Vermont Library Conference 2008--Review

My May 20, WTSA podcast. Topic this month, "Vermont Library Conference 2008."

Vermont Library Conference 2008

I will be traveling to Burlington tomorrow, Tuesday, for the annual 114th Vermont Library Conference. These yearly events are attended by hundreds of Vermont and other New England librarians. The conference is there to renew your professional batteries, attend programs, and catchup with colleagues.

Each conference is unique, but there are some programs that one can count on from year to year. My favorite is the Rapid Reviews program spearheaded by Amy Howlett, Vermont Department of Libraries southern consultant. Amy and her fellow reviewers-Ernie Drown, and Dan Greene from U-32 High School-- do a tag-team match of their top book choices since the last conference. Here is the description from the conference program:

Interested in a quick look at the best books published since May for adults that were NOT best sellers? Try this program and bring a pencil to keep track of the gems you want to read


This is a combination of fiction, non-fiction, adult, young adult books. Here is a link to last year's crop. Amy will email me the 2008 choices after the conference and this will go into the Brattleboro Reformer's For the Love of Books Thursday column in the Ovation arts and entertainment supplement.

Next week I will do a podcast of my favorite conference programs. Watch this space for it, or tune into Brattleboro's WTSA-FM station to hear it.

25th Annual Party in honor of Brooks's volunteers

The River Garden was rock'n and roll'n on Saturday with "The Low Down Blues Band" --I think this name was attached to the trio +1 for the evening-- in celebration of our 40+ volunteers. The members of the group are: Stephen Frankel (Library trustee); Steve Vorhees; Lou Erlander; and the plus one is Danny Brooks, an incredible harmonical player who dropped in for the evening. Check out his web site. Danny left me with his book, a memoir, and two CD's that will be going into the library.

The volunteer program at Brooks began in 1983 with a handful of dedicated library workers, and has now expanded to over 40 who contributed 3,200 hour last year. The activities run the alphabet--from A "arts coordinator," to W "web site mistress," and all activities in between. Volunteers shelve books, DVD's, and other library material, provide service at the circulation desks, maintain the public bulletin boards, read at storytimes in the children's room, tape library programs for later broadcast on BCTV, and many other duties.

If you are interested in becoming a library volunteer, speak to Therese Marcy or Lindsay Bellville.

And, people asked me for a link to the little essay I read from the Washington Post on one library page's passion for her shelving duties. Click here for a copy.

Catherine Tudish, novelist, at Brooks Memorial on Wednesday, April 23

Catherine Tudish, author of the acclaimed Tenny's Landing, will be at the Library on Wednesday, April 30, at 7:00 PM, to read and discuss her first novel, American Cream.

The book has been reviewed widely and well received. Here is a review from Joni Cole, the author of Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, and the creator of the “This Day” book series, including the newest volume Water Cooler Diaries: Women across America Share Their Day at Work.

Review of American Cream: A Novel by Catherine Tudish.

Review by Joni Cole

I knew I should read Catherine Tudish’s novel, American Cream. Early reviewers exclaimed how “literary” the book was; how it was “beautifully written,” and an “incandescent debut novel.” On the book jacket, a famous author touted the “quiet elegance” of Catherine’s prose. Readers who sounded in on Amazon described American Cream as “profound,” “thought provoking,” and “emotionally rich.” I also knew that Catherine’s short story collection Tenney’s Landing made her one of the top three finalists in Barnes and Noble’s 2005 Discover Great New Writers program. And last, but hardly least, I know Catherine personally. So it makes sense I would read (or at least buy) her book.

Of course sometimes what we know we should do… and what we want to do are two very different things. For months American Cream sat on my bedside table, displaced by a variety of other novels that no one would confuse with profound, but promised to be fun, fast reads. What can I say? I’m a working mom and perpetually overwhelmed. When I pick up a book at the end of a long day, I want a good story. I want a few laughs. Some hot romance would be nice, too.

Surprise, surprise. When I finally got around to reading American Cream, I got all that, and a whole lot more. This book is a page-turner, as entertaining as it is deep, as witty as it is wise.

The plot centers around Virginia Rownd, forty-something, who unexpectedly has to return to the small community where she grew up to help her dad on the family farm, after he’s been injured in a tractor accident. She leaves her loving (if slightly paragon of virtue-ish) surgeon husband back home in suburbia. But she brings along her surly teenage son, Randall, who is not convinced that a summer milking cows will be an adventure. (“What do you think?” Randall asked, his voice cracking. “I’m like five years old?”)

On the farm, Virginia is forced to share space with her dad’s new wife, Lydia, whom Virginia doesn’t like any more now than she did back when the woman ran the school cafeteria. Virginia also doesn’t like the looks of the tattooed girl her son’s got his eye (and maybe more) on. And then there’s Virginia’s high school sweetheart, West Moffat, now settled with a wife and three sons. West still lives in their hometown, and he’s not the kind of old boyfriend you meet years later and thank God it didn’t work out. (“You look good,” Virginia told West, “even with the beard,” she added, as if she were joking.) Virginia and West act perfectly proper with their families in tow, but their muted desire creates enough sparks on the page to endanger the hay barn.

