Laura Barr, Paintings/Mixed Media
Feb
28
to Apr 7

Laura Barr, Paintings/Mixed Media

Laura Barr‘s work is distinguished by rich color, simplified form and light made material.
Barr works in series, primarily in oil on canvas.

She studied at Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In addition to her BFA, she also holds a BA in Art History from Tufts University and studied at the Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.

Her work has been exhibited at Gallery Naga, Boston, MA, Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY, and other galleries in the northeast, including Kehler Liddell Gallery and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT, the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery, University of Connecticut at Avery Point, CT, and The Paul Mellon Art Center, Wallingford, CT. She is affiliated with 3 Walls Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, is an Associate Artist Member, Lyme Art Association, is a member of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, and is an Elected Member, Connecticut Women Artists.

Awards include Second Honorable Mention, New England Landscape, Lyme Art Association, 2023, New Haven Paint and Clay Club Active Member Memorial Award Honoring Emily Bett, 2023 and the Gantner Gallery Award, Essex Art Association, 2019. Her work is in many collections including Yale-New Haven Health Services, New Haven, CT, and The Shapiro Center for Writing, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.

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Friday Night Movie: Juror #2
Apr
4
7:00 PM19:00

Friday Night Movie: Juror #2

While serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, a family man finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma, one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict or free the wrong killer.

114 minutes | Rated PG-13 | Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

All welcome—doors open at 6:50 pm. Light refreshments provided by the Friends of WWML.

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Author Event: Sara Levine
Apr
6
2:00 PM14:00

Author Event: Sara Levine

Local author Sara Levine will join us to kick off National Library Week (April 6-12) along with her latest book, Hello Dog/Hello Human. (It's a guide for humans in dealing with dogs and for dogs in dealing with humans!) Sara will read from that book, plus her award-winning picture book Bone by Bone. Afterwards, kids will be invited to participate in an activity involving animals and their skeletons. Books will be available Sara's books for sale and signing! 

Please register so we know to expect you! This event is free, for all ages, and all are welcome. For more details and to register, contact the library: 203-488-8702 

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Sean Kernan &  Darrell Petit | An Author & Artist Presentation
Apr
10
7:00 PM19:00

Sean Kernan & Darrell Petit | An Author & Artist Presentation

Sean Kernan, photographer/filmaker/writer

Darrell Petit, sculptor/artist

A collaborative presentation on the making of the book, Darrell Petit In Stone, their work and their art. Please join us.

Thursday | April 10 | 7 pm

To register, call 203.488.8702.

About the book.

Darrell Petit In Stone is the extraordinary story of the sculptor’s journey from Providence lecture halls to professional hockey rinks around Europe and finally into the pit at of the Stony Creek Quarry where something was waiting for him; a calling to a life excavating massive pieces from the quarry wall, revealing their character and seeing them sited and celebrated internationally.

Sean Kernan has followed Petit’s work over the course of 15 years through all stages of its evolution, capturing the artist – in person and in practice – across multiple facets. More than a catalogue raisonné, the book chronicles deep time: ancient stone being quarried, hammered, burned, polished, and transmuted by this singular artist.

Sean Kernan is a photographer, writer, and teacher who came to photography from theater. He is the author of two monographs, The Secret Books (with Jorge Luis Borges) and Among Trees, with Anthony Doerr, a book on creativity called Looking Into the Light , and In Stone, on the sculptor Darrell Petit.

He has exhibited at galleries and museums in France, Egypt, Mexico, South Korea, and Italy, as well as in the US, and has created media for performance pieces with Alison Chase at MASS MoCA, Guggenheim Projects in New York, and Portland Performing Arts Festival, most recently a theater/dance/multimedia piece, Drowned.

He has produced and directed several award-winning documentaries: The Kampala Boxing Club, about boxing in Africa; Crow Stories, about the Crow Tribe of Montana; A Mind of Winter, about the feeling of cold; and The Visitor, filmed in his grear-grandfather’s house in upstate New York.

Source: SeanKernan.com

Darrell Petit is a sculptor who has been working in quarries around the world for the past thirty years. Born in Montreal Canada, Petit received his BA Urban Studies from Brown University, later studying at the Hochschule der Kunstein Berlin, Germany and the Kyoto University of the Arts, in Japan. During this time, Darrell started to work with granite, a material through which he has explored a wide range of subjects and experiences. He is best known for creating large-scale, often monumental sculpture from granite elements, which he painstakingly quarries, cuts, carves and assembles into interdependently balanced situations often with precariousness and contingency.

