events @ the Library

Twenty authors are scheduled to attend, headed up by Guest of Honor Mary Jane Clark. Clark is a veteran New York City CBS News producer and writer, who pens the best-selling media-thriller series featuring Eliza Blake, a TV morning show host.

1:00 pm: True Crime
Paul LaRosa, producer of the TV newsmagazine 48 Hours, will discuss his latest book, Seven Days of Rage: the Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer and the art of reporting and writing true crime. Free. No registration needed for this event at the Westport Library.

2:00 pm: What’s the Word?
Kelle Ruden of Random House will moderate a panel of professional book reviewers as they share their insiders’ view of the mystery marketplace.Free. No registration needed for this event at the Westport Library.

For information on the festival, visit murder203.com.
Questions? Phone Jane Murphy at 203-291-4836.

Twenty authors are scheduled to attend, headed up by Guest of Honor Mary Jane Clark. Clark is a veteran New York City CBS News producer and writer, who pens the best-selling media-thriller series featuring Eliza Blake, a TV morning show host.

The event is $65 if you register before March 1st. After March 1st, registration is $75. Meet-the-Authors continental breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning is included in the registration fee as well as lunch on Saturday and admission to Cocktails and Crime.

For information and registration, visit murder203.com.

Questions? Phone Jane Murphy at 203-291-4836.

Dr. Mulvenon's book, Soldiers of Fortune, details the rise and fall of the Chinese military's multi-billion dollar international business empire. His recent publications include “The Future of American Power in a Multipolar World,” in Abraham Denmark and James Mulvenon, eds., Contested Commons: The Future of American Power in a Multipolar World and “PLA Computer Network Operations: Scenarios, Doctrine, Organiations, and Capability,” in Roy Kamphausen, David Lai, and Andrew Scobell, eds., Beyond the Strait: PLA Missions Other Than Taiwan.

Among his professional affiliations, Dr. Mulvenon is a founding member and current President of the Cyber Conflict Studies Association, was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations between 1999 and 2004, and is presently a member of the National Committee for U.S.-China Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He is regular media commentator on both China and cyber warfare, and his comments have appeared recently in numerous magazines, as well as television and radio. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and attended Fudan University in Shanghai from 1991-1992.

Co-sponsored with the Green Village Initiative.

Co-sponsored with the Green Village Initiative.

A discussion will follow, facilitated by Sherri Brooks Vinton, author of The Real Food Revival and the soon-to-be-released Put 'Em Up. Sherri has taught numerous eaters how to support local agriculture with their food choices and will give you the tips and tricks needed to enjoy a more delicious, sustainable dinner.

Co-sponsored with the Green Village Initiative.

A discussion will follow, facilitated by David Brown, Public Health Toxicologist, Director of Environment and Human Health, Inc., and professor of environmental ethics at Fairfield University, on Rachel Carson’s life and her impact on our lives.

Co-sponsored with the Green Village Initiative.

Before joining the Paley Center in 1992, David Bushman was senior television editor of Daily Variety in Los Angeles and weekly Variety in New York. He also served as director of programming at TV Land from 1997 to 1998. He has taught and lectured on TV at numerous institutions, but on only one continent. He may be the only person in the world pining for an E-Z Streets reunion.

For books to settle down for a great read. Westporter Sybil Steinberg, contributing editor and former book review section editor for Publishers Weekly, will share her list of the best new books. Always fascinating to listen to! Bring your notebooks for this critic’s expert overview of newly published titles that are not to be missed.

Books by Nechama Tec in the Library catalog.
Co-sponsored with the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Books by Joseph Califano in the Library catalog.
Directions to Bedford Middle School.
Co-sponsored with Positive Youth Development.

Click here for details.

Books by Robert Lipsyte.

Community Conversations are sponsored by The Smilow Family.

It's a familiar name. So, what is eBay? Learn how to buy and sell items, pay with PayPal, and market items for sale.

Items in the Library catalog on Ebay.

This is the fifth in in the Dog Days of Summer. Check out the last one Monday, August 3!

This is the fourth in in the Dog Days of Summer. Check out the other programs on Thursday, July 30, and Monday, August 3!

Mystery authors, Jane K. Cleland and Margaret J. Ehrhart, will discuss the components of a “traditional” mystery, Jane Austen’s mastery of clues, red herrings, and suspense techniques, and how and why the mystery in Emma succeeds.

Items in the Library catalog on Jane Austen.

This is the third in in the Dog Days of Summer. Check out the other programs on Tuesday, July 28, Thursday, July 30, and Monday, August 3!