I love this novel because the characters feel real, human. The good-hearted types royally screw up. The losers have humanity. Virginia Rownd is the kind of woman I’d like to have as a friend. That said, she makes decisions that make me want to smack her upside the head. Situations are filled with poignant emotion and humor, often at the same time. Like life, the novel is full of everyday drama, and small, meaningful moments with huge consequences.

I read American Cream on the edge of my pillow. Catherine had me so involved in these characters’ lives, I didn’t want to leave them. While the conclusion of the book was unexpected, powerful, and perfect, I still want to find out what comes next. I still want to turn the pages.

Oh, and one more thing. American Cream is, indeed, a beautifully written, incandescent debut novel, with a quiet elegance to its prose. But the next time you see it on a bookstore shelf, or unopened on your nightstand, don’t let those attributes scare you away.

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National Library Week 2008, April 13 to 19

Hey Library aficionados it's NLW and Brooks has a steady stream of programming for just about every taste one could imagine, and it's coming your way this month.



Click here for the full, exciting schedule!

First, let's start with the Friends of the Library's Annual Meeting on Sunday, April 13, with Martin Bryan talking the 1920's and Fox Trot.




Then next week we have a proclamation going to the Brattleboro Selectboard on Tuesday, April 15, and on Wednesday, April 16, Marshal Case, director of the Bennington based The American Chestnut Foundation, will be here to discuss the book Mighty Giants: An American Chestnut Anthology.





And On Friday evening, April 18, Brooks Library will host a talk “Robert Frost, Years of Triumph”, the poet’s life and times in Vermont with Carole Thompson, Executive Director of the Robert Frost Stone House Museum and President of the Friends of Robert Frost.

Hope to see all you there at the programs...

First Wednedays return on April 2 with Marjorie Ryerson, Companions for the Passage: Stories of the Intimate Privilege of Accompanying the Dying

Being present through the final days, and then through the moment of death of a beloved friend, spouse, or child is possibly the most profound journey we ever take. Marjorie Ryerson, author of Companions for the Passage: Stories of the Intimate Privilege of Accompanying the Dying, will share stories she collected for her book in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on April 2 at 7:00 PM. and is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and takes place at 7:00 p.m.



Ryerson is an award-winning professor, photographer, poet and journalist. She taught writing and photography at Castleton State College from 1991 until 2005, and was selected as the Vermont State Colleges Faculty Fellow for the academic year 2000-2001—the highest honor awarded to a professor in the Vermont State College system. Ryerson currently teaches nonfiction writing for Johnson State College, poetry and creative non-fiction for Middlebury College at the annual New England Young Writers' Conference at Bread Loaf, and creative nonfiction at the Young Vermonters' Writing Conference at Champlain College.



She is the executive director of the Vermont-based nonprofit Water Music, Inc. Her books include Water Music and Companions for the Passage: Stories of the Intimate Privilege of Accompanying the Dying. Her nonfiction articles and photographs have been published widely throughout New England. She is currently at work on two more books.



The Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays Brattleboro series is held on the first Wednesday of every month from October through May, featuring speakers of national and regional renown. Talks are held at Brooks Memorial Library, and the 2007-8 Brattleboro series concludes with “Don Quixote: The Greatest Novel Ever,” with Amherst College Professor Ilan Stavans on May 7.



First Wednesdays is supported in part by the Institute of Museum & Library Services through the Vermont Department of Libraries. Brooks Memorial Library is sponsored by Brattleboro Savings & Loan, Entergy-Vermont, Friends of Brooks Memorial Library, Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., and Trustees of Brooks Memorial Library.



For more information, contact Brooks Memorial Library at 802.254.5290 or brattlib@brooks.lib.vt.us. For all library events, see the library’s calendar at www.brooks.lib.vt.us.

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Merchant of Venice (Abridged) comes to Brooks

Shakespeare comes to Brooks Memorial Library on Friday, March 14, at 7 PM, with New Hampshire's Hourglass Readers.

The production is directed by Catherine Behrens and Ben Wise. In the cast are Wendy Almeida, Catherine & Frank Behrens, Peter Eisenstadter, Sarah Ellsworth, Ariana Ellsworth-Heller, Perin Ellsworth-Heller, Martin Hanft, PeggyRae Johnson, Hank Parkhurst, Peter Schofield, Ruth Siegel, Marilyn Simons, Don Wilmeth, and Ben Wise.

The Hourglass Readers is a group of men and women who love the classics and love performing. It is dedicated to presenting readings of classical works in abridged versions. All performances are free and open to the public.