Source: Naomi Darling Architecture

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Flesh & Stone Series - Event Four
Apr
17
7:00 PM19:00

Flesh & Stone Series - Event Four

A Monumental Task: The Creation and Legacy of West Point’s Most Iconic Memorial.

A Presentation by Jennifer Voigtschild

Thursday, April 17, 7 pm, at the Library

Event Four of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book Flesh and Stone.

Jennifer Voigtschild, Command Historian of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY will discuss the initial idea, coordination, design, and engineering feats that enabled West Point’s Battle Monument to grace historic Trophy Point. Additionally, she will delve into some of how Battle Monument has taken on different meanings and uses in the over 130 years of its existence as it towers over West Point and inspires the cadets who will go on to serve the nation as commissioned leaders of character.

Jennifer Voigtschild graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY in 1993 as an American History major with academic honors. She was commissioned into the Adjutant General’s Corps and was stationed in Germany, Fort Jackson, Fort Meade, West Point, Fort Hood, and the Pentagon throughout her twenty-year Army career, commanding a station of the Defense Courier Service and the Army Element of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Defense Attaché System. Jenn earned a Master’s Degree in American History from Rutgers University with a follow-on assignment teaching American History to cadets at the Academy. She deployed to Bosnia twice in the 1990s and Iraq in 2010 before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2013. She currently serves as the USMA Command Historian, a Department of the Army Civilian position on the Superintendent’s special staff.

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Willoughby Book Talk | Author Event | Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After The Destruction of Gaza
Apr
30
8:00 PM20:00

Willoughby Book Talk | Author Event | Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After The Destruction of Gaza

Willoughby Book Talk

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning

by Peter Beinart

in Conversation with Dr. Barnett Rubin

Wednesday, April 30, 8 pm

Via Zoom

by registration only

Peter Beinart, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, Knopf, 2025. 192 pages.

ABOUT THE BOOK

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most important issues of our time

“At this painful moment, Peter Beinart’s voice is more vital than ever. His reach is broad—from the tragedy of today’s Middle East to the South Africa he knows well to events centuries ago—his scholarship is deep, and his heart is big. This book is not just about being Jewish in the shadow of today’s war, but about being a person who cares for justice.” —Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight and King Leopold’s Ghost

In Peter Beinart’s view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history, and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew?

Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life.

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could write: a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future.

“Guided by a deep familiarity with Jewish history and sources, and a piercing awareness of Palestinian realities, Peter Beinart unflinchingly peels away the layers of propagandist misdirection deployed to defend Israel’s actions. This essential book leads us to a universal and Jewish reawakening that is both humane and hopeful.”
—Daniel Levy, President of the US-Middle East Project and former Israeli peace negotiator

“An urgent, carefully argued and compelling read.”
—Rachel Shabi, author of Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism

“[Beinart] has built a reputation for being an incisive writer and public intellectual, with a knack for admitting when he’s wrong. . . . In Beinart’s latest book, he appeals to his fellow Jews to grapple with the morality of their defense of Israel. . . . He argues for a Jewish tradition that has no use for Jewish supremacy and treats human equality as a core value.”
—The Guardian

“Uses the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as Beinart’s deep Jewish faith to chart a path forward for peace and safety for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
MSNBC

Penguin Random House

PETER BEINART is Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents, an MSNBC political commentator, a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Guardian, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He writes the Beinart Notebook newsletter on Substack.

His books include The Good Fight [2006], The Icarus Syndrome [2010], and The Crisis of Zionism. [2012].

He has written for a range of publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, the Atlantic, Newsweek, Slate, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Polity: the Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Studies Association.The Week magazine named him columnist of the year for 2004. In 2005, he gave the Theodore H. White lecture at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

He has appeared on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” “Charlie Rose,” “Meet the Press,” “The Colbert Report” and many other television programs.

Beinart graduated from Yale University, winning a Rhodes scholarship for graduate study at Oxford University. After graduating from University College, Oxford, Beinart became The New Republic’s managing editor in 1995. He became senior editor in 1997, and from 1999 to 2006 served as the magazine’s Editor.

BARNETT RUBIN is a Distinguished Fellow at Center on International Cooperation. During 1994-2000 he was Director of the Center for Preventive Action, and Director, Peace and Conflict Studies, at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Rubin was Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of Central Asia at Columbia University from 1990 to 1996. Previously, he was a Jennings Randolph Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University.

