Author Talk Series: Wiebke von Carolsfeld and Jean Kwok at Boston Public Library

How to survive the unthinkable? This is the question nine-year-old Tom has to face after witnessing his parent’s murder-suicide. After the horrific event, Tom refuses to speak. At first, he moves in with his childless Aunt Sonya, but she is ill equipped to deal with the traumatized boy. Before long, Tom is forced to move again, this time to Claremont Street in downtown Toronto, where he shares a run-down house with his mercurial Aunt Rose and his reckless yet endearing Uncle Will. As the seasons change, Tom’s silence becomes a powerful presence, allowing this fractured family to hear one another for the first time— and for Tom to finally find a home. Claremont is a gripping story of one family’s journey through grief and toward healing.

Wiebke von Carolsfeld is a Montreal-based writer and filmmaker, who has directed three critically acclaimed feature films (Marion Bridge, starring Molly Parker and introducing Ellen Page, STAY with Taylor Schilling and Aidan Quinn; and The Saver, introducing Imagyn Cardinal). Her films have been distributed theatrically across Canada, the US and beyond, winning numerous awards, including Best First Feature at TIFF, in Sudbury and in Verona, inclusion in Canada’s Top Ten, Best Screenplay from the Chlotrudis Society along with nominations from the Canadian Screen Awards, the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild of Canada and the American Indian Film Institute. She is also a renowned feature film editor and has taught internationally classes on screenwriting, filmmaking as well as the creative process general. Claremont is her first novel.

A deeply moving story of family, secrets, identity, and longing, Searching for Sylvie Lee is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive portrait of an immigrant family. It is a profound exploration of the many ways culture and language can divide us and the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone—especially those we love.

Jean Kwok is the New York Times and international bestselling author of Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Her work has been published in eighteen countries and is taught in universities, colleges, and high schools across the world. She has been selected for numerous honors, including the American Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award and the Sunday Times Short Story Award international shortlist. She received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and earned an MFA from Columbia University. She is fluent in Chinese, Dutch, and English, and currently lives in the Netherlands.

Author Talk Series: Jack Cashman: An Irish Immigrant Story at Boston Public Library

Johanna Cashman and Jack McCarthy, along with over a million others, immigrated to America to escape a devastating famine. They left behind family members who faced starvation to come to a land that would give them an opportunity for a good life. They were soon made aware that they were not welcome in this new land and that every day would present a new struggle for survival. In spite of all the obstacles they encountered, including Jacks untimely death, their family grew and found success. This historical novel brings the reader through the heartwarming story of a family that overcomes adversity to thrive in America. At the same time, it details the movement in the country they left to find its own independent place in the world.

Jack Cashman is retired from a long career in business and public service in Maine. He is a long time student of Irish history, and both his father’s and mother’s ancestors emigrated from Ireland to escape the famine and settled in Salem, Massachusetts. So jack wrote his first novel about the struggles of an Irish immigrant family and Ireland’s drive for independence. Jack lives in Hampden, Maine, with his wife Betty, close to his two sons and five granddaughters.

Forty Dollars and a Brand: Book Event with Denise Kaigler at More Than Words

Join us for a Q&A facilitated by a More Than Words youth staff member and hosted by Smitty Pignatelli & Allyce Najimy. Hear Denise Kaigler’s first-hand, brand-building stories featuring JAY-Z, Will Smith, Bill Clinton, Beyoncé, and others.

Networking • Refreshments • Activities • Giveaways

This event is free and open to the public. If you would like to further support More Than Words, please purchase a ticket and set your own price! All proceeds help grow our youth job training program. Receive a copy of the book with a ticket price over $25!

Speculative Boston Reading Series: K. Chess and Max Gladstone

Speculative Boston is a quarterly event, featuring authors of scifi, fantasy, and horror of all kinds. Join us on August 1st! Our guest authors will be K. Chess and Max Gladstone, who will be talking about their latest works and the wonders of speculative fiction!

