Author Event - Valerie Martin
May
2
7:00 PM19:00

Author Event - Valerie Martin

Award winning authors

VALERIE MARTIN & AMY BLOOM

in conversation.

Ms Martin will read from her new book, Mrs. Gulliver.

Q&A, discussion, book-signing to follow.

Valerie Martin is the author of twelve novels, including Trespass, Mary Reilly, Italian Fever, and Property, four collections of short fiction, and a biography of St. Francis of Assisi . She has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Her novel Mary Reilly was awarded the Kafkta prize, shortlisted for the Prix Femina (France), and made into a motion picture directed by Stephen Frears and starring Julia Roberts and John Malkovitch. Property won Britain's Orange Prize (now called the Women's Prize) in 2003.

She has taught in writing programs at Mt. Holyoke College, University of Massachusetts, and Sarah Lawrence College, among others. She resides in Madison, Ct.

“… a delight for the unsuspecting reader. Coming across her for the first time, you experience the frisson of discovery, especially when you learn that she’s written a whole shelf of books, a dozen in all. Martin is an uncompromising, serious writer, concerned with both the eternal verities and what matters right now. She wants to know how the big questions play out in individual lives.” — The New York Times

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Willoughby Book Talk -- Underland by Robert MacFarlane
May
30
7:00 PM19:00

Willoughby Book Talk -- Underland by Robert MacFarlane

WILLOUGHBY BOOK TALK

UNDERLAND: A DEEP TIME JOURNEY by Robert MacFarlane

An in-person event in the Keyes Gallery

Hosted by Rabia

National Bestseller • New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year" • NPR "Favorite Books of 2019" • Guardian "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award

"Mesmerizing…Underland is a portal of light in dark times." —Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times Book Review

In Underland, Robert Macfarlane delivers an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time—from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come—Underland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind.

Global in its geography and written with great lyricism, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.

“Remarkable…Underland may be [Macfarlane’s] masterpiece.” — New York Review of Books

“Incantatory…A worthy companion to the historian Simon Schama’s monumental Landscape and Memory.” — Wall Street Journal

“One of the most ambitious works of narrative non-fiction of our age.” — Guardian

Robert Macfarlane is the bestselling author of an award-winning trilogy of books about landscape and the human heart: Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, and The Old Ways. His work has been translated into a dozen languages and his books widely adapted for TV, film, and radio by the BBC, among others. Macfarlane has contributed to Harper’s Magazine, Granta, the Times Literary Supplement (London), and the London Review of Books. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2012, and is currently a Fellow in English of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

COPIES OF THE BOOK, AVAILABLE AT THE LIBRARY.

CALL TO REGISTER: 203.488.8702

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Willoughby Book Talk: An Author Event with Amy Bloom -- In person.
Apr
11
7:00 PM19:00

Willoughby Book Talk: An Author Event with Amy Bloom -- In person.

This is an in person event. Places are limited. Call to register. 203.488.8702

Copies of the book will be available to check out at the library.

Join author AMY BLOOM at our Willoughby Book Talk evening for a discussion of her acclaimed book Lucky Us.

Amy Bloom is the author of the international best-selling memoir In Love, the story of her husband Brian’s early-onset Alzheimer’s and his and their decisions about his life and death. She’s written three novels: White Houses, Lucky Us, Away, –all NY Times best-sellers– and three collections of short stories: Where the God Of Love Hangs Out, Come to Me (finalist, National Book Award), and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You (finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award). Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops and Hermaphrodites with Attitudes, is a staple of university sociology and biology courses. She has written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Elle and The Atlantic Monthly and her work has been translated into seventeen languages.

ABOUT LUCKY US

Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life, conventional and otherwise. From Brooklyn’s beauty parlors to London’s West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.

“Exquisite . . . a short, vibrant book about all kinds of people creating all kinds of serial, improvisatory lives.”—The New York Times
 
“Bighearted, rambunctious . . . a bustling tale of American reinvention . . . If America has a Victor Hugo, it is Amy Bloom, whose picaresque novels roam the world, plumb the human heart and send characters into wild roulettes of kismet and calamity.”—The Washington Post

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Mar
30
3:00 PM15:00

Art Opening Reception: Anne Coffey and Jim Fiora

Anne Coffey, collage and Jim Fiora, photographs

Color Constructs

Jim Fiora has been creating photographs for fine art and commercial clients for

over 30 years. Primarily self taught, with no formal education in the arts, he

dropped out of college for engineering to pursue his passion for photography.

Jim was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with several talented

photographers and artists whom he retains as mentors to this day. He has

augmented this experience with workshops, class work and private study, all of

which has helped him solidify his vision and hone his technique.

Jim’s work has been widely exhibited throughout CT and is included in many

private collections.

Jim’s work explores the constructs and quirks of the built environment. His images are

punctuated with strong color and bold graphic forms. Often using colorful juxtapositions,

asymmetry and whimsy, he creates compositions that transcend their simple form and achieve a

poetic balance. All of Jim’s work demonstrates a strong respect for craft and the process of

printmaking.

Jim Fiora, Photographer

11 Ridge Road

Branford, CT. 06405

203.488.8687

jim@jimfiora.com

02/29/2024

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Mar
30
to Apr 22

Art Exhibit: Anne Coffey and Jim Fiora

Anne Coffey, collage and Jim Fiora, photographs

Color Constructs

As a retired high school math teacher, I love precision, neatness, shapes, puzzles and patterns. There is a distinct connection between art and mathematics so I am not surprised that I turned to creating art now that I have more time.

