CELEBRATE THE WINNERS AND FINALISTS OF THE 10TH ANNUAL BOOK AWARDS

Join us online January 20, at 4 pm Eastern, for the announcement of the winners and finalists for the 2023 Book Awards hosted by IPNE, the Independent Publishers of New England. You needn't be a member or have entered a book. The event is open to all. We hope to see you there, for an evening spent in celebration of books, and hopefully some winners from Rootstock ;)

Zoom link coming soon or email odile@ipne.org to RSVP.

Join the Green Mountain Writers Group for an online Zoom meetup poetry reading with Betty Nadine Thomas, author of Unleashed: Poems & Drawings.

The Poetry & Performance workshop, led by Darlene L. Witte, works to bridge the gap between poetic words on a page and poetry read aloud. On the first and third Tuesdays of each month, we focus on the work of a feature poet presented live in a Zoom session. The group is invited to respond to the poetry and discuss the work. Sessions then progress to an Open Mic where anyone can share a poem of their own or one they have just taken a liking to.

Learn more and sign up here: https://www.meetup.com/green-mountain-writers/events/296251921/

Friends of the New Salem Public Library presents a Fall Local Author Series with Celia Jeffries, author of BLUE DESERT, 7pm at the library with refreshments, and on Zoom. Book will be available for purchase. Learn more and register for the Zoom link at nsfriendsoflibrary.weebly.com/events.html.

Hosted by Straw Dog Writers Guild and Northampton Center for the Arts, Short Prose Meet-up via Zoom with Celia Jeffries is a chance for writers to give and receive immediate constructive feedback on their short prose piece (800 words or fewer) by everyone in attendance.  Learn what is working in your prose, and what may need revision. Contribute to the discussion with other writers, and experience the magic that can happen with the written word in a supportive group.

Cost: by donation. Suggested sliding scale $25-40. No one turned away for lack of funds. Limited to five participants. Register early.  Learn more and register at strawdogwriters.org/short-prose-meet-up.

Please join Celia Jeffries, author of BLUE DESERT, and four other Sarton Book Award winners, for a discussion with previous winner Ellen Notbohm, who says we "will delve into aspects of historical fiction writing that aren't frequently discussed."

Cost: FREE!

6pm CENTRAL TIME (7pm EASTERN TIME)

Reserve your spot today for this webinar at the link below (advance registration is required):

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CTSd3aPjTjae7BHdhkDyQA?fbclid=IwAR2ivcdYzvpBaQAAnGRmhOqaXr2kOoPHzc0Y_lb7v2AloDBiQe9O9ZPHz_Y

Join Celia Ryker, author of the new historical fiction novel Augusta, for a virtual book launch! Hosted by League of Vermont Writers, Celia will read from and talk about how she wrote this novel, which is based on her grandmother’s life.

Free and open to the public. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUlcuyvpz0jHteIRi6HtsQUDzYnTQY2YiJS

Rootstock author Simki Kuznick joins The Pauli Murray Center's September 2022 book club discussion on new young adult and children's books about the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. There are three options - participants can choose to read one or more of these:

1) Pauli Murray: The Life of a Pioneering Feminist and Civil Rights Activist by Rosita Stevens-Holsey and Terry Catasús Jennings. This is a 280-page middle grade book in prose style, co-written by Pauli Murray's niece.

2) Pauli Murray's Revolutionary Life by Simki Kuznick. This is a 200-page young adult biography.

3) Pauli Murray: Shouting for the Rights of All People by Deborah Nelson Linck. This is a 64-page illustrated and introductory biography.

Discussion is on Wednesday, September 28th from 6:30 to 7:30 PM (EST) on Zoom. To attend, please register in advance.

Learn more at https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/events-and-celebrations/2022/9/28/september-book-club-young-adult-amp-childrens-books

Jane Dwinell, coauthor of Alzheimer’s Canyon: One Couple's Reflections on Living with Dementia, will discuss her book and her experiences with Teepa Snow, founder of Positive Approach to Care (PAC). This is a Facebook Live event, free and open to the public, and accessible at this Facebook page: www.facebook.com/teepasnows.pac.