Rubin also served as the Senior Adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration and, prior to that, as special advisor to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan.

Dr. Rubin received a Ph.D. (1982) and M.A. (1976) from the University of Chicago and a B.A. (1972) from Yale University. He also studied at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1977-1978. He is founder and chair of the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (a program of the Social Science Research Council) and a founding member of the Executive Board of Asia Watch, now Human Rights Watch/Asia.

Dr. Rubin is the author of Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror (2013)Blood on the Doorstep: the Politics of Preventing Violent Conflict (2002). He is also the author of  Post-Soviet Political Order: Conflict and State Building (1998); Toward Comprehensive Peace in Southeast Europe: Conflict Prevention in the South Balkans (1996), and The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (1995).

Dr. Rubin articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New Yorker, Survival, International Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Review of Books, as well as academic journals. His current articles and posts on topical issues can be read on Appointed Times on Substack.

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Willoughby Writers Group | First Page & Title | A Writing Workshop with Betsy Lerner
May
15
5:30 PM17:30

Willoughby Writers Group | First Page & Title | A Writing Workshop with Betsy Lerner

A Three-Hour Writing Workshop

with author, editor, and literary agent Betsy Lerner

Thursday | May 15 | 5.30 - 8.30 pm

A presentation of the Willoughby Writers Group.

Space is limited. Please call to register. No walk-ins.

203.488.8702

Description

How do you hook a reader from the first page? In this workshop, we are going to scrutinize our first pages together and drill down on what makes them succeed and/or how to improve them. By looking at our own first pages as well as some first pages of books we love, we'll analyze the different kinds of gambits writers take in introducing their work. We will also scrutinize voice, tone, authority, point of view.  Participants will also have a chance to "test drive" their working titles with the group. 

For more info, contact Rabia Ali | 203.488.8702 | rali@wwml.org

Betsy Lerner is the author of the recently released novel, Shred Sisters  (Grove Press, October 2024). She is also the author The Bridge Ladies, The Forest for the Trees and Food and Loathing. With Temple Grandin, she is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns and Abstractions. She received an MFA from Columbia University in Poetry where she was selected as one of PEN’s Emerging Writers. She also received the Tony Godwin Publishing Prize for Editors. After working as an editor for 15 years, she became an agent and is currently a partner with Dunow, Carlson and Lerner Literary Agency.

Source; betsylerner.com

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Flesh & Stone Series -- Event Five
May
22
4:00 PM16:00

Flesh & Stone Series -- Event Five

Our Hidden Landscapes: Indigenous Stone Ceremonial Sites In Southern New England.

Presented by Lucianne Lavin

Thursday, May 22, 4 pm

Event Five of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book, Flesh & Stone.

LUCIANNE LEVIN is Director Emerita of Research and Collections at the Institute for American Indian Studies, Washington, Connecticut. She has over 50 years of research and field experience in Northeastern archaeology, anthropology, and Native Studies. She is a founding member of Connecticut’s Native American Heritage Advisory Council , and retired editor of the journal of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut, a position she held for 30 years.

She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from New York University and her B.A. from Indiana University.  Dr. Lavin was awarded the Russell Award by the Archaeological Society of Connecticut and elected Fellow of the New York State Archaeological Association for exemplary archaeology work in their respective states. In 2018, she received a Certificate of Award for Women in American History from The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Dr. Lavin has written over 200 professional publications and technical reports on the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Northeast. Her Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples: What Archaeology, History and Oral Traditions Teach Us about their Communities and Cultures (Yale University Press, 2013) has won several awards and was selected by the American Library Association’s Choice Magazine as the “Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 in the North America Category”.

Her most recent book is Our Hidden Landscapes: Indigenous Stone Ceremonial Sites in Eastern North America (University of Arizona Press 2023).

Copies of the new paperback edition of the book will be available for purchase at a discounted price of $32 (cash or checks only).

Abstract of the Presentation

by Lucianne Lavin

A hike in the woods often reveals a variety of built stone cultural features. Many of these are the remains of abandoned farmsteads and industrial mill sites. Others, however, represent Native American ceremonial sites. The idea of Native Americans designing stone structures that represent sacred landscapes is fairly new to some Northeastern researchers, as it was historically – and erroneously -- thought that local Indigenous peoples did not build in stone and all such structures were the result of European-American farming activities. Some of it is, but some of it is not.

