Mayor’s Book Club Schedule

This Zoom-based creative writing workshop series will run for six weeks, with each week highlighting one Mayor's Book Club poetry book. Badgerdog teaching artist and accomplished poet Steven Espada Dawson will guide workshop participants in reading and discussing poems from the week's book before prompting participants to write poems of their own. Participants will have the opportunity to share their work at the end. The workshop will conclude with a visit and Q&A with the poet.

This workshop is free and open to the public. Please register through Eventbrite in order to participate. Once registered, you will receive an email from The Library Foundation with a unique Zoom link and more information about your specific workshop.

All workshops will take place on Thursdays from 7:00-8:30PM.

September 24th

YOUR NEW FEELING IS THE ARTIFACT OF A BYGONE ERA by Chad Bennett

Shirley Temple tap dancing at the Kiwanis Club, Stevie Nicks glaring at Lindsey Buckingham during a live version of “Silver Springs,” Frank Ocean lyrics staking new territory on the page: this is a taste of the cultural landscape sampled in Your New Feeling is the Artifact of a Bygone Era. Chad Bennett casually combines icons of the way we live now—GIFs, smartphones, YouTube—with a classical lover’s lament. The result is certainly a deeply personal account of loss, but more critically, a dismantling of an American history of queerness. “This is our sorrow. Once it seemed theirs, but now it’s ours. They still inhabit it, yet we say it’s ours.” All at once cerebral, physical, personal, and communal, Your New Feeling Is the Artifact of a Bygone Era constructs a future worth celebrating.

REGISTER HERE

October 1st

VIOLENCE/JOY/CHAOS by Jane Marshall Aman

This debut full-length hybrid collection of essays and poetry explores the moments of joy and chaotic hilarity that mingle with the experiences of trauma and trauma recovery. Jane Marshall Fleming writes with boldness and shows the beauty in every moment amidst violent chaos, embracing joy just as much as darkness. Moving from a backdrop of a small Virginia town and eventually finding herself in the freedom and wilderness of the desert, readers will follow the author on her journey mapping her skin, sharing in her joys, grief, pain, loss, discovering love and self-growth, night-blooming like a desert flower.

REGISTER HERE

October 22nd

REVISITING THE ELEGY IN THE BLACK LIVES MATTER ERA edited by Sequoia Maner, Emily Ruth Rutter, and darlene anita scott

Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era is an edited collection of critical essays and poetry that investigates contemporary elegy within the black diaspora. Scores of contemporary writers have turned to elegiac poetry and prose in order to militate against the white supremacist logic that has led to recent deaths of unarmed black men, women, and children. This volume combines scholarly and creative understandings of the elegy in order to discern how mourning feeds our political awareness in this dystopian time as writers attempt to see, hear, and say something in relation to the bodies of the dead as well as to living readers. Moreover, this book provides a model for how to productively interweave theoretical and deeply personal accounts to encourage discussions about art and activism that transgress disciplinary boundaries, as well as lines of race, gender, class, and nation.

REGISTER HERE

In these one-off Book Crush Workshops, students will read an excerpt from the book and discuss elements of fiction, storytelling, and what it means to “read like a writer.” Badgerdog teaching artists will lead students through a writing prompt and activity. Students will have the opportunity to share their work at the end. The workshop will conclude with a visit from the author, so be prepared to ask questions and soak in their wisdom! No prior knowledge or reading is required to attend.

Mini-Book Crush workshops are free and open to students 12-18 years old. Please register through Eventbrite in order to participate. Once registered, you will receive an email from The Library Foundation with a unique Zoom link and more information about your specific workshop.

All workshops will take place on Saturdays from 1:00-2:30PM.

Mini-Book Crush workshops are free and open to students 8-12 years old. Please register through Eventbrite in order to participate. Once registered, you will receive an email from The Library Foundation with a unique Zoom link and more information about your specific workshop.

All workshops will take place on Saturdays from 10:00AM-11:30AM.

Each Monday, starting September 28th, we'll release a new behind-the-scenes video with a Mayor's Book Club picture book author, reading from and discussing their book. See below for the full schedule.

Monday, September 28th: Chris Barton and FIRE TRUCK VS DRAGON and ALL OF A SUDDEN AND FOREVER: HELP AND HEALING AFTER THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING

Monday, October 5th: Lindsay Leslie and DUSK EXPLORERS

Monday, October 12th: Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey and THE OLD TRUCK

Monday, October 19th: Liz Garton Scanlon and THANK YOU, GARDEN

Monday, October 26th: Kat Kronenberg and THINK BIG

Monday, November 2nd: Don Tate and WILLIAM STILL AND HIS FREEDOM STORIES