While preparing to hike the 300-mile Long Trail along the crest of Vermont’s Green Mountains from Massachusetts to Canada, Michigan author Celia Ryker (Walking Home: Trail Stories) trained on Michigan’s own hiking trails. Join Celia as she shares stories and images from these beautiful trails.

Registration for this event will close on August 24, 2022 @ 1:00pm. This is a Zoom event.

Learn more and register at this link: https://troypl.librarycalendar.com/event/trail-stories-hiking-michigan

Celia Ryker, author of the debut memoir Walking Home: Trail Stories, takes us through some beautiful hiking trails right here in our home state of Michigan. Celia has kept journals and written short stories and poems all of her life. Walking Home is Celia’s first book but she has been working on her craft for decades. Hiking in Michigan is a chance for Celia to share stories and images from the trails she hiked while preparing to hike the nearly 300 mile Long Trail from Massachusetts to Canada, along the crest of Vermont’s Green Mountains. While training for this hike Celia discovered Michigan trails and her images and stories will take you on these paths with her.

Please click HERE to register for the Zoom meeting.

Learn more here: https://ropl.evanced.info/signup/EventDetails?EventId=3528&backTo=Calendar&startDate=2022/08/18

Join Celia Ryker, author of Walking Home: Trail Stories, for a talk about hiking and gardening. Free and open to the public. A Virtual event! Sponsored by the Genesee Public Library, Genesee, Michigan. Registration coming soon.

Join us over Zoom as we welcome Vermont author Michael Freed-Thall to talk about his recently published romantic historical fiction novel Horodno Burning. Free and open to the public. Sponsored by the Hartland Library.

TO REGISTER:

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYucu6tqDorGN2IBe5MylA2CVbodcdFzhiQ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Join author Michael Freed-Thall for a virtual lunch and learn with Ohavi Zedek Synagogue as he talks about his historical fiction novel, Horodno Burning. Free and open to the public. Learn more here.

A free virtual program of Marlene Myerson JCC.

Join Ginny Sassaman for an exploration of how to encourage others, as well as ourselves, to make changes to build a world that supports maximum happiness for all. She will share excerpts from her book, Preaching Happiness, and looks forward to hearing what participants have to say on the topic..

Ginny Sassaman is a co-founder and past president of Gross National Happiness USA. She created the Happiness Paradigm as a platform for teaching, writing about, and advocating for greater personal happiness and for creating systematic changes to enhance maximum well-being for all. Since 2013, she has served as a lay preacher in Unitarian Universalist churches on these topics; 16 of these sermons are included in her book, Preaching Happiness: Creating a Just and Joyful World (Rootstock Publishing, 2020). Ginny holds a master’s degree in mediation, and a certificate in positive psychology. Her past careers have included a stint as co-host and associate producer at a public television station in Hershey, Pennsylvania; working in Washington, D.C. as media communications director for Common Cause, American University, and the Women’s Legal Defense Fund; 13 years as a full-time watercolor artist; and ongoing work as a mediator and facilitator.

Click here to register.

This ongoing class, which meets every Wednesday 3-5pm EST, is for writers who are serious about processing with their cultic abuse through the written word.

Writing to Reckon provides a safe and engaging space for cult survivors (or anyone impacted by cultic influence) who are serious about establishing a writing practice as part of their personal healing process and/or are actively engaged in writing a book.

This signature writing course provides a confidential container to delve into the challenging terrain of power-over abuse. The class is supportive in nature but is not a support group. The focus is on writing. Each class includes writing time and an opportunity to read and share positive reflections. In this way, participants learn from each other while Gerette, as facilitator, offers writing prompts, suggestions and guidance. 

RSVP Here.

Join us for a signing and presentation of I Could Hardly Keep from Laughing. With snappy cartoons by Don Hooper and illuminating prose by Bill Mares, I Could Hardly Keep from Laughing is a potpourri of art and words documenting how Vermont humor has evolved over 150 years.

About the Author: Raised in Texas, educated at Harvard, Bill Mares is a former journalist, state representative, and high school teacher. He has authored or co-authored 18 books on subjects ranging from the US Marines to desert travel, from war memorials to economic democracy, from brewing beer to beekeeping. Among Mares' books were four volumes of Vermont humor with University of Vermont professor Frank Bryan. From 2007 to 2018, Mares wrote over 200 commentaries for Vermont Public Radio. He lives in Burlington, Vermont with his wife of 50 years, Chris Hadsel.