This PowerPoint presentation (and the recently published book on which it is based) introduces people to Southern New England’s Indigenous Ceremonial Stone Landscapes (CSLs) – sacred places whose principal identifying characteristics are stacked stone structures that cluster within specific physical landscapes. They are often unrecognized as the significant cultural landscapes they are, in dire need of protection and preservation.

State regulations (in Connecticut, at least) support preservation of sacred Native American sites (that is, those sites of ritual significance), and so it is important for members of land trusts and conservation organizations, as well as private property owners, to be able to recognize these sites within their properties and work to preserve them.

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Willoughby Book Talk | Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Mar
27
7:00 PM19:00

Willoughby Book Talk | Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Willoughby Book Talk

Death Comes For The Archbishop

by Willa Cather

Thursday, March 27, 7 pm

Call to register / 203.488.8702

“[Cather’s] descriptions of the Indian mesa towns on the rock are as beautiful, as unjudging, as lucid, as her descriptions of the Bishop’s cathedral. It is an art of ‘making,’ of clear depiction—of separate objects, whose whole effect works slowly and mysteriously in the reader, and cannot be summed up.... Cather’s composed acceptance of mystery is a major, and rare, artistic achievement.” —A. S. Byatt

Willa Cather, 1873 - 1947

“One of the most distinguished of American novelists, Willa Sibert Cather wrote a dozen or more novels that will be long remembered for their exquisite economy and charm of manner. Her talent had its nourishment and inspiration in the American scene, the Middle West in particular, and her sensitive and patient understanding of that section of the country formed the basis of her work.

Much of her writing was conceived in something of an attitude of placid reminiscence. This was notably true of such early novels as "My Antonia" and "O Pioneers!" in which she told with minute detail of homestead life on the slowly conquered prairies.

Perhaps her most famous book was "A Lost Lady," published in 1923. In it Miss Cather's talents were said to have reached their full maturity. It is the story of the Middle West in the age of railway-building, of the charming wife of Captain Forrester, a retired contractor, and her hospitable and open-handed household as seen through the eyes of an adoring boy. The climax of the book, with the disintegration of the Forrester household and the slow coarsening of his wife, is considered a masterpiece of vivid, haunting prose.

Won Pulitzer Prize in 1922

Another of her famous books is "Death Comes for the Archbishop," 1927, in which she tells in the form of a chronicle a simple story of two saints of the Southwest. Her novel, "One of Ours," won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922.

In 1944, Miss Cather received the gold medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the institute's highest award and designed not to honor a specific work, but the sustained output of a writer or artist.

Although generally thought of as a Western writer, Miss Cather was born on a farm near Winchester, Va., on Dec. 7, 1876. Her ancestors, on both sides, had been Virginia farmers for three or four generations. They came originally from England, Ireland and Alsace.

When she was 8 years old, her father took his family to Nebraska and bought a ranch near Red Cloud. The little girl did not go to school at first but spent many hours reading the English classics with her two grandmothers. Later, when her family moved into Red Cloud proper, she attended high school and then the University off Nebraska, from which she was graduated in 1895.

She spent a few years in Pittsburgh teaching and doing newspaper work, choosing that city rather than New York because she had many friends there. Each summer she visited in Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming. Meanwhile, she had started writing, and her first published book was a volume of verse. "April Twilights," reissued in 1923 as "April Twilights and Later Verse."

Editor on McClure's Magazine

Miss Cather's first volume of stories was "The Troll Garden," published in 1905 by McClure-Phillips. Two years later she became an associate editor in New York of McClure's Magazine. She then was managing editor of the publication for four years.

During this period she wrote very little but traveled a great deal in Europe and the American Southwest, Arizona and New Mexico. In 1912 she gave up editorial work to write her first novel, "Alexander's Bridge." This was followed by "O Pioneers!" "The Song of the Lark" and "My Antonia."

In "The Professor's House," 1925, she began experiments with a new technique of story- telling, constructing her tale of an intellectual's soul development according to the familiar methods of music.

The next year she wrote "My Mortal 'Enemy," which was compared by many with "A Lost Lady" but, for the most part, suffered by the comparison. A reviewer in The New York Times said of the book that while it was inferior to the former work it did impress as a "later" book.

In 1931 Miss Cather wrote "Shadows on the Rock," which was considered the most popular novel in America during that year in the annual Baker & Taylor survey, and won for her the Prix Femina Americaine.

Miss Cather, who in 1931 was ranked by J.B. Priestley, the English author, as this country's greatest novelist, received the honorary degree of Litt.D. in 1924 from the University of Michigan. Columbia University conferred the same distinction on her in 1928. Yale followed suit in 1929 and Princeton two years later.

