphic memoirist, Viking names, and a lot more.

 

Kelcey Ervick is the author of four award-winning books, including The Keeper (Avery Books/Penguin), a 2025 Choose to Read Ohio selection and winner of a 2023 Ohioana Book Award. Her three previous award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction are The Bitter Life of Božena Němcová, Liliane's Balcony, and For Sale By Owner. She is co-editor, with Tom Hart, of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Graphic Literature. Ervick has a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and is a professor of English and creative writing at Indiana University South Bend. She writes and draws stories of the creative life at her illustrated newsletter, The Habit of Art.

 

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email ohiocenterforthebook@cpl.org (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.