Events by this organizer

Please note: Due to the recent sprinkler head malfunction at the Gunn Memorial Library, please check with the library for location information before attending any events.

Gunn Library’s book club meets on the 4th Thursday of every month. Participants can join any time! Copies of the book can be picked up at the library. In March, we will be reading This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub.

Summary:
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?

Discussion questions can be found on the library’s website.

Thursday, March 30 from 6:30-7:30pm via Zoom

Roseanne Montillo is a nonfiction author from the Boston area whose latest book Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire’s Wife and the Murder of the Century was recently published in November of 2022. Anyone interested in the darkly intriguing true-crime story of Truman Capote is sure to be fascinated by Montillo’s book.

This is a deeply researched yet utterly page-turning account of Truman Capote and Ann Woodward’s darkly intertwined fates. From their childhoods to their deaths, Montillo shares the intimate and surprising details of Ann and Truman’s lives and reveals how Billy Woodward’s murder sent them both into a downward spiral that would eventually wreck Truman’s career and drive Ann to suicide.

ROSEANNE MONTILLO is an accomplished research librarian who earned her MFA from Emerson College and has taught creative writing at Emerson and the Tufts Extension School. In addition to Deliberate Cruelty, she has published four previous works of narrative nonfiction to critical acclaim—Fire on the Track, The Wilderness of Ruin, Atomic Women, and The Lady and Her Monsters. She resides in Massachusetts with her family.

Register here

Denise Arturi, from Steep Rock’s Judea Garden, will join the Junior Library to teach children about growing our food. Children will plant pea seeds to nurture and grow in their own gardens this spring and summer. The Judea Garden was created to provide fresh produce for neighbors in need. Now in its 15th season, the garden has grown, harvested and distributed over 40,000 lbs. of fresh produce since 2009! Seating is limited so please register in advance.

Register here

The Gunn Memorial Library is pleased to collaborate with the Washington Environmental Council to bring our community together for a discussion on the sustainable architecture project underway at the Frederick Gunn School. Peter Becker, Head of School and Seth Low, Associate Head of School will describe the work that the school has completed to date, and engage in conversation about strategies for organizations to embrace sustainability. This presentation will be held at the Judy Black Memorial Park and Garden.

Over the past several years, The Frederick Gunn School has evolved its approach to sustainability. The Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center (completed 2020) was the school’s first LEED-certified building on campus, and the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation and Active Citizenship (to be completed in fall of this year) will exceed the environmental standards set by TPACC. While these are the most tangible and visible outcomes of Gunn’s renewed dedication to sustainability, the school has also created a sustainability plan that starts to outline long-term goals for the next several decades.

Minimizing the impact on the environment was a top priority in the design process for the Tisch Center for Innovation and Active Citizenship. Solar photovoltaic panels that provide sustainable energy and a geothermal well field that provides most of the heating and cooling, as well as a highly efficient envelope, contribute to bringing the project close to Net Zero.

Peter Becker is The Frederick Gunn School’s 11th Head of School. A native of New Orleans and Manhattan, Peter attended The Taft School and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction in religious studies from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in history from Yale University. Peter came to Gunn in 2012 from The Lawrenceville School, where he served as a master of history and interdisciplinary studies. He is currently a member of the board of The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) and is a member of The Heads & Principals Association.

Seth Low is The Frederick Gunn School’s Associate Head of School and Director of Co-Curricular Programs. He spent his youth as a faculty child at the Cranbrook School and Blair Academy, and holds a bachelor’s degree in geosciences from Williams College and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University. Prior to joining Gunn, Seth spent five years working at an environmental engineering and consulting firm located outside of Boston. The former Director of College Counseling, Seth continues to serve as a College Counselor, teaches within the school’s Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, and coaches lacrosse.

What better way to welcome the Easter holiday than to make some beautiful Easter eggs! Colorful paper, craft sticks, gems and pompoms will be provided for youngsters to create something festive to take home ahead of the holiday weekend. This craft is suitable for all ages. Supplies are limited so please register in advance.

Register here

Join Ms. Ashley for an exciting game of “Taco vs. Burrito” – the weirdly popular, absurdly funny, surprisingly strategic card game where players compete to create the weirdest, wackiest meals! Bring a friend to team up with and enjoy snacks while we play. Seating is limited so please register in advance.

Register here

This month, we will be reading two stories from I’d Die for You and other lost stories from F. Scott Fitzgerald.

This collection was published in 2017 and features a collection of the last remaining unpublished and uncollected short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald edited by Anne Margaret Daniel. Fitzgerald did not design the stories in I’d Die For You as a collection. Most were submitted individually to major magazines during the 1930s and accepted for publication during Fitzgerald’s lifetime, but were never printed. Some were written as movie scenarios and sent to studios or producers, but not filmed. Others are stories that could not be sold because their subject matter or style departed from what editors expected of Fitzgerald. They date from the earliest days of Fitzgerald’s career to the last. They come from various sources, from libraries to private collections, including those of Fitzgerald’s family.

Register here

We will read “IOU” and the title story “I’d Die for You” along with the introduction to the collection to gain a better understanding of the context surrounding the state of mind and life circumstances Fitzgerald was in at the time of writing.

Access the stories here

April is Autism Awareness Month, a month for sharing stories and providing opportunities to increase understanding and acceptance of people with autism. In support of this worthy endeavor, we are happy to provide a platform for Jeremy Farrell, an Autism Spectrum Disorder Advocate to give an online presentation titled Pathways to Autistic Empowerment: Open Communication and Self Advocacy.

As an autistic individual who has been on his own personal journey to feeling empowered and as a professional who has helped others on that journey, Jeremy has unique insight into how autistic empowerment is cultivated. Jeremy goes beyond the textbook “dos and don’ts” for working with or being an autistic individual. Instead, he provides actionable steps for those with and without Autism to take towards empowerment by focusing on open communication and self-advocacy.

Jeremy will use examples from his personal and professional life to provide a comprehensive understanding of the common barriers autistic individuals face in everyday life and how to break those barriers.

Jeremy K. Farrell is a passionate Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Advocate and a proud person on the spectrum himself. He has been working with children with developmental disabilities, specializing in autism, since the age of 15. Since graduating from Southern Connecticut State University, he has run social skills groups for teens and kids on the spectrum out of Western Connecticut Behavioral Health and worked with autism focused organizations to provide recreational resources to their clients. He also spent time working as a University Assistant for Southern Connecticut State University where he traveled the state of Connecticut as the Leader of Community Outreach and Recruitment for the Listening to Faces Speech and Language Autism research out of Yale’s Child Study Center.

Register here

In German fairytales, gnomes are believed to bring good luck for garden production. Join Ms. Linda at the library to make a garden gnome good luck charm! These paper gnomes are a cute and an easy craft for kids of all ages to make. We have an assortment of colorful construction paper, gems, and pom poms to create your own garden gnome good luck charm.

Seating is limited so please register in advance.

Register here

Earth Day is all about raising awareness of the need to protect the Earth’s natural resources for future generations. Join us as we make firefly lanterns out of recycled glass jars. Kids can decorate a glass jar and use them to catch fireflies and watch them glow this summer. All materials are provided.

Seating is limited so please register in advance.

Register here