THE SOUTH END WRITES’ New Season Starts Tuesday, January 17, With Local Author Wendy Wunder Reading From Her Debut Novel, “The Probability Of Miracles”
Growing up in a small town in New Jersey and feeling she faced a certain kind of death by leaving the life she knew for the unknown territory of college, Wendy Wunder asked herself what it would be like to be dying at the age of eighteen. Now an author, parent, yoga teacher and city dweller, Wendy Wunder will start the new season of THE SOUTH END WRITES by reading from her debut novel, “The Probability of Miracles,” in which she explores that very question. Written from the point of view of a sixteen-year-old who has been in and out of hospitals for years fighting a fatal illness, the story of Cam Cooper is a meditation on life and death for Young Adults (15 and up) with crossover appeal to the older set.
THE SOUTH END WRITES is a program sponsored by the Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL) with the generous cooperation of the staff of the South End Branch. Previous readings have included South End luminaries like novelist Sue Miller, essayist Doug Bauer, poet Henry Cole, culinary writers Chris Kimball and Joanne Chang, filmmaker and screenwriter Alice Stone, and many others.
In addition to the January 17 reading by Wendy Wunder, the 2012 Spring Season will feature the following local writers:
JOHN SACCO, the Poet Laureate of the South End News’s Police Blotter, who for decades reported on those flaunting the rule of law, at least such as it existed in the (much rowdier) South End at the time. Sacco’s iconic and oft-repeated declaration, “The Scoundrel Was Arrested On The Spot,” lives in the heart of many Area D4 police-blotter aficionados. Retired but much missed since 2000, Sacco will talk about his days as law-and-order scribe when he once cited a man for making love to his dog and was forced to research the law on bestiality then on the books. Tuesday, February 7, 6:30 PM.
SVEN BIRKETS, essayist and literary critic, editor of AGNI literary magazine, and director of Bennington (College’s) Writing Seminars. Author of many books, literary reviews and articles, including a number on the impact of electronic media on the act of reading: Reading in a Digital Age (2010), and You Are What You Click (2010). While he does not exactly live in the South End (but in Arlington), he has important friends here… Tuesday March 6, 6:30 PM
CATHERINE WILLIS, who recently wrote a book on the history of the Boston Public Library, will talk about some of the things she discovered while researching the book, which is part of the Images of America series. Currently the Manager of Technical Services at the BPL, and the 2007 recipient of the New England Library Association’s Award for Excellence in Library Technical Services, Ms. Willis can tell you, among other things, that the idea of the BPL was first proposed by French ventriloquist Alexandre Vattemare in 1841 and that the lions flanking the staircase in the BPL’s McKim building precede those of the New York Public Library by 15 years. Tuesday, March 27, 6:30 PM
NANCY DEVILLE, an author who divides her time between Santa Monica, California, and the South End, previously wrote “Healthy, Sexy, Happy: A Thrilling Journey to the Ultimate You.” She now has come out with “Death by Supermarket,” a diatribe against the “fattening, dumbing down and poisoning of America.” Fasten your seat belts for this reading on Tuesday, April 24, 6:30 PM.
EDITH PEARLMAN, 2011 nominee of the National Book Award for her collection of new and selected stories, Binocular Vision, and the 2011 winner of the Pen/Malamud Award. Even as the author of more than 250 works of fiction and non-fiction, she describes herself as slow: “A sentence often takes an hour to compose before I throw it out. What can I do?” Find out more about her dilemma on Tuesday, May 1, 6:30 PM
LEAH HAGER COHEN, who wrote among other novels, The Grief of Others and House Lights, teaches in the low-residency MFA program at lesley University. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review and considered one of the best novelists in America by some. Tuesday, May 15, 6:30 PM
HOLIDAY JAZZ CONCERT AND POTLUCK WITH PAT LOOMIS & FRIENDS AT THE SOUTH END LIBRARY, TOMORROW, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 6:30 PM
Please join the South End Library staff and the Friends of the South End Library for the Annual Holiday Jazz Concert with Pat Loomis & Friends tomorrow, Tuesday, December 20 at 6:30 PM. The outstanding group of passionate jazz musicians will put you in the holiday mood if you’re not there yet. Bring food to share. All are welcome. Sponsored by FOSEL and the South End Library.
Alice Stone, whose gripping documentation of teenager Angelo’s life after having been adopted out of foster care mesmorized an overflowing room earlier this year, will return to the South End Library tomorrow night. Stone will give an update of new material gathered since March, and how, as a filmmaker, she may make decisions about the presentation of the surprising twists and turns of the story of Angelo’s life. Stone is raising funds to complete the film and will make an announcement about her strategy.
The evening is part of FOSEL’s series, The South End Writes, and will begin at 6:30 PM. There will be refreshments.
The South End Writes Authors’ Series will feature its first reading by a children’s book author Saturday, December 3, at 11:00 AM. Victoria Griffith, a South End resident and financial journalist, will introduce her new book which just won the Fall 2011 Parents Choice Award. “The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont” describes how Alberto, the son of a Brazilian coffee magnate who lived in Paris while his father was undergoing medical treatment, used the balloon-inspired precursor to airplanes, the “dirigible,” to run errands to and from his apartment on the Champs-Elysees. He was the first aviator to ride it around the Eiffel Tower in 1901, two years before the Wright Brothers did.
After Saturday’s reading, children will be invited to make paper airplanes and bat around balloons. Refreshments are available, too.
The South End Library is located at 685 Tremont Street, between Rutland Square and West Newton Street.
All Decks on Hand for the District 2 and At-Large City Council Candidates’ Forum at the SE Library Tomorrow, Thursday, November 3, at 6:30 PM
At-Large City Councillors and their challengers will all come to the South End Library tomorrow, Thursday, November 3, at 6:30 PM, to take part in the Candidates’ Forum sponsored by the Rutland Square Association and the Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL). The Forum will be moderated by Stephen Fox, chair of the Rutland Square Association, which straddles both Districts 2 and 7. Click here for a map of District 2.
The District 2 race features City Councillor Bill Linehan in a competitive battle with his challenger Suzanne Lee, who in an upset won the three-candidate preliminary election held in September. The at-large councillor contest is heating up as well, with four well-liked incumbents–Felix Arroyo, John Connolly, Ayanna Pressley and Stephen Murphy– facing a powerful challenger, former City Council President and previous mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty, who has made it no secret that, if elected, he plans to twist Tom Menino’s mayoral thumb as he sees it pressing on the doings of the city council. Two other at-large candidates, Sean Ryan and Will Dorcena, have been invited to attend the event as well.
The Forum will start at 6:30 PM with a half-hour focus on the District 2 candidates, who will make a brief presentation, answer questions of the moderator and respond to each other’s statements. This is to be followed by a similar line-up for the at-large candidates. The final part of the evening will be open for questions from the audience. A South End volunteer will time the answers of candidates and members of the audience to ensure fairness.
Seating is limited, and the event will start promptly at 6:30 PM. The South End Library is located at 685 Tremont Street, between West Newton Street and Rutland Square,