Registration required — This program will be presented both in-person and virtually. To attend in-person, please call 802-899-4962 to reserve your seat. To register for the virtual livestream, please click here.

Join Ginny Sassaman via Zoom for a talk, Preaching Happiness: Exploring how we can make changes to live a full and happy life while also doing our best to help create a kind and joyful world, with the Asheville Wisdom Exchange.

Link to Zoom event: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86707004805?pwd=N0wzRjhmNW1uTERIYmZwbDFlcWhXZz09

Password for Zoom session: 2021

Ginny Sassaman is a co-founder and past president of Gross National Happiness USA. She created the Happiness Paradigm as a platform for teaching, writing about and advocating for greater personal happiness and creating systems change for maximum well-being for all. Since 2013, she has served as a lay preacher in Unitarian Universalist churches on these topics; a book of 16 of these sermons, called Preaching Happiness: Creating a Just and Joyful World, was published in May 2020 by Rootstock Publishing.

Ginny has a Masters in Mediation, and a Certificate in Positive Psychology.  Her past careers have included a stint as co-host and associate producer at a public television station in Hershey, Pennsylvania; working in Washington, DC as media communications director for Common Cause, American University, and the Women’s Legal Defense Fund; 13 years as a fulltime watercolor artist; and ongoing work as a mediator and facilitator.  Since 2007, Sassaman has been leading classes and workshops on conflict resolution skills, secular meditation, and the science of happiness. 

Ginny also prioritizes time with family, friends, community, and being in nature. She is deeply committed to helping to create a more just world as well as helping individuals learn how to lead more joyful and productive lives, for their own benefit and for greater societal well-being.

Author Bill Mares and cartoonist Don Hooper share drawings and tales that illustrate the understatement, comeuppance, and subtlety of Vermont humor. Enjoy this ramble through the decades as the pair show how Vermont’s true character shines in dry (and occasionally tables-turned) jokes and stories.

This event is hosted by the Norwich Public Library and the Norwich Historical Society. Free and open to the public.

REGISTER HERE.

About Bill Mares and Don Hooper

Raised in Texas, educated at Harvard, Bill Mares is a former journalist, state representative and high school teacher. He has authored or co-authored eighteen books on subjects ranging from the U.S. Marines to desert travel, and from war memorials to brewing. Don Hooper is a Vermont educator, environmental activist, and storyteller. He has served as both a Vermont state legislator and Secretary of State. Hooper served as the Northeast Regional Representative for the National Wildlife Federation until 2016.

FāVS Is Reading will be hosting author Gerette Buglion to come and speak about her book, ‘An Everyday Cult.’ Her book was their Fall 2021 club pick, and they are excited to be hearing from her about her story, the writing process in telling it, and whatever questions the audience may have for her.

The talk will take place via Zoom.

*NOTE that the time is Pacific Standard Time. Eastern Standard Time is 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.

You don’t have to be a participant of the book club to join that day.

If you are interested in buying the book, Wishing Tree Books has copies and 20% of the purchase of each book will be donated back to Spokane FāVS.

Conact Cassy Benefield at 509.720.1781 or spokanefavs.cassy@gmail.com if you need more information or have any questions.

Exploring the turbulent history that led to the migration of one-and-a-half million Jews from czarist Russia to America, Horodno Burning is a love letter to literature, freedom, and Jewish survival.

In the Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement, Esther Leving, a brilliant young bibliophile, chafes at male dominance, religious dogma, and antisemitism. Bernard Garfinkle, a religious Jew and the son of a vodka distiller, hides a shameful secret—in a culture that worships books, he can’t read. Despite their literary and religious differences, they fall in love. Esther teaches Bernard to read, and he in turn builds her a bookshop. They start a family, but when ferocious pogroms target Russian Jews, they must confront violent oppression. How Estes, Bernard, and their friends respond will determine not only who they become but also whether they live.

Michael Freed-Thall began writing when upon retirement from being a teacher and principal in Vermont. He started with his own family history — the arranged marriage between his great-great-grandparents, Estes and Bernard, at ages twelve and fourteen; escape from service in the czar’s army; pogroms; a harrowing trip from the Pale of Settlement to America; a reverence for books; and radical politics. Ultimately, those fragments and his overactive imagination led him to write this novel about literature, freedom, and Jewish survival.

