On Wednesdays, the Writing Room meets virtually. In-person meetings have resumed for Saturday sessions.

On these mornings we will meet via videoconference at our regular time: 9:30-12:30, using the exact same structure as we would if we were gathered around the table in the Watson Room at Forbes. The only difference will be that we will be connecting by videoconference, rather than face-to-face.

Here's all you need to join the Writing Room via Videoconference:

• Join us in the Virtual Writing Room on Zoom.  
• I will come online 15 minutes before our starting time (at 9:15) to answer any questions you might have. 
• You will have the option to have your camera off or on, so you can join however you feel most comfortable.
• The sessions will NOT be recorded, and you have the option to be visible or not, so your privacy will be preserved just as it would if we were meeting at the library.

How the Writing Room Works: each session opens at 9:30 sharp with brief hellos, followed by the pleasure of getting work done in the company of others. At 11:45 we check in about how the work went and make announcements. At (roughly) 12, anyone who wishes to read for the group does briefly, without critique or spoken response. We're done by 12:30.

Writers are welcome to come for all or part of the session. No need to register in advance. 

One of the purposes of a cover letter is to set you apart from the rest of the job seekers. During this interactive workshop learn how to grab an employer’s attention and target their needs. Details on how to structure this type of business letter will be covered. Cover letter examples and a cover letter handout will be available for viewing and saving for future reference.

Register by calling the Greenfield office at 800-457-2603 or 413-774-4361, or sign in to JobQuest, by Wednesday morning. This will be a “hybrid” workshop, so choose the virtual or in-person option. Walk-ins are also welcome. Instructions on how to join the webinar virtually will be provided separately by email.

Please register to attend this virtual author talk.

You’re invited to join Nina Simon online as she chats about her lighthearted whodunnit about a grandmother-mother-daughter trio of amateur sleuths, Mother-Daughter Murder Night. 

Mother-Daughter Murder Night follows high-powered business woman Lana Rubicon. She has a lot to be proud of with her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the L.A. real estate empire she’s built. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage—and hoping that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does. 

In a turn of events, when Jack happens upon a dead body while kayaking she quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation, and the Rubicon women are thrown into chaos. Beth thinks Lana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She’ll pull on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family, and prove she still has power. With Jack and Beth’s help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas, and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers. But as their amateur snooping advances into ever-more dangerous territory, the headstrong Rubicon women must learn to do the one thing they’ve always resisted: depend on each other.

Harness your inner detective and sign up for the investigation.

About the Author: Nina Simon writes crime fiction about strong women. She is the New York Times-bestselling debut author of Mother-Daughter Murder Night. This big-hearted whodunnit is a Reese's Book Club pick and a "best of 2023" selection for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, CrimeReads, and LibraryJournal.

Before turning to fiction, Nina wore many hats: NASA engineer, slam poet, game designer, museum director, and nonprofit CEO. Her work on community participation in museums, libraries, parks, and theaters has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, NPR, and the TEDx stage. Mother-Daughter Murder Night is Nina’s first novel. She wrote it as a love letter to her mother, as a way to entertain, comfort, and connect with her during a major health crisis. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nina now lives off-the-grid in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her family. More information can be found on her website, ninaksimon.com.

This program is presented by the Library Speakers Consortium.

This is an inviting program for learning in a friendly and
relaxed atmosphere through weekly Zoom sessions.
Sessions (which start promptly) are from 3-4:30 PM and include advanced conversation and text anaylsis.
Electronic devises are not permited during the classes.
For more information and zoom link, email Silvia at garabato.m7@gmail.com

Este es un programa diseñado para practicar y mejorar el idioma usando distintos temas de comunicación,
como literatura, análisis y conversación.
Es un grupo de inmersión y por esta razón sólo se habla en españnol, sin la ayuda de ningún aparato
electrónico durante el tiempo de clase.

We'll be reading Time Shelter by Georgi Gapadinov. Request a copy of this book by placing a hold. 

About the book: 

An award-winning international sensation-with a second-act dystopian twist-Time Shelter is a tour de force set in a world clamoring for the past before it forgets.

