Join financial advisor Marta Haydym-Silver and estate planning attorney Alex Jackson as they lead participants through the basics of estate planning.

Workshop topics will include:

• Account registration
• Designating a beneficiary for your estate
• Creating and updating your will and/or trust
• Tax information
• Life insurance
• Transfer on death (TOD)

There will also be time for a Q&A with the experts. This workshop is free and open to the public. Questions? Call the library at 207-633-3112.

Want to join the workshop virtually? Click here to join via Zoom starting ten minutes before the program start time.

Author Talk with Anne Gass

We Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip

Friday, April 28 at  2:00 p.m. in the Great Room

Join us in the Great Room to hear author Anne Gass discuss her new historical novel.

Anne Gass is the author of We Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip, an historical fiction novel based on the true story of a 1915 road trip for the suffrage cause. It is illustrated by her daughter, Emma Leavitt of Solei Arts. Anne is a “women’s rights history activist” who loves sharing what she’s learned about this rich history with others, hoping to inspire their activism!

About the book:

Middle-aged Swedish immigrants Ingeborg Kindstedt and Maria Kindberg visit San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition in the summer of 1915, planning to buy a car and have a leisurely drive back to their home in Rhode Island. On impulse, they volunteer to bring along two envoys heading to Washington, DC to demand votes for women from President Woodrow Wilson and Congress. Soon they are plunged into a difficult and dangerous journey that pushes them to the very limits of their endurance. Over primitive, poorly-signed roads and through blazing heat, biting cold, rain, and snow, they battle their way across the country.

Along the way they encounter unexpected allies, as well as those who oppose women’s growing independence. They meet labor activist Joe Hill, Black suffrage and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells Barnett, and civil rights attorney Clarence Darrow. Their faith in their adopted country is tested as they grapple with America’s racial politics, and see growing intolerance toward immigrants and working people. Will they- and the petitions- surmount these obstacles and arrive in Washington DC at the appointed day and time?

Saturday, April 22, 2023
10:00 a.m.—1:00 p.m. on the Library Lawn

Join us for an afternoon of learning and fun on the library lawn in honor of our amazing planet! All are welcome at this free community event.

Learn, craft, and celebrate with our
community partners all afternoon!

Bigelow Laboratory
What sea creature stands on its head and eats with its feet? Come find out and visit scientists from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Bigelow Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit research institute located on the Damariscotta River estuary in East Boothbay. Our research ranges from the microscopic life at the bottom of marine food webs to large-scale ocean processes that affect the entire globe.

Boothbay Region Amateur Radio Station
Ham Radio operator and library friend Al Sirois, along with other Hams from the region, will set up a portable station on the lawn. Patrons of all ages will be able to initiate and receive calls to and from amateur radio operators all over the world.

Boothbay Sea & Science Center
When our hands touch the sea! BSSC invites one and all to join them in creating unique works of art using oyster shells and seaweed grown in the Damariscotta River. Take home lifelong treasures and a gentle reminder of why we need to take good care of our beautiful oceans!

Veggies To Table
At Veggies To Table, we grow a wide array of top-quality organic produce and flowers to donate to local folks experiencing hunger and needing joy, create lasting community connections through our volunteer program, and provide education around healthy food and sustainable living. We are excited to see you all at Earth Day!  We are busy starting our seeds inside as our 5th season has officially begun. Please stop by and learn about our non profit and how it directly impacts the Boothbay Peninsula.  We will have our usual market items, including aprons, hats, reusable shopping bags, soaps and note pads. We launched our dahlia sales this year and may bring a limited supply for sale (or feel free to check our website veggiestotable.org for dahlia availability). We will have sign ups for summer volunteering at the farm in Newcastle as well as information on our Corporate Sponsorship program. It is only through donors and sponsors that we can feed those that are food insecure in our region. Our farm has donated over 44,500 pounds (37,083 meals) of organic produce and over 43,400 flowers to over 35 local organizations and families with the help of over 350 volunteers and our crew. We welcome you to be a part of the solution to food insecurity.  We will be raffling off a bundle of seed packets so that you can start your own garden, as well as a V2T Baseball Hat & Apron.