Ellen Meeropol is the author of the novels Her Sister’s Tattoo, Kinship of Clover, On Hurricane Island, House Arrest, and The Lost Women of Azalea Court, forthcoming in 2022. Her work has been honored by the Sarton Women’s Prize, The Women’s National Book Association, and the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Recent essay publications include Lilith, Ms Magazine, LitHub, Guernica, and The Writers Chronicle. She lives in Northampton, MA.

To register: ZOOM LINK

Special thanks to the Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont for supporting local authors and world history.

Vermont author, minister, activist, organizer and 8-year member of the Vermont State Senate, Scudder Parker reads from ‘Safe as Lightning’ this coming Wednesday.

Scudder has published in Sun Magazine, Vermont Life, Northern Woodlands, Wordrunner, Passager, Eclectica, Twyckenham, Crosswinds, Ponder Review, La Presa, Aquifer, and Sky Island Journal.

This event is live and via ZOOM through this link.

Scudder Parker reads from 2 - 3pm.

The New England Poetry Club FALL POETRY FEST/VIRTUAL featuring NEPC members with new books and friends of NEPC hosted by Advisory Members Regie Gibson, Toni Bee and Maria Louisa Arroyo.

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Scudder Parker’s Safe as Lighting was a 2020 Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE) Award Winner for Best Poetry

Rootstock Poetry Series Editor Samantha Kolber is hosting Poetry Open Mic with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library - free to attend, both in-person and via Zoom!

Readers will have 5 minutes, sign up at the door. Spectators welcome, and poets with new books may bring copies to sell after the readings.

Attendees joining via Zoom will need to register in advance.

In-person attendees will gather in the Hayes Room. Mask wearing, regardless of vaccination status is strongly recommended in the library and at library programs.

Join us on Crowdcast on Thursday, July 29 at 7 PM for a Book Talk with Celia Jeffries, author of Blue Desert. Joining us in conversation is Ellen Meeropol, author of Her Sister’s Tattoo. 

Questions about joining an online event? Email events@odysseybks.com for more info. This event is free and open to the public. To register, please click here.

Join the Sierra Club in a virtual discussion with Celia Ryker, author of Walking Home Trails Stories. Free and open to the public.

Register here: https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=7013q000002Ez6nAAC

Celia Ryker’s Walking Home: Trail Stories is about more than mud, sweat, and blisters while distance hiking the Long Trail. Reminiscent of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Ryker’s mind wanders as her legs carry her forward, beyond a woodland path, to places and people she thought she had forgotten. Her grandmother’s spirit appears on Mount Baker. A lost cousin waits for her at the bottom of every ladder. Her late father’s words reverberate among the calls of barred owls. There were days when she didn’t see another hiker, but she was never alone. Celia began writing about a difficult hike and ended up writing about the people who inspired her throughout her life. These are her “trail stories.”

Celia Ryker’s Michigan Virtual Book Launch at the Brandon Library in Ortonville, Michigan. This will be a virtual reading and talk with a power-point of trail images. Celia will be talking about the Michigan trails she discovered while preparing for the Long Trail. Walk with the author on Saturday at Ortonville State Recreation Area on July 10 at 10 am. Books will be available through Fenton’s Open Book in Fenton, MI.

Register for the virtual event here: https://www.brandonlibrary.org/event/hiking-in-michigan/

Celia Ryker talks about her memoir, Walking Home: Trail Stories, a series of short stories about her difficult time thru-hiking The Long Trail. This will be an outdoor event under a tent.

Free and open to the public. Learn more: http://rochestervtpubliclibrary.com/

This is the official book launch party for An Everyday Cult. Join author Gerette Buglion and Sarah Edmondson, Canadian actress and author of the Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life, who wrote the foreword.

Please complete the RSVP form below. Upon completion of this form, you will receive reminders about the launch, and a Zoom link shortly before the event.

RSVP: https://forms.gle/qCELyhnWeDbLQDGf9

The Norwich Public Library hosts Rick Winston for a virtual author talk about “Red Scare in the Green Mountains.” Free and open to the public. Learn more at https://www.norwichlibrary.org.