"At one point they tried to calculate when time began, when exactly the earth had been created," begins Time Shelter's enigmatic narrator, who will go unnamed. "In the mid-seventeenth century, the Irish bishop Ussher calculated not only the exact year, but also a starting date: October 22, 4,004 years before Christ." But for our narrator, time as he knows it begins when he meets Gaustine, a "vagrant in time" who has distanced his life from contemporary reality by reading old news, wearing tattered old clothes, and haunting the lost avenues of the twentieth century. In an apricot-colored building in Zurich, surrounded by curiously planted forget-me-nots, Gaustine has opened the first "clinic for the past," an institution that offers an inspired treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces a past decade in minute detail, allowing patients to transport themselves back in time to unlock what is left of their fading memories. Serving as Gaustine's assistant, the narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to nostalgic scents and even wisps of afternoon light. But as the charade becomes more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic to escape from the dead-end of their daily lives-a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present. Through sharply satirical, labyrinth-like vignettes reminiscent of Italo Calvino and Franz Kafka, the narrator recounts in breathtaking prose just how he became entrenched in a plot to stop time itself. "A trickster at heart, and often very funny" (Garth Greenwell, The New Yorker), prolific Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov masterfully stalks the tragedies of the last century, including our own, in what becomes a haunting and eerily prescient novel teeming with ideas. Exquisitely translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter is a truly unforgettable classic from "one of Europe's most fascinating and irreplaceable novelists

Literary minded discussion. Open to new members. Join us in person or join via Zoom!

--

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 914 8618 6242
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Join us this Tuesday for a discussion of the poetry of Eleanor Wilner: 

• Biography of Eleanor Wilner (Poetry Foundation)
• Eleanor Wilner Poetry Reading (YouTube)
• "Fire from an Open Hand: An Interview with Eleanor Wilner" by Julie Swarstad Johnson (Harvard Review)
• Eleanor Wilner (Wikipedia)
   

Zoom meeting link

Meeting ID: 896 9249 9767
Passcode: 254365

This weekly poetry discussion group is open to everyone including regulars and drop-ins. All voices are honored: first-time poetry readers and life-long devotees. 

Each week, the group convenes to discuss the work of a particular poet, usually contemporary, and sometimes one reading in the area.  No prior reading or preparation required. Email hfaerstein AT aol.com to join the weekly mailing list.

On Wednesdays, the Writing Room meets virtually. In-person meetings have resumed for Saturday sessions.

On these mornings we will meet via videoconference at our regular time: 9:30-12:30, using the exact same structure as we would if we were gathered around the table in the Watson Room at Forbes. The only difference will be that we will be connecting by videoconference, rather than face-to-face.

Here's all you need to join the Writing Room via Videoconference:

• Join us in the Virtual Writing Room on Zoom.  
• I will come online 15 minutes before our starting time (at 9:15) to answer any questions you might have. 
• You will have the option to have your camera off or on, so you can join however you feel most comfortable.
• The sessions will NOT be recorded, and you have the option to be visible or not, so your privacy will be preserved just as it would if we were meeting at the library.

How the Writing Room Works: each session opens at 9:30 sharp with brief hellos, followed by the pleasure of getting work done in the company of others. At 11:45 we check in about how the work went and make announcements. At (roughly) 12, anyone who wishes to read for the group does briefly, without critique or spoken response. We're done by 12:30.

Writers are welcome to come for all or part of the session. No need to register in advance. 

Experts from the Consumer Protection Unit at the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office explain how you can build credit and improve your credit score. They will also provide tips on dealing with debt and the debt collectors.

Register by calling the Greenfield office at 800-457-2603 or 413-774-4361, or sign in to JobQuest, by Wednesday morning. This will be a “hybrid” workshop, so choose the virtual or in-person option. Walk-ins are also welcome. Instructions on how to join the webinar virtually will be provided separately by email.

Please contact facilitator Hilary Caws-Elwitt for updated meeting info.

