Join us for stories, songs, and puppets! We'll do a 20-minute storytime together, then we'll put out toys for free play and social time until 11:00. For babies under 18 months and their caregivers.

*Starting September 1, this Tech Help session will start 1 hour earlier than usual, now at 1pm.*

Do you need help using your computer, tablet, or smartphone? Did you run into a sticky software problem? Do you want to learn how to use a new piece of technology?

Come to a drop-in tech help session! Bring your device, or use one of the library's computers, to have your questions answered by a knowledgeable volunteer.

Are you curious about how to get started on a family tree or use census records to explore the history of your neighborhood or house? Book a one-on-one appointment with genealogist Brian Tabor and learn how to research using genealogy resources such as Ancestry, Heritage Quest and American Ancestors databases.  

Family History Help is held on the second week of the month:

• Tuesdays, 6-7pm
• Wednesdays, 10:30am-12pm

Email archives@forbeslibrary.org to book an appointment with Brian. 

The Hampshire Room for Local History is also open on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 10-2 for appointments and drop in research.  

Drop in and work on your knitting or crochet projects together. 

Join us this Tuesday for a poetry discussion. 

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.

Meet with staff from MassHire Franklin Hampshire Career Center each week for drop-in job seeker services. Meet in the Coolidge Museum on the library's second floor.

Staff will be available to help with:

• Career Center registration
• Job search assistance
• Job applications
• Resume and cover letter reviews
• UI assistance
• and more!

Questions about other job seeker services? Please call the MassHire Greenfield office at 413-774-4361.

Are you curious about how to get started on a family tree or use census records to explore the history of your neighborhood or house? Book a one-on-one appointment with genealogist Brian Tabor and learn how to research using genealogy resources such as Ancestry and American Ancestors databases.  

Family History Help is held on the second week of the month:

• Tuesdays, 6-7pm
• Wednesdays, 10:30am-12pm

Email archives@forbeslibrary.org to book an appointment with Brian. 

The Hampshire Room for Local History is also open on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays 10-2 for appointments and drop in research.  

Join us for a casual meet-up for tweens & teens interested in the tabletop card game Magic: The Gathering

Curious about learning how to play? Know how it works but looking for other players? Hoping to trade cards, or get help building a deck?
All are welcome! 

Bring your own cards to use if you have them, or if you don't have any - that's ok - Forbes will provide pre-made decks to use at the library. And we also have free cards to take and use for your own deck building or collecting!

This program is for ages 10+ and meets weekly, Wednesdays from 3:45-5:00 pm in the Community Room (tables are generally set up by 3:30 for folks eager to get games going!) 

Any questions, please email jvrysen@forbeslibrary.org

Drop in for part or all of these casual chess meets, every Wednesday from 5:30-7:30pm on the mezzanine. All experience levels welcome. Please bring your own set if you have one.

Can't make it in the evening? Drop in on Wednesday afternoons from 1-3pm for our afternoon session. 

*Extended through September and October!* Meet on the front lawn. This meetup will be cancelled in the event of bad weather. 

Come practice the fundamentals of juggling in a relaxed, supportive environment! This beginner-friendly meetup covers basic patterns, hand-eye coordination techniques, and fun skill-building exercises. The space also welcomes more advanced jugglers, offering opportunities to explore new tricks, share techniques, and connect with others.

Everyone is encouraged to be both a teacher and a student—this is a space to build community through play, learning, and collaboration. Led by juggling instructor Joseph Goldin.

These meetups will start June 10 and run through August 26 the end of October.

Some juggling balls will be provided, but feel free to bring your own if you have them.

Thank you to our sponsors: Gateway Fiber and A2Z Science & Toys

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 The Home Place by J. Drew Lanham. 

About the book: 

“In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored.” From these fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist and professor of ecology J. Drew Lanham.

Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina—a place “easy to pass by on the way somewhere else”—has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be “the rare bird, the oddity.”

By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South—and in America today.

Writers Ariel Delgado Dixon and Jayson Keery will read and discuss their work as part of the Readers & Writers Live series.