Among her other novels were "Lucy Gayheart" and, her last, "Sapphira and the Slave Girl," published in 1940. She also wrote two books of short stories, "Obscure Destinies" and "Youth and the Bright Medusa," and a collection of essays under the title, "Not Under Forty." For many years her publishers have been Alfred A. Knopf.”

Source: The New York Times


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Friday Night "Oldie" Film: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Mar
21
7:00 PM19:00

Friday Night "Oldie" Film: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Original debut: 1977.

Roy Neary, an Indiana electric lineman, finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.

2 hours 18 minutes | Rated PG | Drama, Sci-Fi

All welcome—doors open at 6:50 pm. Light refreshments provided by the Friends of WWML.

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Flesh & Stone Series - Event Three
Mar
20
7:00 PM19:00

Flesh & Stone Series - Event Three

Stony Creek Quarry: Working with history for the future.

A Presentation by Darrell Petit & Tom Cleveland

Thursday, March 20, 7 pm, at the Library

Event Three of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book Flesh and Stone.

 

Darrell Petit and Tom Cleveland of the Stony Creek Quarry Corporation will present projects including the Statue of Liberty Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Columbia University and the new Chifley Towers South project in Sydney Australia and discuss other developments including their ANSI/NSC 373 Sustainable Production of Natural Dimension Stone Gold standard, and recent collaboration with Yale School Architecture to future envision transformations. 

Darrell Petit has worked in all capacities of the Stony Creek Quarry since 1990. He has lead the team on many projects including, recently, the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Northwest Corner Building at Columbia University, the Second Division Memorial in President's Park, DC and the monumental pedestal of the Torosuarus project for Yale. Sculptor and stone consultant he has worked with quarries and stone operations all over the word.

Tom Cleveland, Stony Creek Quarry's Director of Sustainability, has spearheaded Stony Creek Quarry's leadership in Sustainability in the stone world. Focusing on bending the built environment towards a more sustainable and lower carbon emitting world, he is committed to creating sustainable social systems to solve environmental problems by using financial markets and business practices. Tom is a socially committed financial professional with entrepreneurial and environmental leadership experience.

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Willoughby Writers Group
Mar
20
5:00 PM17:00

Willoughby Writers Group

Willoughby Writers Group

A gathering of local writers working in fiction and nonfiction.

First and third Thursdays of the month.

Membership is limited. Please call for details.

If you’re interested in joining the group or need more information, please contact Rabia.

rali@wwml.org / 203.483.8702

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Mar
18
7:00 PM19:00

SCA EVENT: GAS-POWERED LEAF BLOWERS: HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

A STONY CREEK ASSOCIATION EVENT

A MEETING ON GAS-POWERED LEAF BLOWERS: HARMING OUR HEALTH & DAMAGING OUR ENVIRONMENT

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 7 PM

GAS-POWERED LEAF BLOWERS

Harming our health and damaging the environment

NOISE

Loud noise is more than just annoying, it has a direct impact on human health. A typical Gas-Powered Leaf Blower (GLB) emits around 80-85 decibels (dBA). Noise above 70 dBA over extended periods can damage your hearing. Hearing loss is linked to cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia, cognitive impairment, diabetes, and depression. TOXIC EMISSIONS Typical GLB 2-stroke engines are inefficient and dirty. The combination of unburned fuel and the products of combustion comprise carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides. These emissions attack our cardiovascular, nervous, and respiratory systems. PARTICULATE MATTER (dust!) The air blasted by GLBs disturbs carcinogenic chemicals in pesticides and herbicides, heavy metals, animal feces, pollen, mold, and funghi. These particulates create significant health risks that linger for hours and are inhaled by landscape workers, children, adults, and pets. continued…

POLLUTION

The nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and other particulates that are emitted and disturbed by GLBs contribute to ozone and nutrient depletion, acid rain, smog, impaired visibility, and the long-term acidifying of groundwater, streams, lakes, and oceans. BIODIVERSITY DAMAGE GLBs destroy the natural leaf litter cover that is essential for the protection and support of plants and wildlife, including insects and pollinators. Many insect species that are critical for the future of our biodiverse eco system are now endangered. GLBs also desiccate and harden the topsoil increasing storm water runoff and risk of flooding.

WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE?

