DONATE JEWELRY FOR BOOKS AND BLING, The Friends of the Scoville Library's 3rd Annual Holiday Sale!
Donate now through Monday, November 28, 11:30 AM

Drop off your gently used or rarely worn jewelry at SML's circulation desk anytime during library hours. Then shop for jewelry and present-worthy books and puzzles at the Books and Bling holiday sale on Saturday, December 2nd, 10 AM to 4 PM.

All proceeds benefit children's and adult programs at the Library.

Books and Bling takes place during Merry and Bright, Salisbury Hometown Holidays. Find out more about Merry and Bright events at this link.

SML WRITING CIRCLE

Circle sessions continue on Tuesdays November 14, 28, & December 5, 3:00-5:00 PM and
Thursdays, November 16, 30, & December 7, 5:00-7:00 PM

Our Writing Circle sessions are currently full, but waiting lists are open.

Please use this link for Tuesdays' waiting lists. Please use this link for Thursdays' waiting lists.

WRITE IN THE READING ROOM
Wednesdays
November 15 through December 13
11:00 AM - Noon

Join us for coffee, cider donuts, and the quiet camaraderie of writing in SML's Reading Room. Bring your own writing project or pick up a writing prompt from the basket and get started on something new.

Karen Vrotsos, SML's new Adult Programs Coordinator, will be there to greet you.

No registration required.

THE WHITE HART SPEAKER SERIES: MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM in Conversation with WAMC's JOE DONAHUE
Thursday, November 30
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM

Presented by Oblong Books in partnership with The White Hart Inn and The Scoville Memorial Library.

On the 25th Anniversary of The Hours, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham returns with his first novel in a decade, Day.

“Along with George Eliot, Michael Cunningham belongs in that rare group of novelists who hold the world close, with apparently infinite respect, compassion, and tenderness, all while describing the world and its inhabitants unsparingly.”

—Tony Kushner

Ticket purchase is required for this White Hart Speakers Series event. Please use this link to register and learn more.

LEARN TO PITCH YOUR BUSINESS! SMALL BUSINESS SEMINAR: PITCH DECK DOJO
Tuesday, December 5
5:30-8:30 PM

Presented by the Entrepreneurial Center at CT State Northwestern

Participants will learn how to tell a compelling story about their business by building slide decks and presenting their ideas through in-person pitching when trying to raise capital. Attendees will use the business model canvas framework to identify key data points they need to tell their business story and demonstrate their understanding of their market size, competition, financials, and growth strategies.

This seminar will be taught by Rick Plaut, investor, educator, and mentor to startups and founders across New England. Most recently the co-founder and venture advisor for Launch413, Rick has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Smith College and taught at the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship and the Isenberg School of Management.

The event is sponsored by NBT Bank and supported by SCORE Northwest CT, The Northwest CT Chamber of Commerce, The Scoville Memorial Library, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and the Northwest CT Community Foundation.

Registration is required. For more information, or to register, contact Entrepreneurial Center director John Fiorello at 860-738-6444 or register online at www.nwcc.edu/ec.

CURRENT FICTION BOOK GROUP
Saturday, December 9, 2023
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty A National Book Award Winner

An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents — neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives. Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything.

Registration is not required.

A limited number of books are available to borrow at the Scoville Library. Use this link to reserve a copy.

POETRY WORKSHOP WITH SALLY VAN DOREN
Friday, December 15
2:00 PM-4:00 PM

This intensive, immersive workshop is designed to give writers the time we need to generate new work and to hone in on whatever it is that is begging us to bring it to the page. Guided by prompts and in-class writing assignments, we will dive deep and emerge transformed.

Sally Van Doren is the author of four books of poetry and a winner of the Walt Whitman prize.

Please use this link to register.

BOOK TALK AND DISCUSSION WITH AUTHOR PETER KAUFMAN
Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia's War Against Ukraine, by journalist Owen Matthews
Saturday, January 6, 4:00-5:00 PM

Peter Kaufman will discuss Overreach, an astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol. Drawing on over 25 years of experience as a correspondent in Moscow, and his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, author Owen Matthews provides a clear, authoritative, and poignant account of history, personalities, and politics. Overreach is a 2023 Pushkin House Book Prize winner and a 2023 New York Times Best Book of Summer.

Peter B. Kaufman, a writer, teacher, and documentary producer, works at MIT Open Learning and the Knowledge Futures Group. He is the author of The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge (Seven Stories Press, 2021) and the forthcoming The Moving Image: A User’s Guide (The MIT Press, 2024).

Participants are encouraged to read Overrreach prior to this book talk and discussion.

Please use this link to register. The first 15 registrants will receive a copy of the book.

Copies may also be reserved or requested from interlibrary loan at this link.

LITERARY SEMINAR WITH MARK SCARBROUGH WILLA CATHER: THE DYSTOPIA OF ORIGINALITY
Tuesdays, January 23–March 12
10:30 AM-12:30 PM

Willa Cather’s novels are a riddle: American originals, those seemingly pure but deeply ironic voices from the heartland, once best-sellers, then mid-listers in her own lifetime, once critically favored in colleges, now mostly overlooked. In truth, her works have never settled into the canon of U. S. literature.

In this literary seminar, we’ll look at the first of her prairie novels, then spend most of our time among her mid-career works. These latter show the mid-century fractures of gender, politics, and art that informed both her successful career and her romantic life. The cards were stacked against her, then she stacked them against herself.

This seminar will be offered in a hybrid format: Zoom and in person, concurrently. Zoom access to discussions will be limited, so we urge you to attend in person if you’re able. Cookies will be served!

For the reading schedule and registration, please use this link.

Starting in January, a limited number of books will be available for borrowing at SML.

Events Calendar