This event will also be livestreamed on the Forbes Library YouTube channel. Click here to view https://youtube.com/live/m10yME09BqY?feature=share

About the writers: 

Ariel Delgado Dixon was born in Trenton, New Jersey. She is the author of the novels Sourland, published in June by Random House and Don't Say We Didn't Warn You. Her writing has appeared in Kenyon Review, O Magazine, The Mississippi Review, Adroit Journal, LitHub, and elsewhere. She has received support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Yaddo, The Studios of Key West, and as a Hemingway Writer-in-Residence. She lives in Western Massachusetts where she works in farming and teaches writing. 

Sourland is a gripping, propulsive novel about succession, sex, and revenge on a California marijuana farm. “Deliciously written and compulsively readable . . . As the ex-lovers of a missing weed farmer grapple for control of her land and harvest, they contend with the force of her presence and the complexities of their own pasts,” says Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties.

Jayson Keery is based in Western Massachusetts, where they completed their MFA in poetry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They are the author of The Choice is Real (Metatron Press, 2023) and the chapbooks Sleepover Nervous (Midnight Mass Press, 2024) and Astroturf (o•blēk editions, 2022). They have been anthologized in Mundus Press’s Nocturnal Properties, Nightboat Books' We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, and Pilot Press London's A Queer Anthology of Rage. They received the 2022 Metatron Prize for Rising Authors, selected by Fariha Róisín, and the 2021 Daniel and Merrily Glosband Fellowship, selected by Wendy Xu.

This month's discussion will cover Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann.

About the book: 

One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human.

A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn’t built for all of us and of one woman’s activism—from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington—Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann’s lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society.

Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people.

As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples’ rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann’s memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

The Coolidge Museum at Forbes Library has started a new book group in 2024 to focus of reading women's history and social history.  

As her husband John met in Philadelphia to discuss forming a new nation, Abigail Adams wrote to implore him, 'I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.' Alas, it would be another 150 years before they even got the right to vote. But women were neither silent nor passive then or now.

To elevate the voices of women in American history, a new book club is being offered by the The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum. The inspiration for the club, Herstory: Women in American History, came from some members of the museum's Presidential Book Club, who expressed a desire to read more about the context of historical figures, and to hear from and about the women involved in the building of our nation. 

Selections in the book club will include biographies of women interspersed with texts on significant periods in American history. This way, book club members can place the women they read about in context and gain a fuller understanding of their challenges and achievements.

This group meets on Zoom on the 2nd Wednesday of the month at 7:30 PM 

This group is moderated by Coolidge Museum Committee members Leslie Skantz-Hodgson (Smith Vocational School Librarian) and Rob Weir (retired professor of history).  

To join the email list or for more information, email Coolidge@forbeslibrary.org

Join us for books, songs, and puppets and participate in an open-ended art activity designed to encourage creativity! Great for ages 3-5. 

A low-impact exercise class to enhance strength, increase bone density, develop flexibility, and improve balance to help prevent falls and boost overall fitness.

Exercises are done either standing or seated. Loose clothing and comfortable shoes are recommended. Space is limited; please register to attend. Registration opens 3 days before the class. 

Click here to see a list of senior centers throughout Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties where this training is held.

Healthy Bones and Balance is the result of cooperation between Community Action and RSVP.

Photo credit: RSVP

Do you need help using your computer, tablet, or smartphone? Did you run into a sticky software problem? Do you want to learn how to use a new piece of technology?

Come to a drop-in tech help session! Bring your device, or use one of the library's computers, to have your questions answered by a knowledgeable volunteer.

Flywheel Arts Collective and Forbes Library present a concert on the lawn. 

Music will begin promptly at 6:00pm and end by 8pm.

"Doors" are at 5:30, the show starts at 6 sharp.

Rain date is Sept. 17th - any postponement will be announced here by 2 pm day of the show, so check here before coming down.

