Join us for a very special event on Thursday, May 26 at 7PM via Zoom with prize-winning poet, novelist and educator Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, in conversation with Professor Sandra Lim, Ph.D., prize-winning poet, and professor of English at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.

A brief reading will be followed by a conversation between our esteemed guests. Questions for the author can be submitted in advance to jfitzhanso@chelmsfordlibrary.org to be forwarded to Professor Lim.

Register directly on Zoom HERE. Presented by Chelmsford in partnership with the public libraries in Andover, Boxford, Carlisle, Danvers, Dracut, Georgetown, Groton, Groveland, Holden, Lowell, Methuen, Newburyport, South Hamilton, Tewksbury, and West Newbury.

Registered Dietician Nutritionist Jill Patterson RD leads this fun and informative program on Wednesday, May 25 at 7PM via Zoom where we will learn a total approach to improve our heart health. There are many benefits of adopting a heart healthy lifestyle including increased energy, decreased stress, improved cholesterol and blood pressure levels, and decreased risk of heart disease. Learning the science-based strategies and implementing a few simple tweaks to our lifestyle can lead to big results, so sign up today!  

Register on Zoom HERE. This virtual program is a collaboration between the libraries of Georgetown, Newburyport, and Rockport. This is the second event in a three part series. The next (and last) event in this series is June 8th: Eat This, Not That.

Award-winning author Erica Ferencik (Girl In Ice) and bestselling author Sy Montgomery (The Hawk’s Way) discuss their latest new books on Wednesday, May 18 at 7PM via Zoom.

About The Books: In Girl In Ice, an American linguist is tasked to go to a remote climate science research center off the coast of Greenland where a young girl has thawed from the ice alive speaking a language no one understands. In The Hawk’s Way: Encounters with Fierce Beauty, Montgomery — a vegetarian animal-lover — takes up falconry to get close to the wild hearts of these magnificent birds of prey.

About The Authors: There is nowhere on earth Erica Ferencik won’t go to take you out of your head and into the great wild world. An award-winning novelist, Ferencik writes adventure novels featuring women who brave not only internal struggles but face extreme challenges in their environment: remote forests, steaming jungles, and desolated icescapes. To research The River at Night, Into the Jungle, and her latest, Girl In Ice, Ferencik ventured deep into the remote forests of the Allagash Territory in Northern Maine, rafted the Amazon River in the jungles of Peru, and explored the desolate iceberg-packed fjords of Greenland. To research her 33 books, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire, swum with octopuses, electric eels and piranhas, and worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba. She is a four-time national bestseller, perhaps best known for her The Soul of an Octopus, a finalist for the National Book Award.

Register directly on Zoom HERE. This virtual event is a collaboration between several libraries.

Join Nicole McGurin from the Alzheimer’s Association on Tuesday, May 10 at 1PM to learn about the research in the areas of diet and nutrition, exercise, cognitive activity and social engagement, and use hands-on tools to help you incorporate these recommendations into a plan for health aging.

Register HERE. This virtual Alzheimer’s Association program is being hosted by several libraries across Massachusetts.

On Monday, May 2 at 7PM, Curator in Chief Michael Frank will share this collection of efforts that capture (or try to capture) the likenesses of politicians, favorite entertainers, or historic figures. Some of these pieces have accidentally ended up portraying faces we recognize. 

Register HERE. This virtual program is a collaboration between the libraries the public libraries of Boxford, Georgetown, Groveland, and Methuen.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Groveland Cultural Council, a local council that is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, as well as the Town of Groveland. 

Join us on Wednesday, April 27 at 7PM via Zoom for this informative and engaging workshop where we will learn strategies to slash our grocery bill while eating nutritiously. Get ready to feel energized with healthy nutrient rich foods and saving money! Specific action strategies, interactive game questions and recipe resources will be included.

As a registered dietitian and nutrition expert, Jill Patterson also brings her background of menu planning on a budget for school systems, consulting for grocery store chains, and being a cost conscious shopper herself.

Register on Zoom HERE. This virtual program is a collaboration between the libraries of Georgetown, Newburyport, and Rockport. This is a three part series:

• April 27: Save at the Supermarket!
• May 25: Solutions for Better Heart Health
• June 8: Eat This, Not That

The Friends of the Georgetown Peabody Library and the Boxford Town Library are pleased to host author Stephen Puleo and hear him discuss his latest book, Voyage of Mercy on Saturday, April 23 at 10:30AM.

Following the presentation will be a book signing from 12pm until 12:45pm. Book sales will be handled by the book distributor: at the back of library’s Meeting Room will include Voyage of Mercy and other Puleo titles as well.

About the Author: Stephen Puleo is an author, historian, teacher, public speaker, and communications professional. He has published seven narrative history books, including his most recent: Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, published in March 2020. He is at work on his eighth book, which will also be published by St. Martins. Learn more about Puleo HERE.

About the Book: More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the last 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland.

Captain Robert Bennet Forbes and the crew of the USS Jamestown began a massive eighteen-month demonstration of soaring goodwill against the backdrop of unfathomable despair – one nations’ struggle to survive, and another’s effort to provide a lifeline. Forbes’ undertaking inspired a nationwide outpouring of relief that was unprecedented in size and scope, the first instance of an entire nation extending a hand to a foreign neighbor for purely humanitarian reasons. It showed the world that national generosity and brotherhood were not signs of weakness, but displays of quiet strength and moral certitude.

On Thursday, April 21 at 11AM via Zoom, NASA Solar System Ambassador Pat Monteith will lead you through the journeys of Katherine Johnson and some of the other pioneering women and courageous female astronauts at NASA including women who are training to go on a 3-year mission to Mars.

Monteith received a BA in Math with the hope of working in Mission Control for NASA. But, as happens with most of us, life took a different turn. Over the years her interest in Space Science never waned and after retiring from her full-time job, she became a NASA Solar System Ambassador. Over the past 6 years, Monteith has conducted more than 50 programs for youth, families and adults about the Moon, Mars, the ISS, Women of NASA, the James Webb Telescope and more.

Register directly on Zoom HERE. This virtual program is a collaboration between the libraries of Georgetown and Tewksbury. Sponsored by the Friends of the Tewksbury Public Library. 

How did the United States achieve the goal of landing on the moon by 1969? On Tuesday, April 5 at 2PM via Zoom, go behind the scenes of the Kennedy space program with photographs and stories from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum collections. Enjoy a slide presentation with live commentary and Q&A from Rick Elias, a docent at the presidential library. 

Register directly on Zoom HERE. This virtual program is a collaboration between the libraries of Georgetown and Tewksbury. Sponsored by the Friends of the Tewksbury Public Library. 

Looking for a way to brighten your yard and mood this winter? Backyard bird feeding is a wonderful way to attract birds to your property, still feel connected to nature while inside, and get to know the characteristics and behaviors of common birds. Explore different feeder types, the best seed to put in them, the birds they’ll attract, how to outsmart squirrels, and other ways to encourage birdlife into your yard and community on Wednesday, March 30 at 11AM via Zoom.

Scott Santino, Education Manager and Teacher Naturalist at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield, has been leading nature education programs for Mass Audubon since 1999. He coordinates the sanctuary’s volunteer Nature Guide program, training adults in natural history interpretation and is a faculty member of Mass Audubon’s Birder’s Certificate Program.

Register on Zoom HERE. This virtual program is a collaboration between the libraries of Georgetown and Tewksbury. Sponsored by the Friends of the Tewksbury Public Library.