K Chess is the author of FAMOUS MEN WHO NEVER LIVED (Tin House Books, 2019). Her writing has appeared in The Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row Journal, PANK, Salon, Tor.com and other outlets. Her short stories have been honored by the Nelson Algren Literary Award and the Pushcart Prize. K earned a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from Southern Illinois University. She was awarded a W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts. She reads fiction for Quarterly West and teaches writing at GrubStreet in Boston and Rhode Island.

Max Gladstone has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia and nominated twice for the John W Campbell Best New Writer Award. Tor Books published FOUR ROADS CROSS, the fifth novel in Max’s Craft Sequence (preceded by THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO SERPENTS RISE, FULL FATHOM FIVE, and LAST FIRST SNOW) in July 2016. Max’s game CHOICE OF THE DEATHLESS was nominated for a XYZZY Award, and FULL FATHOM FIVE was nominated for the Lambda Award. His short fiction has appeared on Tor.com and in Uncanny Magazine. His most recent project is the globetrotting urban fantasy serial BOOKBURNERS, available in ebook and audio from Serial Box, and in print from Saga Press.

Tell the Tale: The Wisdom of Story

A talk with Roger Lipsey, Ph.D., author of a new biography Gurdjieff Reconsidered: The Life, the Teaching, the Legacy. Joined by special guest The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault, author of the foreword.

​“All is story,” Gurdjieff once said to a young man in his circle. “In story you make yourself known to others.”

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Story is part of every wisdom tradition, every practice tradition. Guidance and instructions about practice are typically austere: they speak to our possibilities and require understanding and perseverance. Stories are of another nature. They lighten the burden. They are precise entertainments, memories carefully preserved, little revelations. If you listen closely, they reveal the lives and character of teachers and the deep humanity they embodied. And, no less, they reveal the lives of pupils.

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G.I. Gurdjieff lived among his pupils for nearly forty years. He taught them with force, precision of word and gesture, and ready humor. As part of his unique approach to teaching, he was a consummate teller of tales — and was himself the subject of innumerable anecdotes. In this talk and exchange, Dr. Lipsey and Rev. Bourgeault will share some of these tales, and also look at teaching tales drawn from other traditions, both ancient and modern.

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Gurdjieff Reconsidered is a discerning look at Gurdjieff’s profound influence on
contemporary Western spirituality. Seventy years after his death, centers dedicated
to his teachings now quietly thrive in cities throughout the world. With new insight
and with great sensitivity, Dr. Lipsey revisits Gurdjieff’s contribution to the essential
ideas of man’s evolution and spiritual potential, a living teaching that continues to
be handed down through practice and story.

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There will be an opportunity to discuss the new biography with the author.

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Dr. Lipsey is the author of Hammarskjöld: A Life, recognized as the definitive biography of Dag Hammarskjöld, of two studies of Thomas Merton Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down: The Long Encounter with Thomas Merton and His Abbott, James Fox and Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton, and many other books and essays. Forthcoming from Shambhala Publications (winter 2020) — Politics and Conscience: Dag Hammarskjöld on the Art of Ethical Leadership.
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The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest, widely read author and retreat leader. She divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine and a demanding schedule traveling globally to further the discovery of the Christian contemplative path. She is the author of numerous books, including The Wisdom Jesus, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Holy Trinity and The Law of Three, and The Heart of Centering Prayer.

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All are welcomed.

Refreshments will be served.

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In Search of Stonewall, a Panel on LGBTQ Writing

In collaboration with the Boston Public Library and the Boston Pride Committee the Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Review will host a Stonewall 50-themed panel discussion during Boston Pride week. The Review began publishing as the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review in 1994, the year of Stonewall 25. It changed its name in 2000 as it went “worldwide.” The magazine marks its 25thanniversary amidst Stonewall 50 with a collection of its best all-time essays on the Stonewall Riots: In Search of Stonewall.

The panel will feature LGBTQ intellectuals who contributed to the anthology. In his preface Dr. Schneider notes that “because “Stonewall’ exists as a symbol of the LGBT movement quite apart from the historic event itself, the search is always on for the meaning of Stonewall …. [S]omething happened, and it happened quite rapidly and even magically after the riots, so in this sense the search for Stonewall can also be a desire to reconnect with the overpowering energy and excitement of the period.”