The Nature and Environment Book Club is devoted to the best of nature writing and environmental reporting with discussions on the second Wednesday of each month. Readers and writers interested in books ranging from such classics as Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek to topical reportage like Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction will want to join the conversation.

This month's book is Fen, Bog and Swamp by Annie Proulx.

Get a copy from the library by placing a hold.

About the book:

A lifelong acolyte of the natural world, Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important role they play in preserving the environment-by storing the carbon emissions that accelerate climate change. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are crucial to the earth's survival, and in four illuminating parts, Proulx documents their systemic destruction in pursuit of profit. In a vivid and revelatory journey through history, Proulx describes the fens of 16th-century England, Canada's Hudson Bay lowlands, Russia's Great Vasyugan Mire, and America's Okeefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. She introduces the early explorers who launched the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and writes of the diseases spawned in the wetlands-the Ague, malaria, Marsh Fever. A sobering look at the degradation of wetlands over centuries and the serious ecological consequences, this is "an unforgettable and unflinching tour of past and present, fixed on a subject that could not be more important." (Bill McKibben)

This month's book is The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal. You can request a copy of the book from the library catalog. 

About the book: 

The British-born Punjabi Shergill sisters--Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirnia--were never close and barely got along growing up, and now as adults, have grown even further apart. Rajni, a school principal is a stickler for order. Jezmeen, a thirty-year-old struggling actress, fears her big break may never come. Shirina, the peacemaking "good" sister married into wealth and enjoys a picture-perfect life. On her deathbed, their mother voices one last wish: that her daughters will make a pilgrimage together to the Golden Temple in Amritsar to carry out her final rites. After a trip to India with her mother long ago, Rajni vowed never to return. But she's always been a dutiful daughter, and cannot, even now, refuse her mother's request. Jezmeen has just been publicly fired from her television job, so the trip to India is a welcome break to help her pick up the pieces of her broken career. Shirina's in-laws are pushing her to make a pivotal decision about her married life; time away will help her decide whether to meekly obey, or to bravely stand up for herself for the first time. Arriving in India, these sisters will make unexpected discoveries about themselves, their mother, and their lives--and learn the real story behind the trip Rajni took with their Mother long ago--a momentous journey that resulted in Mum never being able to return to India again.

This is a hyrbid meeting -- so you can either join us on Zoom or in the Watson Room this month!

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Passcode: 188946
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This month we will discuss: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriett A. Jacobs. 

 You can request this title from our catalog. 

About the book:

The true story of an individual's struggle for self-identity, self-preservation, and freedom, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl remains among the few extant slave narratives written by a woman. This autobiographical account chronicles the remarkable odyssey of Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to liberty and reunion with her children in the North.
Written and published in 1861 after Jacobs' harrowing escape from a vile and predatory master, the memoir delivers a powerful and unflinching portrayal of the abuses and hypocrisy of the master-slave relationship. Jacobs writes frankly of the horrors she suffered as a slave, her eventual escape after several unsuccessful attempts, and her seven years in self-imposed exile, hiding in a coffin-like "garret" attached to her grandmother's porch.
A rare firsthand account of a courageous woman's determination and endurance, this inspirational story also represents a valuable historical record of the continuing battle for freedom and the preservation of family.

We strive to learn more about the world outside our own bubbles. We read both nonfiction and fiction on timely topics and in our discussions try to challenge our own assumptions without judging one another.

Join us on Zoom! 

We will be hosting a hybrid meeting, so you can also attend in person in the Watson Room at Forbes. 

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 936 2007 0920
Passcode: 340325
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Meeting ID: 936 2007 0920
Passcode: 340325
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcnCepHoM3

Get your Happily Ever After fix from the [Springfield City Library] Romance Book Club!

ONLINE via Zoom Saturdays once a month | 10:00-11:00 AM | Adults

Join us for the Romance Book Club!

We read as many romance genres as we can, sharing our thoughts and expanding our romance reading experience. As long as it has a Happily Ever After, it’s fair game.

Each month we choose the book for the following month.

