March 2017 Special Event Exhibit and Talk With Humorist Dr. Gina Barreca Expressive Women of NAWA Join us for this special event that is being Penny Dell, award-wining artist and past sponsored by the Ridgefield League of president of the National Association of Women Voters and the Ridgefield Library Women Artists, Inc., will give a talk about in honor of Women's History Month. Dr. the history and current mission of NAWA. Gina Barreca is a syndicated columnist Dell will talk about some of the early for the Tribune News Service and most members of the organization and how it was recently author of If You Lean In Will Men founded and developed since 1889. Just Look Down Your Blouse? Questions and Thoughts for Noteworthy NAWA members have included Mary Cassatt, Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times. Barreca is Cecelia Beaux, Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel and Dorothy professor of English literature and feminist theory at the Dehner. A juried exhibit by current members of NAWA will University of CT and has appeared on 20/20,The Today be on display at the Library throughout March. Show, CNN, the BBC, Dr. Phil, NPR and Oprah. Talk: Sunday, March 5, 2 PM Saturday, March 4, 2 PM Reception: Sunday, March 5, 3 - 5 PM Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Register for Talk ridgefieldlibrary.org Author Talks The Ethics of Sports An Afternoon of Mystery with Dr. Arthur Caplan with Dr. Jean Cullander and Dorothy Hayes Dr. Arthur Caplan is a Professor of Bioethics and Director Join us as two local authors, Jean of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Cullander and Dorothy Hayes discuss their Center. He is the co-founder of the NYU Sports and Society recently released mystery novels. Program. He has served on the special advisory committee to the International Olympic Committee on genetics and Cullander’s first novel The Train to Skeleton gene therapy and the FIFA special advisory committee on Coast was a finalist in the international Eludia the use of technology in allowing athletes to adapt to 2015 book award competition. Dorothy altitude and other environmental challenges. He has also Hayes’ latest novel in the Carol Rossi Mystery written extensively about medical and political ethics. series is Keys to Nowhere. Wednesday, March 1, 7 PM Saturday, March 11, 2 PM Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Say Nothing Pleasures and Perils of Writing a Novel with Brad Parks with Alice Mattison The Library and Books on the Common are For anyone who is thinking about writing a novel, has written pleased to welcome back author Brad Parks to one novel or many, or enjoys reading novels but prefers to discuss Say Nothing, his latest heart-pounding leave the writing to others, Alice Mattison will discuss what domestic thriller that has already garnered may go right and wrong when you are the lucky and cursed praise from greats like Lee Child, Sue Grafton, Joseph person with an impulse you can’t ignore to write a book-length Finder and Jeffery Deaver. Parks is a former reporter for work of fiction. Her new book is The Kite and the String: How The Washington Post and The Star-Ledger and the only to Write with Spontaneity and Control—and Live to Tell the author to have won the Shamus, Nero, and Lefty Awards, Tale. Alice is also the author of six novels and four collections three of crime fiction’s most prestigious prizes. of short stories. She lives in New Haven and teaches fiction in the MFA program at Bennington College. Friday, March 17, 7 PM Thursday, March 23, 7:00 PM Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Parenting series skillsbox All Our Children: Understanding Simple Steps for Starting Your Business the LGBTQ World Want to start a business but don’t know where with Cathy Plourde to begin? This 5-part workshop, conducted by a Cathy Plourde, MA, author, educator and editor of Out team of professionals from SCORE's Norwalk and Allied: An Anthology of Performance Pieces Written by and Western CT Chapters, will give you the LGBTQ Youths and Allies will speak. There will also be boost to get you on your way! student performers from Ridgefield High School. Attendees are expected to attend all five sessions and those who attend at least four classes will be given a certificate of The program is part of Raising the Selfie Generation series class completion. Check-in is at 5:45 PM; the programs start and will help our community understand the differences in promptly at 6:00 PM. Snacks will be served. This program is gender and sexual orientation; underscore the importance part of the Skillsbox: Tools for Business Success series of open, honest dialogue in families, schools, organizations sponsored by the Library, Ridgefield Chamber of and faith-based communities; and develop strategies to Commerce