Initiatives such as “Leave the Leaves” and “No Mow May” help inform and mitigate the general problem with leaf blowers. Consider landscaping that reduces lawn and increase the use of native groundcovers that do not require vigorous seasonal clean-up. Battery-powered leaf blowers and other electric landscaping equipment now offer viable alternatives to gas powered versions. The newer commercial models are capable of generating 80% of the power of a standard GLB and are quieter, cleaner, create no toxic emission, and require less maintenance.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT . . .

Over 200 municipalities around the country have introduced some level of control over the use of GLBs. California and Washington DC prohibit their use entirely. Branford’s neighbors Westport, Stamford and Greenwich have restricted how, when, and where GLBs may be used.

If you’d like to support or know more: Clarice Begemann: claricehb8@gmail.com Adrian Corry: acorry@me.com

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War Dog: A Documentary Film
Mar
15
2:00 PM14:00

War Dog: A Documentary Film

War Dog | A Documentary Film on the War in Ukraine

Saturday, 15 March, 2 pm

Screening followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker, Zozimos.

[Some of the content may not be suitable for young children.]

“The film follows one Connecticut journalist's cross-country journey during the first summer of the conflict. Shot in a guerrilla style, he offers a personal portrait of the war and an exploration of its most insidious weapon: dehumanization. The story is a collage of original footage from visiting various animal shelters and battle sites, news coverage, and related media. Much like the war itself, "War Dog" is rough, gritty, and makes the most of what its budget allows.

Zozimos is a Connecticut artist, author, filmmaker, and activist. He has traveled to nearly forty countries, several of which were as a conflict journalist in active war zones. He hopes to do his part in ending the war.”

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Pop Up Puppetry  Winter's Gift / for Children & Adults
Mar
1
2:00 PM14:00

Pop Up Puppetry Winter's Gift / for Children & Adults

Winter’s Gift

presented by

Leslie Silberkleit & Kendra Ranelli

based on the book written and illustrated by Jane Monroe Donovan

Saturday afternoon, March 1, 2 pm

In the Gallery

Leslie and Kendra bring their beautifully handcrafted puppets and props to present a marvellous treat for both children and adults — A puppet show based on the beautiful book, Winter’s Gift, by Jane Monroe Donovan.

This charming story takes place on a small farm during the holiday season. As a result of an unexpected snowstorm. Mother Nature brings together two unlikely hearts who both need comfort, companionship, love, and the delightful gift of hope.

The puppet show will be accompanied by storytelling from the book and will be followed by a craft-making session for children with Leslie and Kendra. The children will then deploy their creations to stage their own puppet show to conclude the event.

All welcome!

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Friday Night "Oldie" Film: The Children's Hour
Feb
21
7:00 PM19:00

Friday Night "Oldie" Film: The Children's Hour

Longtime friends Martha (Shirley MacLaine) and Karen (Audrey Hepburn) run a boarding school for girls. When an unruly child, Mary (Karen Balkin), is punished for lying, she concocts a story that Karen and Martha are involved in a relationship. When the story spreads, parents withdraw their children from the school. The women's lawsuit for libel hits many snags when they lack witnesses to speak for them. All the stress adversely affects Karen's engagement to Joe Cardin (James Garner).

Drama, 1961.
1 hour, 48 minutes.

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Willoughby Book Talk / The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.
Feb
20
7:00 PM19:00

Willoughby Book Talk / The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.

Willoughby Book Talk

The Sense Of An Ending: A Novel by Julian Barnes (2011)

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present.
A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes’s oeuvre.

Penguin Random House

REVIEWS

“Evelyn Waugh did it in Brideshead Revisited, as did Philip Larkin in Jill [and] Kazuo Ishiguro in The Remains of the Day. Now, with his powerfully compact new novel, Julian Barnes takes his place among the subtly assertive practitioners of this quiet art.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“[A] jewel of conciseness and precision. . . . The Sense of an Ending packs into so few pages so much that the reader finishes it with a sense of satisfaction more often derived from novels several times its length.” —The Los Angeles Times

“Exquisitely crafted, sophisticated, suspenseful, and achingly painful, The Sense of an Ending is a meditation on history, memory, and individual responsibility.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“At 163 pages, The Sense of an Ending is the longest book I have ever read, so prepare yourself for rereading. You won’t regret it.” —The San Francisco Chronicle

“Brief, beautiful. . . . That fundamentally chilling question—Am I the person I think I am?—turns out to be a surprisingly suspenseful one. . . . As Barnes so elegantly and poignantly reveals, we are all unreliable narrators, redeemed not by the accuracy of our memories but by our willingness to question them.” —The Boston Globe.