Participating in the Review panel discussion will be writers Amy Hoffman and Russ Lopez and historian Martha Stone. Dr. Schneider will moderate. Each will analyze the significance of Stonewall from his or her perspective.

Russ Lopez Presents the History of LGBTQ Presence in MA

Boston-based writer Russ Lopez will discuss his recently released history of the LGBTQ presence in Massachusetts, from the Pilgrims’ landing in Provincetown in 1620 through the defeat of the anti-trans referendum on the ballot in November, 2018. Mr. Lopez illustrates how LGBTQ people have been a distinctive element in the life of the Commonwealth since the 17th century, challenging gender, sexual, and social norms even in colonial days. Lopez sheds light on such interesting historical phenomena as the “Boston marriages” of the late 19th century and the legacy of “Banned in Boston” relating to things LGBTQ.

Mr. Lopez’s account reveals interesting but relatively unfamiliar facts of how LGBTQ people have participated in Massachusetts society for nearly 400 years. For example, Julia Ward Howe, author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic and a leading Boston socialite, hosted a luncheon for Irish author Oscar Wilde during his American tour in 1882. Criticized for audacity Howe took to the media to defend herself. Lopez also notes that while colonial sodomy laws were severe, no men were executed for sodomy in Massachusetts, in contrast to England and the other American colonies.

Mr. Lopez emphasizes Boston’s many firsts. The Tiffany Fair, Fantasia Fair, and the Trans Day of Remembrance had their origins in the Bay State. Most notably, Massachusetts was the first United States jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage starting in 2004. So many national LGBTQ leaders have spent time in the movement in Massachusetts that activists speak of a “Boston Mafia.”

Mr. Lopez showcases the colorful history of the LGBTQ community in a readable and engaging text. Hub of the Gay Universe is especially topical at the time of Stonewall 50.

Mitchell Zuckoff presents FALL AND RISE

Join author Mitchell Zuckoff in conversation with NPR/WBUR’s Jeremy Hobson, co-host of “Here and Now,” to discuss Zuckoff’s new book, “Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11.” As a reporter for The Boston Globe, Zuckoff wrote the lead news story on 9/11 and led a team of reporters investigating the worst terrorist attacks in American history. Now he’s written the first comprehensive, character-driven nonfiction narrative about 9/11. Already under contract to Lionsgate/3Arts for a major television event, “Fall and Rise” covers the four hijackings; the events at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and outside Shanksville, PA; and the chaotic initial military and government response, including never-before-told stories of heroism, tragedy, and survival.

Author Talk Featuring John Manuel Andriote

Public health advocate John Manuel Andriotte finds in LGBTQ history patterns of resiliency, mutual support, and community that suggest to him heroism, seldom acknowledged but enormously instructive. His book, Stonewall Strong, being released in paperback in the spring of 2019, canvasses past triumphs like the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the delisting of homosexuality as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, and the emergence of ACT UP in response to the AIDS crisis in the 1980’s. With redoubtable hope and creativity the community engineered increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage, culminating in the landmark Obergefell decision in 2015.

Mr. Andriote, who writes a blog for Psychology Today, interviews some of the leading LGBTQ intellectuals of the post-Stonewall era. From their personal stories he discerns capacities for transcending trauma that have helped ameliorate symptoms of minority stress. Among the subjects interviewed, the fiery activist and writer Larry Kramer comments that “Somewhere along the line I was able to work out that I love being gay, that it was the most important thing in my life.”

Harvard medical professor Kenneth Mayer, M.D. calls Stonewall Strong “a tour de force.” Dr. Mayer, who also is director of medical research at Boston’s Fenway Institute, says that in Stonewall Strong, Andriote “skillfully educates the reader how the lessons learned from addressing the [HIV-AIDS] epidemic have laid the foundations for a stronger, more resilient community.” He adds, “The book is well-written, compelling, and highly informative.”

Join Mr. Andriotte as he talks of the resiliency and renewal demonstrated time and again in the collective LGBTQ experience.