and SCORE. Dates: Monday, February 27, talk with teens about acceptance and tolerance. March 6, 13, 20 and 27. (Snow dates the following day) Thursday, March 9, 7 PM 5 Mondays Starting February 27, 6 PM Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org artalk Community Sing-a-long The Light and the Life Join us for Community Sing-a-long. If you play a portable in- strument feel free to bring it along! Musical hosts are Edwin with Joe McNally and Faith Taylor and Deborah Katchko-Gray. Songbooks Joe McNally is an award-winning are provided. photographer whose career has spanned Sunday, March 26, 3 PM more than 35 years. He has been an No registration ongoing contributor to National Geographic and a contract photographer for Sports Illustrated. He has also shot cover stories for TIME, Newsweek, Fortune, The New York Times Fiction Writing Workshop Sunday Magazine and more. His prints are in numerous with Kim Kovach collections, most significantly the National Portrait Gallery New writers and those with more experience can learn how to of the United States and National September 11 Memorial make fiction writing come alive in this 5-week fiction writing & Museum. course. Dates: March 29, April 5, 19, 26 and May 3. Sunday, March 12, 2 PM Wednesday, March 29, 10:30 AM Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Meet Your Legislators Learn through film with John Frey, Michael Ferguson How Do We Treat Addiction? and Toni Boucher We are currently experiencing a prescription painkiller and Meet Your Legislators at this public event where heroin overdose epidemic. Join us for screenings of powerful Ridgefield’s state representatives John Frey and Michael films along with discussion. This series is presented by the Ferguson and state senator Toni Boucher will give a Library, L & L Media and Western CT State University report on the state of the budget-making process and on the with support from the Ridgefield Prevention Council. current legislation before the Connecticut General The Anonymous People Assembly. Those attending will learn more about where these legislators stand on important issues and have The Anonymous People, a documentary an opportunity to ask questions about the proposed budget created by a Danbury native, puts forth a and legislation coming up at the Connecticut State Capitol. radical concept about how those with long- Light refreshments will be served. term recovery can help dispel the stigma of addiction for those who still suffer. Greg Co-sponsored by the Ridgefield League of Women Voters Williams, the film’s Director, and Jeffrey and the Ridgefield Library. Earls from Family Reentry will moderate. Saturday, March 11, 10:30 AM Thursday, March 16, 7 PM Registration suggested at ridgefieldlibrary.org Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org Library Book Groups - New Readers welcome! MURDER BY THE BOOK FOUNDERS HALL CRITICS’ CIRCLE commissions artwork to Thursday, March 2 BOOK GROUP BOOK GROUP illustrate a book glorifying 10:30 AM Thursday, March 9 Tuesday, March 21 his master the Sultan – and Hit Man 3:00 PM 7:00 PM then turns up dead. by Lawrence Block The Marriage of The Golden Age Opposites: A Novel Based by Joan London John Keller is a contract on the Life of Rachel In the 1940s, thirteen-year- killer who is going through Pizzaro old Frank Gold’s family a personal and professional by Alice Hoffman escape the perils of World mid-life crisis, while War II to the safety of continuing to accept work Open to all members of Australia. Not long after doing what he is so good at – Founders Hall. their arrival Frank is killing people for hire, in diagnosed with polio and POETRY DISCUSSION this collection of linked sent to a children’s hospital GROUP stories that inaugurates the called The Golden Age, Friday, March 24 darkly sardonic series from where he meets Elsa. The 1:00 PM the prolific writer. two fall in love, fueling one Poems of Jorge Luis another’s rehabilitation and Borges NONFICTIONEERS facing the perils of polio and with Dr. Alan Holder March 7 adolescence hand in hand. This program is made 7:00 PM With tenderness and humor, possible thanks to the The Best and the The Golden Age tells a Friends of the Library. Brightest deeply moving story about by David Halberstam illness and recovery. (February 7 Chapters 1-16; LIVE IN HD @ March 7 Chapter 17 to end) BOOKS & A.M. BOOK GROUP RIDGEFIELD BREAKFAST Wednesday, March 22 Monday, March 13 A rich, entertaining, and 10:00 AM PLAYHOUSE profound reading 10:30 AM My Name Is Red Metropolitan Opera, National experience. "--The New York by Orhan Pamuk Theatre of London and the Times "[The] most Bolshoi Ballet on the big comprehensive saga of how The Nobel Prize laureate screen! Ridgefield Library America became involved in spins a tale that is part card holders now receive the Vietnam.