Thursday, Apr 13, 2023 – 11:00 a.m. in the Great Room

Recently, Morgan Talty, author of Night of the Living Rez, gave a shout-out to short-story cycles on Maine Public Radio’s Maine Calling, noting that they’re an increasingly popular genre of fiction. But why? What exactly is a short-story cycle? What are its characteristics, and what advantages—and challenges—does it offer readers? And if you’re intrigued by the possibility of writing one, how might you begin?

Join Rockport author Laura Bonazzoli to explore these and other questions you might have about this fascinating genre. Laura will also read excerpts from her own short-story cycle, Consecration Pond, which was described by Publishers Weekly as “a solid, meditative collection of interconnected short stories that weave together seemingly disparate narratives into a satisfying and cohesive whole.”

Consecration Pond was published by indie press Toad Hall Editions in August 2022, and is available at local bookstores and directly from the publisher at toadhalleditions.ink. Books will also be available at the event.

BIO

Laura Bonazzoli’s fiction has appeared in Evening Street Review, Exposition Review, The Sandy River Review, and many other publications. She has also published poetry and personal essays in dozens of literary magazines and several anthologies. After the publication of her stories “Prayer of the Bell” and “Spring Ice,” she began working on a collection of linked stories that all take place on a pond in Maine. That collection became the short-story cycle, Consecration Pond.

Questions? Call the library at 207-633-3112 or email Bethany at tech@bbhlibrary.org.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023, 1:00 p.m. in the Great Room.

Join us for our next Tech Talk with the library’s Technology Manager, Bethany.

We’ll walk through deleting old files from your computers and unused apps from your smartphone. We’ll learn how to safely unsubscribe from junk mail and learn simple ways to keep files, photos and emails more organized. We’ll also go over the basics of Cloud storage.

Bring your own computer and/or smart device. This program is for all ages and levels of tech savviness. Questions? Call the library at 207-633-3112 or email Bethany at tech@bbhlibrary.org.

We are thrilled to welcome the Maine Humanities Council back for its sixth year at BHML! This year’s Discussion Project dives into books that focus on a central object.

Reading List:

• The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
• People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
• All That She Carried by Tiya Miles
• The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson

Register soon as space in the discussion is limited. Please call the library to register (207-633-3112) or register online.

Registrants must be prepared and able to attend all four book discussions (Saturday – March 18, April 15, May 20, & June 17). Discussions will take place in person, 1:00 p.m. in the Great Room.

Literary Lunch with
Brandon Ying Kit Boey

Karma of the Sun

Friday, March 3 at noon in the Great Room

Join us in the Great Room for a fun & informal lunch gathering with Maine Author Brandon Ying Kit Boey.

Seating registration is free (bring your own lunch) or choose a specialty lunch catered by Eventide for $12. Register by Wednesday, March 1 in-person or by calling the library at 207-633-3112. Sign up early as space is limited.

Brandon Ying Kit Boey is a novelist, poet, and lawyer living in the State of Maine, United States of America. He was born in California, but grew up transiently, cycling through a series of homes, hotels, and schools before settling in Maine with his family. He was educated at New York University and Brigham Young University Law School, and has worked as a child actor, intern at Marvel, investment banker, and lawyer, among other things—the one constant occupation being writing.

Book description:

In the isolation of the Himalayas, the snows still fall, but they are tinged with the ash of a nuclear winter; the winds still blow, but they wail with the cry of ghosts. The seventh and final blast is near. As the world heaves its final breaths, the people of the Tibetan plateau—civilization’s final survivors—are haunted by spirits and terrorized by warlords. Though the last of the seven prophesied cataclysms is at hand, young Karma searches for a father who disappeared ten years earlier, presumed dead. Driven by a yearning to see his father again before the end, and called by an eerie horn unheard by anyone else, Karma forges into the Himalayas and discovers that his father’s disappearance may be linked to a mystical mountain said to connect the physical world with the spirit lands—and a possible way to save their doomed future.

“A hero’s journey for the end of the world, KARMA OF THE SUN is a must-read for anyone reckoning with where we are now and where we will go next.”

Erin Swan, author of Walk the Vanished Earth

Selected Book Reviews: