Gwendolyn Hallsmith

For the kick-off event of this year’s One Book, One Watertown series, Gwendolyn Hallsmith will be speaking about community sustainability and local environmental issues. Ms. Hallsmith is the Director of Global Community Initiatives, and is the other of The Key to Sustainable Cities, which discusses new approachies to city planning.

Her writing and speaking share many common themes with this year’s selected book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman.

When: Wednesday, October 29 at 7 PM

Jeffrey Cramer has spent more than twenty year immersed in the writings of Thoreau. He will discuss what he has come to appreciate and understand about this complex American writer and icon. The man at Walden Pond was only one small aspect of Thoreau’s life. Learn why many contemporary nature writers have left Walden behind to find a different man in Thoreau’s Journal. Discover how Thoreau wrote, how he used his Journal, and hear excerpts from his Journal that will introduce you to a very different Henry David Thoreau.

Date: Saturday, June 7

Time: 2:30 PM

Location: Watertown Savings Bank Room, in the Watertown Free Public Library

Longtime Watertown resident and internationally acclaimed poet, Kathleen Spivack, will be coming to the library to read from her work, including her newest collection of poetry, Moments of Past Happiness.

If you aren’t familiar with her work, the library has several of her books on hand for you to take a peak at before the event, including The Beds We Lie In, Flying Inland, The Honeymoon: Stories, The Jane Poems, and Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn. All of these titles are on display on the second floor of the library.

Her newest collection of poetry, Moments of Past Happiness, was created in collaboration with editor and bookstore ownder, Ifeanyi Menkiti, and illustrator Karyl Klopp, both of whom also have deep roots in the Boston poetry community. Copies of the book will be available at the presentation for purchase, and at the reception following.

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We have a lot of events going on in May, and one of the first one’s coming up is Linda Merlino’s author talk.  Merlino’s first book, Swan Boat Souvenir, was set in Boston and enjoyed a lot of local success.   Her newest book Belly of the Whale (April 2008), is also already highly recommended by reviewers.

The novel is about a young woman with breast cancer, Hudson Catalina, and the day she gives up hope – only to be taken hostage by a murderer more deadly than her disease.  Joann DiFabio of Identity Magazine says that Belly of the Whale “…is smartly crafted with the perfect combination of sympathy, suspense, and sentiment.”

So come to the library on May 5 at 7 PM to meet Linda Merlino and hear her read from Belly of the Whale.

On Wednesday, April 23rd at 7 PM, Carole Berney will be coming to the Watertown Free Public Library to reprise her excellent show, The Green World of Watertown.

This multimedia presentation celebrates, appreciates, and urges us to care for the natural spaces and wildlife in our town. Carole’s color photographic images of the Charles River, Mount Auburn Cemetery, and other public parks and private spaces (including gardens, trees, wildflowers, and wildlife that make these their home) will feature some humorous and surprising stories of animal encounters in our densely settled, semi-urban setting. Also celebrated will be local “green” efforts on the part of citizens and organizations to enhance the environmental health of our natural resources.

If you’ve attended previous performances, feel free to attend again. Or, tell your friends!

The Watertown Library is kicking into full gear next week with a celebration of National Poetry Month. If you like poetry, you can’t miss out on the readings we’re hosting featuring prominent local poets Rosamond Rosenmeier and Gregory Djanikian.

On April 22 at 7 PM, Rosamond Rosenmeier will read from her book “Where Light Answers Light: Poems from Prince Edward Island.” In her book, Rosamond celebrates more than 40 summers spent on Prince Edward Island’s north shore, recreating the season’s progress from “June’s pale green” through the “heaviest heat” of mid-summer to “fall’s silver air striking across the ripe corn.”

Then on Thursday, April 24 at 7 PM, award-winning poet and educator Gregory Djanikian will read from his latest book of poetry, So I Will Till the Ground. The Djanikian’s fifth collection of poems, published by Carnegie Mellon Press, deals with aspects of Armenian history and family life: the Genocide of 1915, the ensuing diaspora, and the emigration of the author and his family from Egypt to the United States. The poems, Peter Balakian has written, “…chart a poetic topography that takes us… from the elegiac to the philosophical and to the heartfelt comedy of human love.”

Date: Wednesday, April 9
Time: 7 PM
Location: Watertown Savings Bank Room

Have you always wanted to be an author? Have you got some great material? Has everyone told you, “Hey, you should write a book?” Well, according to Ric Wasley, writing the book may actually be the easiest part of the process – it’s everything else that’s hard. It takes skill, tenacity and above all … marketing and communications. Join him in an interactive discussion of how to get major publishers to sit up and take notice of you.

Wasley, whose second novel, Shadow of Innocence, was released internationally this year, started out five years ago like so many would-be authors, with an idea for a story and a need to tell it. However, he found out along the way that it’s not enough to have a good idea; you’ve also got to find a way to get someone to listen to it. That takes skill, tenacity and above all … marketing and communications.

Wasley feels there are ways for authors to stack the deck a little more in their favor. Join him in an interactive discussion of not just the intricacies of structuring a plot and characters, but how to get major publishers to sit up and take notice of you. Just like Mick in his novel, Shadow of Innocence, Ric Wasley thrived on music in the sixties and performed as a folksinger and in rock several bands all over New England. He met the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

Wasley has been writing for over 30 years. He has been published in several literary magazines in L.A. and San Francisco while living in California. Wasley has fond memories of living in Watertown but currently lives in a MetreoWest community with his wife and three children, works for a major media company and retains his love of music and writing.

*Handicapped Accessible

Come hear Watertown author Allan Hunter talk about his book, Stories We Need to Know on Wednesday, March 26 at 7PM.

In Stories We Need to Know Allan Hunter uses stories from 3,000 years of the western canon to explore the six stages that characters progress through and how we might see ourselves and our own journey in a new way.

Come hear Allan talk and see his slide presentation!  All welcome!

Join photographer Bill Brett, author of the book Boston: All One Family, on February 21 at 7PM in the Watertown Savings Bank Room for a lecture and book signing.