Sascha Segan is the lead analyst for mobile devices for the PCMag Digital Network. He’s reviewed hundreds of mobile phones over the past five years. He also speaks on radio, television and the Internet about mobile technology issues and won awards in 2007 and 2008 for his columns on mobile tech. He lives in Queens, NY.

Items in the Library catalog on BlackBerries.

For furthur information on the festival, visit murder203.com.
For further information, phone Jane Murphy at 203-291-4836.

Thirty-five authors are scheduled to attend, headed up by Guest of Honor Linda Fairstein. Fairstein is a veteran sex-crime investigator who pens the very popular Alexandra Cooper mystery series.

The event is $65 if you register before March 2nd. After March 2nd, registration is $75. Meet-the-Authors continental breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning is included in the registration fee as well as lunch on Saturday and admission to Cocktails and Crime. To register for this event, visit murder203.com.

For further information, phone Jane Murphy at 203-291-4836.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Event sponsored by Susan Tane.
Above, portion of Poe manuscript from the collection of Susan Tane.

Event sponsored by Susan Tane.
Above, portion of Poe manuscript from the collection of Susan Tane.

More information an exhibit of her collection shown at Cornell University.
Event sponsored by Susan Tane.
Above, pen and ink silhouette by an unknown artist, from the collection of Susan Tane.

More about Craigslist.
Craigslist website.

Event sponsored by Susan Tane.

More about Dr. Ramos.
Co-sponsored with the United Way of Coastal Fairfield County and the Westport League of Women Voters.

Her newest children’s book, Naughty Cherie, was published in January 2008. Come Meet Muffin! a children's book, was published in 1998. Black Water was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In January 2001 We Were The Mulvaneys was selected as an Oprah Book of the Month.


Click here for Joyce Carol Oates website

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Registration required for this event.
Click here to register
No tickets issued, just check-in at the door.


Click here for directions to Bedford Middle School.

Photo credit:Marion Ettlinger.

DonorsChoose.org's CFO, Westporter Andy Kaplan and Northeast Director Thalia Theodore will give an overview of the organization and discuss this high-tech/high-touch charity in action through the lens of the site's web marketing, corporate cause-marketing, and backend technologies. Today’s public schools often lack resources for students to thrive. DonorsChoose.org makes it easy for any individual to make a big difference in education, one classroom at a time. At this online marketplace, “citizen philanthropists” can fund a project that moves them, whether it’s books or beakers, and hear back from the classroom with photos and personalized notes.

Donors Choose website.
Sponsored by The Thomson Reuters Corporation.

Blogger.
LiveJournal.

Flickr.
Kodak Gallery.
Shutterfly.
Snapfish.

Photoshop Elements.

A special Saturday event! In association with the Downtown Merchants Association's Blues, Views and BBQ Festival, jazz historian Todd Bryant Weeks will present an enlightening lecture on the great unsung Kansas City trumpeter and blues singer Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page. Weeks, author of Luck's In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot Lips Page, will show rare photos, play musical excerpts, and discuss Kansas City Jazz and Page’s vital role in the development of this swinging and highly accessible musical form. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

About his book.
Blues, Views & BBQ Festival.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger's web page.

Sponsored by The Thomson Reuters Corporation.

Confused about blogs, wikis, social-networking sites, and folksonomies? Library technology staff member Rob Rogers will lead a Trends in Technology session to help you get acquainted with Web 2.0, the catchall term for the rapidly increasing use of the web to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. Anything from Blogs, to podcasts, to what links are in my browser—look at this new way of interacting with the web and find ways in which you can take part.

More information on Web 2.0.
YouTube video explanation.

More information on the Library's Books Unbound project.

Altered Book shown: Billy Goat the Counselor by Sachiyo Yoshida, from Portland Public Library collection, on display Riverwalk Level, Westport Library May 16-July 24.

More about their book.

Beverly Sanders' website.

Part of the Library's 100th Birthday Celebration.

Beverly Sanders' website.

Part of the Library's 100th Birthday Celebration.

Just days before what would have been, based on Armstrong’s account of being born on July 4th, Louis Armstrong’s 108th birthday, Staples high school graduate Todd Bryant Weeks, will talk about the jazz great. Weeks worked as a lecturer, archivist, and tour guide at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens. He is the author of the recently published biography Luck's In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot Lips Page.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
More about his book.
The Louis Armstrong House.

Sonny Fox is the embodiment of life after 50...60...70...and 80..! With clips from his early years on television, he will entertain, enlighten, and show the enthusiasm that has allowed him to re-invent his life from his early on-air television career to his more recent activities with international social and health reform through entertainment .