 

I find the relationships between marks and shapes and colors intriguing. Those relationships have the power to evoke memories and feelings, a sense of a specific time or place. For me art making is a kind of meditation…a way of slowing down, of escaping the obligations and business of everyday life.

 

I hope you enjoy my art and that it provides for you that same sense of escape…whether it’s away from something or toward something. Enjoy.

 

Anne Coffey

Jim Fiora has been creating photographs for fine art and commercial clients for

over 30 years. Primarily self taught, with no formal education in the arts, he

dropped out of college for engineering to pursue his passion for photography.

Jim was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with several talented

photographers and artists whom he retains as mentors to this day. He has

augmented this experience with workshops, class work and private study, all of

which has helped him solidify his vision and hone his technique.

Jim’s work has been widely exhibited throughout CT and is included in many

private collections.

Jim’s work explores the constructs and quirks of the built environment. His images are

punctuated with strong color and bold graphic forms. Often using colorful juxtapositions,

asymmetry and whimsy, he creates compositions that transcend their simple form and achieve a

poetic balance. All of Jim’s work demonstrates a strong respect for craft and the process of

printmaking.

Jim Fiora, Photographer

11 Ridge Road

Branford, CT. 06405

203.488.8687

jim@jimfiora.com

02/29/2024

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Willoughby Book Talk: The Half Known Life: Finding Paradise in a Divided World, by Pico Iyer
Mar
21
7:00 PM19:00

Willoughby Book Talk: The Half Known Life: Finding Paradise in a Divided World, by Pico Iyer

Copies of the book are available at the library for checkout.

Call to register — 203.488.8702

PICO IYER, born in Oxford, England in 1957, educated at Oxford and Harvard, is the author of 15 books, translated into 23 languages, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. They include Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, the Financial Times and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide.

His four talks for TED have received more than 10 million views so far.

Since 1992 Iyer has spent much of his time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, California, and most of the rest in suburban Japan.

[From the author’s website: Pico Iyer Journeys]

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Lost and Found: How I met My Sister
Mar
13
3:00 PM15:00

Lost and Found: How I met My Sister

JANET DOYLE hosts her own talk show, Wyse Talk, on cable and YouTube. She has appeared on Good Morning CT for three years with Classroom Connections, taught elementary and high school, and loves to travel.

As a teacher, Jan felt the one page in the history books devoted to the Underground Railroad completely inadequate. Personal interest and study led to the creation of the program Quilts and the Underground Railroad: Fact or Fiction.

Jan presents at conferences, schools, quilt guilds, libraries, art centers, and churches. Her quilts and photographs have been exhibited in galleries and art centers.

Contact Jan: Wyseworks365@gmail.com

Evelyn Wyse, Janet’s sister, blind and with cognitive disabilities since birth, became a ward of the state when she was six years old.

She was fifty-two when Janet met her. Janet was forty-eight.

In her presentation, Janet will tell the story of a 25-year journey of two sisters navigating the state system and group homes for persons with mental disabilities. This quest proved to be a lesson in medical guardianship, effective advocacy, and acceptance of a sister with multiple disabilities.

A powerful, thought-provoking, heart-warming story offering lessons in caring for and including family members with disabilities in our daily lives.

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Life Happens... A 4- Session Program
Feb
14
3:00 PM15:00

Life Happens... A 4- Session Program

Announcing the final session of the 4-part program based on Karen Kernan’s recent presentation on “how to put your life in order and your wishes in writing.”

Session 4 - Feb 14 - The Fun & Frustration

of Getting your Life inOrder

This final “support session” is to help you move forward, each in your own way, in putting your life in order and your wishes in writing. We invite all participants of any of the previous four sessions to come and share what you’ve done so far, or haven’t—and why….

Have you hit a wall? It’s so easy to get derailed by little decisions that are hard to make. Or maybe you’re on a roll, and loving it. This will be a fun discussion where new ideas, resources you’ve discovered, and personal stories that can inspire all of us to take another step.   

 

Retired Probate Judge Frank Forgione will join Karen Kernan again to address questions or concerns about what estate documents, and any issues that may be preventing you from completing your goals.  

 Call to register: 203-488-8702


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Crow Stories: a film and discussion with filmmaker Sean Kernan
Feb
8
7:00 PM19:00

Crow Stories: a film and discussion with filmmaker Sean Kernan

About Crow Stories

Sean Kernan writes…

I was invited by a friend to the Apsaalooka (Crow) Indian reservation in Montana. The day before I left for home after my first visit my friend, Etting Little Owl, (seen here with his wife Harriet) gave me the Crow name Hillegyo Maakuuxshiibiish. It means One who comes from yonder to help. It’s a name to live up to.

During my visits—eight of them— I have driven across the land, hunted a buffalo, filmed the Sun Dance and the Handgame, gotten advice on how to live from Joe Medicine Crow, and prayed in a sweat lodge. All the time the camera was running.

When I first arrived on the reservation someone asked me what I wanted to say with this film.

“I don’t want to say anything,” I answered, “I want to listen.”

This film is what I heard.

More on Sean Kernan

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, a book on creativity called Looking Into the Light, and a book 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. His photographs have been published in a range of publications including the New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, New York, Harpers,as well as magazines in Iran, Greece, Italy, China and Switzerland.

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.

He has taught and lectured at the New School/Parsons, Art Center (Pasadena), Yale Medical School, International Center for Photography, University of Texas, Wesleyan University, and has won numerous awards, most recently from the Center in Santa Fe for teaching, as well as a an honorary doctorate from Art Center in Pasadena.

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