Lots of space on the lawn for picnicking and playing! Bring your lawn chairs and blankets

JETTIES 

Jetties is a rock band based in conway MA. Conceived of by page while living in Ipswich, named for a now-retired bagel cafe, the music is rich with oceanic motif and classic vibes.

https://jetties.bandcamp.com/

MAL DEVISA
Mal Devisa is the songwriting, liberation, and poetry project of multifarious artist Deja Carr. Starting in 2014 and breaking through with 2016's Kiid, Mal Devisa's work spans a self-made spectrum of sound from gravitic, soulful rock to soliloquy to unabashed hip hop. Although known for her unmistakable, smoldering voice and loop-based, bass-forward compositions, Carr's talents also extend to reaches of spoken word and production, paralleled by aspirations to start both a youth foundation and Afrobeat orchestra. Such boundless inspiration is a central facet of Mal Devisa's work, whose sonically and narratively unrestrained passages teem with empathy and liberatory visions for a better world.

Join us for Toddler Storytime every Friday morning! We will sing songs, read stories, and have fun. This event is best suited for 1.5-3-year-olds and their caregivers. 

Join us for jazz on the Hess Stage, as part of the Northampton Jazz Festival's Jazz Arts Night Out!

About the musicians:

Matt Dwonszyk is a Connecticut-born, New York-based, bassist, composer, arranger, bandleader and educator. Dwonszyk began playing the electric bass at age eleven. At the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts High School, he switched to upright bass. Dwonszyk then continued his studies at the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford. After graduating with a Bachelor’s of Music in Jazz Studies from UHart, Dwonszyk obtained a Master’s of Music at SUNY Purchase College in New York. He soon began  performing at legendary jazz venues like Smalls, Smoke, Minton’s, Zinc Bar, Birdland, and the Jazz Standard.

In 2018 — the year he released his debut album, Wonderful World, — Dwonszyk toured Russia as part of the Rainy Days Jazz Festival. In 2019, he toured through Canada with the Oleg Butman Trio and in 2020 with Jonathan Barber and Vision Ahead through the West Coast. In 2022, he released A Year and a Day, recorded with his versatile, namesake ensemble, the Dwonztet. 

True to his roots, Dwonszyk’s latest album was 2024’s Donny Time: The Music of Don DePalma, an album-length tribute to Hartford’s late, great pianist — with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the DePalma Roy Scholarship.

In 2025, Dwonszyk performed and recorded in Buenos Aires, Argentina; his next album "Live at the Side Door" will be released in the fall of 2025.

Drop in and work on your knitting or crochet projects together. 

Ukulele Strum Group is a community ukulele club, part of the larger Pioneer Valley Ukulele Community (Meetup). We meet weekly at Forbes Library in Northampton to sing and play together just for the fun and joy of it, but also to improve our skills. We are ukulele enthusiasts of all levels of playing experience, including beginners. And we always welcome new members to play, sing, or just watch and listen.

Find out more about our group on our Meet-Up page.

Every Saturday from 10:30 am-1:30 pm in the Watson Room, join fellow writers for companionable writing time. The Writing Room is ongoing throughout the year (except that there are no Saturday sessions during summer). 

How the Writing Room Works: each session opens at 10:30 am sharp with brief hellos, followed by the pleasure of getting work done in the company of others. Some writers work in other parts of the library, then join us at 12:45 pm to check in about how the work went, discuss matters related to writing, and make announcements. At (roughly) 1 pm, anyone who wishes to read for the group does briefly, without critique or spoken response. We're done by 1:30 pm.

There are writing prompts on the table for those who like to use them. There are four-hour parking meters in the back of the lot. Consider bringing a sweater. Writers are welcome to come for all or part of the session.

*The Writing Room also meets virtually on Wednesday mornings via Zoom.*

Connect with your breath and align your body, mind, and spirit with a slow, grounding flow. Explore a variety of yoga postures and breathing techniques, practicing in a way that feels authentic to you. By the end of the class, you should feel more grounded and centered, with a deeper connection to yourself. All experience levels welcome. 

Saturdays in September and October, 11am-12pm:

• September 12
• September 19
• October 17
• October 24

(Rain or shine; we will move indoors into the Community Room if there’s too much rain).

Please bring: 

• A yoga mat (If you do not have a yoga mat, we will have some on hand for you to borrow)
• Water
• Sun protectant

Registration is required. Click here to register on the Sanctuary website.