Sponsored by The Smilow Family.

Flickr.
Kodak Gallery.
Shutterfly.
Snapfish.

The answer is an unequivocal “yes,” says best-selling author and prize-winning Westport journalist Mary-Lou Weisman, assuming you are willing to learn to choose your words with care. For the past six years, Mary-Lou Weisman has been teaching the art of the personal essay and memoir writing at Norwalk Community College and The New School University in New York City. Mary-Lou will teach an inter-active class that will demonstrate some basic writing strategies that will immediately improve the quality of your writing. Your verbs will take on new power, your adjectives will be more alluring, and your nouns will take care of themselves. Bring a pencil and a pad.

Noted Brooklyn-based altered book artist Doug Beube will give a talk and slide show on “The Alternative Library: The Book in the Environment,” looking at the fact that books, which we may not think of as books at all, are everywhere in the environment. He will also discuss how, with the advent of the computer, many books are thrown away by individuals and institutions around the globe, and how fortunately many are reclaimed by artists.

above, Disasters; Twister Series; Yellow Pages by Doug Beube)

More about the artist.
More information on the Library's Books Unbound project, including furthur Book Grab dates
Part of the Library's 100th Birthday Celebration.

SpokenWord is sponsored by Jerry A. Tishman.

SpokenWord is sponsored by Jerry A. Tishman.
Photo credit Phyllis Groner.

SpokenWord is sponsored by Jerry A. Tishman.

SpokenWord is sponsored by Jerry A. Tishman.

SpokenWord is sponsored by Jerry A. Tishman.

George Guidall, winner of two Audie Awards for Best Narration, will read from selections, answer questions and discuss the process,
preparation and performance decisions that have made him a favorite of audiobook listeners. You don’t want to miss this!
More information.

Michael Shavel, an experienced Career Development Specialist at the CT Department of Labor, will lead this useful and informative workshop.

Learn the latest about RSS including what it is and why you would want it.
Also learn how to create and download your own podcasts. Find out what the buzz is all about!

A panel discussion with Ellen Peck of Save the Children and Terry Backer of the Long Island Soundkeeper Fund will follow producer Sanjeev Chatterjee’s short film, One Water. Explore mankind's changing and challenging relationship to water.
Co-sponsored with Westport Arts Center.

Westport Public Library is pleased to announce an introductory workshop on Proposal Writing for grantseekers. Ines Sucre of the Foundation Center, the nation's leading authority on philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them, will speak. She will also demonstrate some new features of the excellent database, Foundation Directory Online Professional, which is available to you at the Library.

Register with Sylvia Schulman, 291-4844 or sschulman@westportlibrary.org

Suzanne Wallace, Director/Founder of The Parenting Academy at The Child Guidance Center of Greater Bridgeport, discusses approaches to discipline, self-esteem, encouragement and communication for relatives raising childen.

David Bushman, Television Curator for The Paley Center for Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio, will examine the television work of Westporter Rod Serling using clips from Serling’s live dramas, "Twilight Zone," "The Loner," "Night Gallery" and "The New People." Serling’s strong social conscience was pervasive in his work as a writer, producer, and teacher. He made history by winning six Emmy Awards for Dramatic Writing.

More information on Rod Serling.

The Paley Center for Media.

WestportREADS is sponsored by Jerry A. Tishman.

Joseph D'Agostin, Revenue Agent at the Norwalk office of the Internal Revenue Service, will discuss new and changing income tax laws.

Learn the latest about RSS including what it is and why you would want it. And also learn how to create and download your own podcasts. Find out what the buzz is all about!

Another layer of Feng Shui is how we use the individual spaces in our homes. Bring in a hand-drawn floor plan to get the most out of Ned Farrell 's insights.

Continuing the series from last fall, what better way to help yourself feel better than by using color! Certified Feng Shui Consultant Ned Farrell will share insights into the world of color.

The Westport Public Library, Fairfield County SCORE and Greater Bridgeport SCORE will present a workshop entitled “Buying a Winning Franchise”

Keld Alstrup from FranNet, the featured speaker, will talk about the ins and outs of obtaining a franchise. A panel of local franchisees will follow the speaker and will discuss their personal experiences in owning a franchise. Bruce Berzin from SCORE will moderate the panel.

Panelists include Greg O'Neill from Cartridge World of Norwalk, Linda Kuppersmith, Principal and managing Director of CMT of Stamford-Internet Solutions, Richard Montesanto, owner of Wild Bird Center of Norwalk and Keld Alstrup franchisee for United Check Cashing.