For more information, this month's pick, and to register (optional), visit our friends at Springfield City Library

Future dates:
June 1
July 13
August 10
September 7
October 5
November 2
December 14

This is an inviting program for learning in a friendly and
relaxed atmosphere through weekly Zoom sessions.
Sessions (which start promptly) are from 3-4:30 PM and include advanced conversation and text anaylsis.
Electronic devises are not permited during the classes.
For more information and zoom link, email Silvia at garabato.m7@gmail.com

Este es un programa diseñado para practicar y mejorar el idioma usando distintos temas de comunicación,
como literatura, análisis y conversación.
Es un grupo de inmersión y por esta razón sólo se habla en españnol, sin la ayuda de ningún aparato
electrónico durante el tiempo de clase.

Please contact facilitator Hilary Caws-Elwitt for updated meeting info.

This month's selection is The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson.  

Place a hold on The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. 

About the book: 

The Great Books discussion is structured so that the evening’s selected reading is discussed in a think tank environment with the intention of gaining insight from other readers that one would not have by reading alone. The seminar facilitator asks questions of the participants about the reading selection and helps the discussion stay focused. Our main goal is to have fun and take many interpretations from the group in order to enjoy a greater understanding of a selected reading.

Discussions are open to everyone and free of charge.  For a list of past and future discussion books and to contact the group visit, http://mail.salticid.com/mailman/listinfo/forbes_great_books_salticid.com.

About the facilitator:

Hilary Caws-Elwitt has her BA in English & American Literature from Harvard, MLS from University of Arizona, and ran Susquehanna County Reads for its first 4 years. But mostly she loves reading and discussing the books!

Please register to attend this virtual author talk.

We welcome you to register for a thrilling conversation with Rebecca F. Kuang (R.F. Kuang) as she chats with us about her New York Times bestselling novel, Yellowface. Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media.

In Yellowface, authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

White lies, dark humor, and deadly consequences await within the pages of Yellowface. With its totally immersive first-person voice, Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable. 

About the Author: Rebecca F. Kuang is the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, and Yellowface. A Marshall Scholar, she has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale, where she studies diaspora, contemporary Chinese literature, and Asian American literature.

This program is presented by the Library Speakers Consortium.

The Forbes Library Accessibility Advisory Board is made up of local disability and accessibility experts and community members with disabilities. Anyone with an interest in the accessibility of library services and events is encouraged to attend. The purpose of this board is to provide feedback to library staff with regards to programs, services and collections from the perspective of accessibility and the interests of people with disabilities.

This is a hybrid meeting. You can join us in the library or online using Zoom. Live captioning will be available. Please be in touch to request any accommodations.

If you wish to join us online, please register to receive the meeting link and password, which will be sent out two hours before the event begins. This helps keep our meeting free from trolls. No registration is required to join us in person.

Agenda to come.

On Wednesdays, the Writing Room meets virtually. In-person meetings have resumed for Saturday sessions.

On these mornings we will meet via videoconference at our regular time: 9:30-12:30, using the exact same structure as we would if we were gathered around the table in the Watson Room at Forbes. The only difference will be that we will be connecting by videoconference, rather than face-to-face.

Here's all you need to join the Writing Room via Videoconference:

• Join us in the Virtual Writing Room on Zoom.  
• I will come online 15 minutes before our starting time (at 9:15) to answer any questions you might have. 
• You will have the option to have your camera off or on, so you can join however you feel most comfortable.
• The sessions will NOT be recorded, and you have the option to be visible or not, so your privacy will be preserved just as it would if we were meeting at the library.

How the Writing Room Works: each session opens at 9:30 sharp with brief hellos, followed by the pleasure of getting work done in the company of others. At 11:45 we check in about how the work went and make announcements. At (roughly) 12, anyone who wishes to read for the group does briefly, without critique or spoken response. We're done by 12:30.

Writers are welcome to come for all or part of the session. No need to register in advance. 

Providing quality customer service may seem basic, but it is becoming a lost art. Workshop participants will learn the methods used to achieve excellent customer service, and includes how to provide in-person, phone, and online services. Working with difficult customers and handling complaints will also be covered.