Calling all current Smith students!

As part of your First Week at Smith festivities, join us on the first floor of Forbes Library (Northampton's public library) to learn what resources are available to you here as a new member of the Northampton community. We'll have snacks, a scavenger hunt, and staff who can help you sign up for a library card. Students are invited to explore the stacks, scope out their new favorite study spots, and meet Paco, the Forbes Library fish. Smithies will also have the chance to peruse the Hosmer Art Gallery and the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, both of which are on the second floor of the library. 

All Smith students can sign up for a Forbes Library card---you just need your OneCard to register! Once you have a library card, you have access to resources from libraries all over central and western Massachusetts. 

Forbes Library is conveniently located at 20 West Street, just across from the Smith College Bookstore. 

Welcome! This program is designed not only to improve language, but also to provide education about all Latin American countries including Spain and one African nation. We listen to music, view and analyze films, and use literature and history of these countries and distinct communication topics. I, Silvia,also sometimes give give homework that I will later grade. 

All levels are accepted, but as this is an immersion group we only speak in Spanish, and electronic devices are only for personal use in your homes. We should be present in the short class time, rather than being immersed in a screen.

For more information and zoom link, email Silvia at garabato.m7@gmail.com.

¡Bienvenidos! Este programa está diseñado no solo para mejorar el idioma, sino para recibir educación acerca de todos los países Latinoamericanos incluyendo a España y a un país de África. Escuchamos música, vemos y analizamos películas y usamos la literatura e historia de estos países y distintos temas de comunicación. También algunas veces yo, Silvia, doy tareas para la casa que después corrijo. 

Todos los niveles son aceptados, pero como es un grupo de inmersión sólo se habla en español y los aparatos electrónicos son únicamente para uso personal en sus casas. Debemos estar presentes en el corto tiempo de clase, en lugar de estar sumergidos dentro de una pantalla.

Para más información y el enlace de Zoom, envía un correo electrónico a Silvia en garabato.m7@gmail.com.

A low-impact exercise class to enhance strength, increase bone density, develop flexibility, and improve balance to help prevent falls and boost overall fitness.

Exercises are done either standing or seated. Loose clothing and comfortable shoes are recommended. Space is limited; please register to attend. Registration opens 3 days before the class. 

Click here to see a list of senior centers throughout Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties where this training is held.

Healthy Bones and Balance is the result of cooperation between Community Action and RSVP.

Photo credit: RSVP

Do you need help using your computer, tablet, or smartphone? Did you run into a sticky software problem? Do you want to learn how to use a new piece of technology?

Come to a drop-in tech help session with Northampton Open Media! Every Monday, 1-2:30pm. Bring your own device or use a library computer to work on your tech questions, troubleshoot issues, or work on personal projects with guidance from a NOM staff member. Whether you need help with software, apps, media creation, assistive technology or general tech advice, we are here to meet your digital needs. 

Calling all young adventurers! Our Dungeons & Dragons Club continues! Participants will sign up for four sessions at once, and will meet on the following Mondays from 3:45 - 5:15pm:  9/14, 9/28, 10/19, and 11/2. Participants must commit to all four sessions.

D&D is a great way for kids to practice collaboration, strategy, and storytelling, and we welcome participants of all experience levels. This program is for kids ages 9+, and is limited to six participants per session. Registration is necessary and opens on 9/7 at 10am.

We'll be reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Request a copy of this book by placing a hold. 

About the book: 

The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the year. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.

The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.

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

Join us for stories, songs, and puppets! We'll do a 20-minute storytime together, then we'll put out toys for free play and social time until 11:00. For babies under 18 months and their caregivers.

*Starting September 1, this Tech Help session will start 1 hour earlier than usual, now at 1pm.*

Do you need help using your computer, tablet, or smartphone? Did you run into a sticky software problem? Do you want to learn how to use a new piece of technology?

Come to a drop-in tech help session! Bring your device, or use one of the library's computers, to have your questions answered by a knowledgeable volunteer.