“Quietly mesmerizing. . . . A slow burn, measured but suspenseful, this compact novel makes every slyly crafted sentence count.” —The Independent (London)


ABOUT JULIAN BARNES

JULIAN BARNES is the author of twenty-four previous books, for which he has received the Man Booker Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Prix Médicis and Prix Femina in France, and the Jerusalem Prize. In 2017 he was awarded the Légion d’honneur. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He lives in London.



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Flesh & Stone Series - Event Two
Feb
20
4:00 PM16:00

Flesh & Stone Series - Event Two

Stony Creek Granite and the Statue of Liberty

A Presentation by Bruce Clouette

Thursday, February 20, 4 pm at the Library

Event Two of a year-long series to mark the publication of the book Flesh and Stone.

Bruce Clouette is a National Park Service-qualified historian, architectural historian, and industrial archaeologist. He has over 35 years of experience with documentation of historic buildings and landscapes. He has written and contributed to books on New England history, designed museum exhibits, and designed and written text for historic-themed websites. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Connecticut.

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Valentine's Day Poetry Workshop with Branford's Poet Laureate Judith Liebmann
Feb
5
5:00 PM17:00

Valentine's Day Poetry Workshop with Branford's Poet Laureate Judith Liebmann

Don’t just give roses, give a poem!

A Walk-In Workshop with Judith Liebmann. Come in any time from 5 to 8 and leave with a poem for a loved one…

Refreshments will be served.

Branford’s Poet Laureate, Judith Liebmann is opening the world of poetry to Branford residents of all ages in workshops, lectures, readings and mixed media events.

Liebmann’s work has been widely published, in numerous literary journals as well as New York Times and Scientific American and has been anthologized in the short story collection The Safe Deposit Box.  A new collection of poems, Ekphrasis, was published in December, 2023 (PreSSrappel, New York City).

Liebmann earned a Ph.D. in Literature from Yale University, where she taught for a number of years and was the Director of the Writing Program at the Center for Independent Study.

In Branford, where she has lived for more than thirty years, she has been an active member of the community. In cooperation with Branford Public Works, Branford Land Trust, and the Pine Orchard Association, she has designed the landscaping for several “pocket parks,” including the Triangle Park in Pine Orchard. The Poet Laureate can be contacted at: poetlaureate@branford-ct.gov.

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Take Your Child to the Library Day
Feb
1
10:00 AM10:00

Take Your Child to the Library Day

Join us for a Take Your Child to the Library Day celebration at WWML!

Come visit us any time on February 1, pick up your special Take Your Child to the Library Day passport and have it stamped. Spend time in the library making a Valentine or two and check out some books. Get your library card if you haven't had a chance yet. Afterwards, head "uptown" to James Blackstone Memorial Library to see what they are doing and have your passport stamped there. Hand in your passport--passports stamped by BOTH libraries will be entered to win prizes!

No registration required. Free, all welcome.

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Author Event / Willoughby Book Talk with Betsy Lerner
Jan
23
7:00 PM19:00

Author Event / Willoughby Book Talk with Betsy Lerner

BETSY LERNER, literary editor and writer, will be at the library for a reading and a conversation about her new book, Shred Sisters: A Novel. Thursday, January 23, 7 pm in the Keyes Gallery. Please join us.

Book-signing to follow.

Betsy Lerner is the author of the recently released novel, Shred Sisters  (Grove Press, October 2024). She is also the author The Bridge Ladies, The Forest for the Trees and Food and Loathing. With Temple Grandin, she is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns and Abstractions. She received an MFA from Columbia University in Poetry where she was selected as one of PEN’s Emerging Writers. She also received the Tony Godwin Publishing Prize for Editors. After working as an editor for 15 years, she became an agent and is currently a partner with Dunow, Carlson and Lerner Literary Agency.

REVIEWS

“Lots of ambitious books announce themselves; this one doesn’t need to. The first novel by Betsy Lerner  forgoes all fanfare and conceit as it refines a 20-year coming-of-age into an elegant thread of taut, perfectly paced milestones.” — The New York Times

“Smart, funny and moving . . .this bright, clean, gallivanting story rewards an open mind and heart with crisp prose, fresh plot turns and dimensional dishy portraits we can instantly recognize.” — The Washington Post

“Drama, disappointment, and despair thread throughout this bittersweet saga, but empathy, humor, and the narrator’s sharp yet loving powers of observation make it a joy to read. Exquisitely written… pitch-perfect wit…crackling dialogue… deep insight.” — The Boston Globe

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Author Event / Gareth Hinds
Jan
19
2:00 PM14:00

Author Event / Gareth Hinds

The Art of the Graphic Novel

A Presentation by Gareth Hinds.