Register by calling the Greenfield office at 800-457-2603 or 413-774-4361, or sign in to JobQuest, by Wednesday morning. This will be a “hybrid” workshop, so choose the virtual or in-person option. Walk-ins are also welcome. Instructions on how to join the webinar virtually will be provided separately by email.

Monthly meeting of the Trustees of Forbes Library.

Meetings are open to the public and can be attended in person at the library or through the following zoom link.

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 817 1065 5313
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The agenda will be posted a few days before the meeting on the city website. There will be a public comment period at the start of the meeting, or people can submit written comments beforehand. Written comments emailed to director@forbeslibrary.org must be received 5 business days prior to the meeting to be included for the meeting.

Past meeting minutes are available online: Minutes of Trustees’ Meetings

This is an inviting program for learning in a friendly and
relaxed atmosphere through weekly Zoom sessions.
Sessions (which start promptly) are from 3-4:30 PM and include advanced conversation and text anaylsis.
Electronic devises are not permited during the classes.
For more information and zoom link, email Silvia at garabato.m7@gmail.com

Este es un programa diseñado para practicar y mejorar el idioma usando distintos temas de comunicación,
como literatura, análisis y conversación.
Es un grupo de inmersión y por esta razón sólo se habla en españnol, sin la ayuda de ningún aparato
electrónico durante el tiempo de clase.

This month's selection is Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb. 

About the book: 

From the celebrated author of book club favorite The Violin Conspiracy: A gripping page-turner about a professor who uncovers a shocking secret about the most famous American composer of all time-that his music was stolen from a young Black composer named Josephine Reed. Determined to uncover the truth and right history's wrongs, Bern Hendricks will stop at nothing to finally give Josephine the recognition she deserves. Bern Hendricks has just received the call of a lifetime. As one of the world's preeminent experts on the famed twentieth-century composer Frederick Delaney, Bern knows everything there is to know about the man behind the music. When Mallory Roberts, a board member of the distinguished Delaney Foundation and direct descendant of the man himself, asks for Bern's help authenticating a newly discovered piece, which may be his famous lost opera, RED, he jumps at the chance. With the help of his tech-savvy acquaintance Eboni, Bern soon discovers that the truth is far more complicated than history would have them believe. In 1920s Manhattan, Josephine Reed is living on the streets and frequenting jazz clubs when she meets the struggling musician Fred Delaney. But where young Delaney struggles, Josephine soars. She's a natural prodigy who hears beautiful music in the sounds of the world around her. With Josephine as his silent partner, Delaney's career takes off-but who is the real genius here? In the present day, Bern and Eboni begin to uncover more clues that indicate Delaney may have had help in composing his most successful work. Armed with more questions than answers and caught in the crosshairs of a powerful organization who will stop at nothing to keep their secret hidden, Bern and Eboni will move heaven and earth in their dogged quest to right history's wrongs.

The Mystery Book Discussion Group meets monthly for a casual discussion. New members are always welcome. Pick up a copy of this month's discussion book at the library. Email Maureen Carney, the facilitator, for updated virtual meeting info.

On Wednesdays, the Writing Room meets virtually. In-person meetings have resumed for Saturday sessions.

On these mornings we will meet via videoconference at our regular time: 9:30-12:30, using the exact same structure as we would if we were gathered around the table in the Watson Room at Forbes. The only difference will be that we will be connecting by videoconference, rather than face-to-face.

Here's all you need to join the Writing Room via Videoconference:

• Join us in the Virtual Writing Room on Zoom.  
• I will come online 15 minutes before our starting time (at 9:15) to answer any questions you might have. 
• You will have the option to have your camera off or on, so you can join however you feel most comfortable.
• The sessions will NOT be recorded, and you have the option to be visible or not, so your privacy will be preserved just as it would if we were meeting at the library.

