SISTERS TO SISTERS BOOK CLUB
discusses Love in a Carry-On Bag by Sadeqa Johnson
Monday, March 3, 2014 – 6:00 p.m. - Mezzanine
Can a long distance love affair really survive?
Erica Shaw lives in New York City, but on Friday nights escapes to D.C., where her musician boyfriend works. Enter an alcoholic mother, an overbearing father, office politics and a great job contract, begging the questions:“ How much baggage is really too heavy to carry?”
Sadeqa Johnson, was a public relations manager for J. K. Rowling, Amy Tan, Bebe Moore Campbell, and Bishop TD Jakes. Her debut novel, Love in a Carry-on Bag is the recipient of the 2013 Phillis Wheatley Award for Best Fiction and the 2012 USA Best Book award for African-American fiction. It was selected as a Black Expressions Book club alternate pick, OOSA Book Club top pick for 2012 and a Conversations with Cyrus Webbs Best 100 Book for 2012. Her story, “Diary of an Overachieving Mother” is featured in ReShonda Tate Billingsley’s highly acclaimed novel, The Motherhood Diaries. An inner peace advocate, Sadeqa Johnson is a meditation teacher, public speaker and motivational blogger.Admission and evening parking are free.
Meet Janina B. Nawarskas – Author of A Child Lost: My Life’s Journey from War-Torn Europe to Proud American - Talk & Signing
Wednesday, Tuesday, March 4, 6:30 p.m. - Auditorium
Born in 1936, Janina Nawarskas lived a comfortable life with her family in Lithuania until World War II abruptly disrupted it. As the Russian army was approaching from the East, the family headed West, where her father was abducted by the German army at the border. She dodged American bombs, lived in German war camps, suffered the loss of her mother and searched for her family before being reunited with her father and coming to the United States.
POETS AND PAINTERS: Connecticut Poet Laureate Richard Allen and Waterbury high school students read their poetry inspired by the paintings of Alex Katz.
Special event co-sponsored with the Silas Bronson Library’s Calling All Poets
( . . . and Poetry Lovers) Refreshments following program
Wednesday, March 5 - 6:30 p.m. Mattatuck Museum - 144 W Main St, Waterbury, CT
Admission and evening parking are free.
Connecticut State Poet Laureate Dick Allen has written seven poetry
collections. His work has been published in The New Yorker, The
Atlantic Monthly, and Poetry, scores of anthologies and six annual
volumes of The Best American Poetry. He has won numerous
awards including a Pushcart Prize, the Robert Frost prize, the
Connecticut Book Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and
Ingram Merrill Poetry Foundation. He was a professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Bridgeport.
The Poetry and Prose of Seamus Heaney by Library Director J. Emmett McSweeney
Thursday March 6 – 6:00 p.m. Mezzanine
Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer, Seamus Justin Heaney, (1939 – 2013) was the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a professor and Poet in Residence at Harvard, Professor of Poetry at Oxford and and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres.
Robert Lowell called him "the most important Irish poet since Yeats" and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have called him "the greatest poet of our age". The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".
J. Emmett McSweeney has directed the Silas Bronson Library since 2006, after having served as the Head of the Circulation Division. He is a 4th degree Knight of Columbus, past president of the Monsignor Slocum Division #1 of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a volunteer for the Spirit of Waterbury, and an active member of various other civic groups. A graduate of Le Moyne College and the holder of a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo, he is an avid buff of both Irish and American history as well as a lover of both Irish and American poetry and prose.
Moon Shadow Of War by Len Yannielli
Book Talk & Signing Tuesday, March 11 – 6:30p.m.
There were many casualties of the U.S. War in Vietnam. Like a moon shadow on a deep snow piercing a clear, winter night, the U.S. War in Vietnam cast a shroud over my the life and teaching career of Waterbury native Len Yannielli. There were more educators fired during the late 1960’s and early 1970s than during the depths of the cold war and he was one of them. The U.S. War in Vietnam loomed over his entire life at the time. A high school classmate was killed in it. As a young teacher, Yannielli’s opposition to the war ranged from a peace poster in his eighth grade science classroom to a huge, black “Z” taped to the trunk of his car. He fought the military draft while finding his own purpose in life. In this engaging memoir, the reader learns how it all happened through the eyes of one young teacher who learned to thrive while in the Moon Shadow of War.
Raised in the North End of Waterbury, Yannielli holds two master’s degrees, won a National Educator of the Year Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers, Biology Science Curriculum Studies and the American Institute of Biological Studies in 2009 and is Professor Emeritus of Naugatuck Valley Community College.
Irish Heritage Concert The Kerry Boys
Featuring Pierce Campbell & Paul Neri
Saturday, March 22 - 3:00 p.m.
Connecticut’s favorite Irish balladeers will have you clapping and singing along, engaging you with their wide collection of both traditional and contemporary original Irish/Celtic songs. Pierce Campbell, Connecti-cut’s official State Troubadour of 2007/08, will be joined by Paul Neri as they perform favorite songs from their four CD’s which will be available for sale and signing.