Open to All Ages

Gareth Hinds is the award-winning author and creator of graphic novels — adaptations of literary classics, mythology and history, such as Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, among others.

He is known for dynamic drawing and painting in a range of traditional and digital media. Based on careful research, his work creates a vivid sense of time and place and brings to life the emotion, action and drama of the story.

Gareth will be at the library to talk about his work with a demonstration of his art to follow.

The author will be signing copies of his books, available for purchase at the event.

GARETH HINDS is the creator of critically-acclaimed graphic novels based on literary classics, including Beowulf (which Publisher’s Weekly called a “mixed-media gem”), King Lear (which Booklist named one of the top 10 graphic novels for teens), The Merchant of Venice (which Kirkus called “the standard that all others will strive to meet” for Shakespeare adaptation), The Odyssey (which garnered four starred reviews and a spot on ten “best of 2010” lists), Romeo and Juliet (which Kirkus called “spellbinding”), and Macbeth (which the New York Times called “stellar” and “a remarkably faithful rendering”). Gareth is a recipient of the Boston Public Library’s “Literary Lights for Children” award. His books can be found in bookstores and English classrooms across the country, and his illustrations have appeared in such diverse venues as the Society of Illustrators, the New York Historical Society, and over a dozen published video games. He is currently working on The Aeneid for publication in 2026.

Author website

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Friday Night Movie: Bowfinger -- The Con Is On
Jan
17
7:00 PM19:00

Friday Night Movie: Bowfinger -- The Con Is On

Starring Steve Martin & Eddie Murphy

Directed by Frank Oz

1 hr. 33 mins.

PG 13

How does Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin), Hollywood's least successful director, get Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), Hollywood's biggest star, in his ultra low-budget film? Any way he can. With an ingenious scheme and the help of Kit's eager and nerdy brother Jiff, an ambitious and sexy wannabe (Heather Graham) and an over-the-hill diva (Christine Baranski), Bowfinger sets out to trick Kit Ramsey into the performance of a lifetime. Enjoy the fun with Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin—together for the first time in the hit comedy Bowfinger.


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Willoughby Book Talk / Enter Ghost: A Novel by Isabella Hammad
Jan
9
7:00 PM19:00

Willoughby Book Talk / Enter Ghost: A Novel by Isabella Hammad

WINNER OF THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE’S ENCORE AWARD FOR BEST SECOND NOVEL
A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of the Year
New York Times Editor’s Choice
A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, Vulture, Electric Literature, Sunday Times, Times (UK), and the Chicago Public Library

“Terrific… Enter Ghost though contemporary, is thoroughly infused with Palestine’s past — and thoroughly haunted by Sonia’s. Hammad, who is both a delicate writer and an exact one, intertwines the two, taking care to give Sonia as many personal ghosts as she does historical ones.… Indeed, the novel seems to argue, real growth and connection, both political and personal, cannot begin until everyone’s ghosts have emerged from hiding. Art is, if nothing else, a powerful tool for coaxing them out.”—New York Times Book Review

“Can a work of art act upon the world? In a humanitarian and political crisis, what kind of contribution is a play? These questions rise gradually to the surface in the British Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad’s Enter Ghost . . . Hammad refracts her philosophical inquiry through an elegant assemblage of metatextual layers, filling her novel with plays within plays, works that comment directly on the uses of art.”—Jewish Currents

“Hammad’s novel depicts a strikingly rich and complicated spectrum of Palestinian identity and experience . . . I would say that there is one other kind of recognition taking place in Hammad’s novel, which is neither the recognition of a buried truth nor the recognition of one’s limited knowledge. It’s recognition as addition, as seeing something more: when a familiar text takes on a new life, becomes electric with new meanings. This is what happens, more than once, with the text of Hamlet—the most familiar work in the Western canon, perhaps, into which Hammad so brilliantly breathes new life by staging it as a Palestinian play.”New York Review of Books 

Isabella Hammad is the author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost. The Parisian won a Palestine Book Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Betty Trask Award. She was a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree and named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Enter Ghost won the Aspen Words Literary Prize and is shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The winner of the Plimpton Prize for Fiction and an O. Henry Prize, she has been awarded literary fellowships from the Cullman Center, the Lannan Foundation, and the Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

Source: Grove Atlantic

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