How the Writing Room Works: each session opens at 9:30 sharp with brief hellos, followed by the pleasure of getting work done in the company of others. At 11:45 we check in about how the work went and make announcements. At (roughly) 12, anyone who wishes to read for the group does briefly, without critique or spoken response. We're done by 12:30.

Writers are welcome to come for all or part of the session. No need to register in advance. 

You want your resume to be noticed. Learn about three types of resumes and which one will market you best; how to add value with accomplishment statements; and how to make your resume look professional. During this workshop we will teach you the best practices for resume writing and how to make yours rock. Resume Examples and a Resume Handout will be available for viewing and saving for future reference.

Register by calling the Greenfield office at 800-457-2603 or 413-774-4361, or sign in to JobQuest, by Wednesday morning. This will be a “hybrid” workshop, so choose the virtual or in-person option. Walk-ins are also welcome. Instructions on how to join the webinar virtually will be provided separately by email.

NOTE THE DATE CHANGE!

Due to Memorial Day on the 4th Monday we will meet on Wednesday May 29

The Presidential Book Group, recently concluded its first journey, reading biographies of every American president from Washington to Trump.

If you want to embark on the journey, now is your chance! The group will start anew on January 22, beginning with “Washington: A Life” by famed biographer Ron Chernow.  In this group you will deepen your understanding of the American presidency as we trace the history of the presidency, beginning with George Washington, and watching how American democracy evolved in ways the Founders never anticipated. We'll follow how presidents, both celebrated and forgotten, grappled with slavery, economics, executive power and America's role in the world. In doing so, we'll broaden our knowledge of Coolidge and where his presidency fits in the American story. 

The group meets on the 4th Monday of the month at 6:30 PM EST, which you can attend in person in the Coolidge Museum or on Zoom. Discussions will be facilitated by Bill Scher, vice president of the museum’s Standing Committee.

Email Coolidge@forbeslibrary.org to join the email list or for more information.

This is an inviting program for learning in a friendly and
relaxed atmosphere through weekly Zoom sessions.
Sessions (which start promptly) are from 3-4:30 PM and include advanced conversation and text anaylsis.
Electronic devises are not permited during the classes.
For more information and zoom link, email Silvia at garabato.m7@gmail.com

Este es un programa diseñado para practicar y mejorar el idioma usando distintos temas de comunicación,
como literatura, análisis y conversación.
Es un grupo de inmersión y por esta razón sólo se habla en españnol, sin la ayuda de ningún aparato
electrónico durante el tiempo de clase.

On Wednesdays, the Writing Room meets virtually. In-person meetings have resumed for Saturday sessions.

On these mornings we will meet via videoconference at our regular time: 9:30-12:30, using the exact same structure as we would if we were gathered around the table in the Watson Room at Forbes. The only difference will be that we will be connecting by videoconference, rather than face-to-face.

Here's all you need to join the Writing Room via Videoconference:

• Join us in the Virtual Writing Room on Zoom.  
• I will come online 15 minutes before our starting time (at 9:15) to answer any questions you might have. 
• You will have the option to have your camera off or on, so you can join however you feel most comfortable.
• The sessions will NOT be recorded, and you have the option to be visible or not, so your privacy will be preserved just as it would if we were meeting at the library.

How the Writing Room Works: each session opens at 9:30 sharp with brief hellos, followed by the pleasure of getting work done in the company of others. At 11:45 we check in about how the work went and make announcements. At (roughly) 12, anyone who wishes to read for the group does briefly, without critique or spoken response. We're done by 12:30.

Writers are welcome to come for all or part of the session. No need to register in advance. 

Join us for a chat and pick next month's read! This meeting will take place via Zoom; email mbishop@forbeslibrary.org for the meeting link. This month, we will be reading The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall. From the publisher: "Julie Murphy meets Casey McQuiston in this unforgettable queer romance about a teen girl whose foray into fantasy tabletop roleplaying brings her new confidence, true friends, and a shot at real, swoon-worthy love."

“A delightful queer coming-of-age story of first love, friendship, and self-worth. This book had my heart fluttering with feels.” —Ashley Herring Blake, award-winning author of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care