This workshop is free and open to the public. Call 203-291-4844 or email Sylvia Schulman to register so we can have enough handouts for all attending.

Jobseekers will get tips from a Certified Professional Resume Writer on how to improve their resumes. Michael Shavel, of the Connecticut Department of Labor, will share his knowledge on creating resumes that stand out. Participants are asked to bring their resumes to the workshop.



Reservations requested at 203-291-4844 or sschulman@westportlibrary.org.

This seminar covers valuable company, industry and other jobseeker information. Email sschulman@westportlibrary.org to ask how your resumé can be reviewed by a CT Dept. of Labor career specialist.

This seminar covers valuable company, industry and other jobseeker information. Email sschulman@westportlibrary.org to ask how your resumé can be reviewed by a CT Dept. of Labor career specialist.

William Krasilovsky, an attorney specializing in music and copywriting, will talk about his career using musical selections from artists he has represented over the years and the issues of copywriting their material. He is co-author of The Business of Music, the definitive guide to the business and legal issues of the music industry. Chuck Berry wrote, "The wealth of information in this book has been the most advantageous thing that happened in my business experience."

Certified Feng Shui consultant Ned Farrell will go into more detail on the elements and bagua of Feng Shui. Participants are asked to bring a hand-drawn floor plan of their home.

Certified Feng Shui consultant Ned Farrell will provide insights into what Feng Shui really is, using slides and real-life stories to show an accessible approach to make the best use of your environment.

Monday, October 15
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Dr. Philip Landrigan, renowned expert on environmental health and pediatrics, will speak about the effects that the enviornment has on children. He has been a member of the faculty of Mount Sinai School of Medicine since 1985 and Chairman of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine since 1990.

Mount Sinai's Department of Community and Preventive Medicine is renowned for its work in children's environmental health, occupational medicine, epidemiologic research, and disease prevention. Department Chair Dr. Philip Landrigan and his team of medical researchers are uniquely qualified to identify environmental hazards and protect the health of our children.

Dr. Landrigan is an international leader in public health and preventive medicine. His research helped catalyze the U.S. government's phase-out of lead from gasoline and paint beginning in 1976. Dr. Landrigan chaired a National Academy of Sciences Committee on Pesticides and Children's

Health, whose report secured passage of the major federal pesticide law in the United States, the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. This is the first federal environmental law to contain specific protections for infants and children. His work as Senior Advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency was instrumental in helping to establish the EPA's Offi ce of Children's Health Protection.

Monday, October 8
10:30 am & 7:30 pm
Westport Country Playhouse

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED AND WILL NOT BE RESCHEDULED.
The Library and the Playhouse are sorry for the inconvenience.

Tazewell Thompson, Artistic Director of the Westport Country Playhouse, will lead a discussion on the play Turn of the Screw, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the story by Henry James. Co-sponsored by Westport Library and Westport Country Playhouse.

To obtain a copy of the play, phone 291-4821.
Reservations requested, phone 227-4177.

More information

Monday, September 24
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Mukesh Parikh, the coordinator for the Fairfield Chapter of Swadhyay Pariwar (Global Family of Millions), will speak about Hinduism. He was Director of the Statewide Organization for the promotion of Indian culture and heritage. An international speaker, he is the former evening news anchor on a local channel in Ahmedabad, India.

Series brochure with more information

Thursday, September 20
4:00 pm
McManus Room

See the film John Tucker Must Die, the story of three ex-girlfriends of a serial cheater who set up their former lover to fall for the new girl in town so they can watch him get his heart broken.
89 min.

More about the film

Wednesday, September 19
Noon
McManus Room

Westporter Sybil Steinberg, who edited the book review section of Publishers Weekly for several decades, and is now a contributing editor, shares her list of the best new books of 2007. Bring your notebooks!

Press Release

Monday, September 17
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Imam Nasif Muhammed, who has been the Resident Imam
at the Al-Aziz Islamic Center in Bridgeport since 1980, will speak about Islam. He joined the Nation of Islam in 1972 and has served as Islamic Chaplin at the Bridgeport Correction Center since 1980. He speaks regularly at churches, synagogues, schools, prisons and mosques.

Series brochure with more information

Monday, September 10
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Lama Padma Karma Rinpoche, a Varja Master, will speak about the tenents of Buddhism. He started the Center for Dzogchen Studies in West Haven CT in 1993, a branch of the Pukang Monastery in Tibet. He is a healing counselor and speaks regularly at colleges and universities and on interfaith panels.

Series brochure with more information