Join us to do a craft based on Owl Diaries: Eva and the New Teacher by Rebecca Elliott! We will meet in the Youth Programming Room. Books are available in the children's department to check out. Please email jcornick@forbeslibrary.org with any questions. 

AEIOUkes is Northampton's ukulele club. In addition to the open sessions every Saturday morning in the Coolidge Library, there are "guided sessions" on second Tuesdays. 

In these sessions, club founder Joe Blumenthal leads the group in working on new repertoire, technique and ensemble playing. These sessions lead up to a performance as part of Northampton's First Night celebration. 

Registration is required; for more information, email downtownjoeblumenthal@gmail.com.

Drop in and work on your knitting or crochet projects together. 

Join us this Tuesday for a poetry discussion. 

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.

Meet with staff from MassHire Franklin Hampshire Career Center each week for drop-in job seeker services. Meet in the Coolidge Museum on the library's second floor.

Staff will be available to help with:

• Career Center registration
• Job search assistance
• Job applications
• Resume and cover letter reviews
• UI assistance
• and more!

Questions about other job seeker services? Please call the MassHire Greenfield office at 413-774-4361.

Join us for a casual meet-up for tweens & teens interested in the tabletop card game Magic: The Gathering

Curious about learning how to play? Know how it works but looking for other players? Hoping to trade cards, or get help building a deck?
All are welcome! 

Bring your own cards to use if you have them, or if you don't have any - that's ok - Forbes will provide pre-made decks to use at the library. And we also have free cards to take and use for your own deck building or collecting!

This program is for ages 10+ and meets weekly, Wednesdays from 3:45-5:00 pm in the Community Room (tables are generally set up by 3:30 for folks eager to get games going!) 

Any questions, please email jvrysen@forbeslibrary.org

Drop in for part or all of these casual chess meets, every Wednesday from 5:30-7:30pm on the mezzanine. All experience levels welcome. Please bring your own set if you have one.

Can't make it in the evening? Drop in on Wednesday afternoons from 1-3pm for our afternoon session. 

Join us for books, songs, and puppets and participate in an open-ended art activity designed to encourage creativity! Great for ages 3-5. 

A low-impact exercise class to enhance strength, increase bone density, develop flexibility, and improve balance to help prevent falls and boost overall fitness.

Exercises are done either standing or seated. Loose clothing and comfortable shoes are recommended. Space is limited; please register to attend. Registration opens 3 days before the class. 

Click here to see a list of senior centers throughout Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties where this training is held.

Healthy Bones and Balance is the result of cooperation between Community Action and RSVP.

Photo credit: RSVP

Do you need help using your computer, tablet, or smartphone? Did you run into a sticky software problem? Do you want to learn how to use a new piece of technology?

Come to a drop-in tech help session! Bring your device, or use one of the library's computers, to have your questions answered by a knowledgeable volunteer.

Come meet with a Young Adult Career Counselor and ask us questions in areas like:

• resume review, editing & suggestions
• practice job interview questions
• job search strategies
• explore possible career pathways
• learn more about our programs

Career Counselors will be here on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Meet in the Reference Room Nook.

Join us for Toddler Storytime every Friday morning! We will sing songs, read stories, and have fun. This event is best suited for 1.5-3-year-olds and their caregivers. 

This month's book is Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane. You can request a copy of the book from the library catalog. 

About the book: 

Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days.

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

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81924408925?pwd=ZyG4eUqHNBlNTC2ZLKFijNKaFTVysh.1

Meeting ID: 819 2440 8925
Passcode: 272243

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Join us for a Beatles Singalong at Forbes Library Hess Performance Stage. All are welcome to join us as we sing some of the Beatles’ most popular hits!

Please bring a lawn chair or blanket to sit on, and a phone, if you have one, to look up popular Beatles song lyrics. Or just rely on your memory, and the voices that surround you, to come up with the words to these timeless, popular songs.

In the event of inclement weather, this event page will be updated with a rain date.

We hope to see you at the new Hess Performance Stage as we sing Beatles songs together!

Organized by Diane Alpern and the Northampton Neighbors Singalong Team

This month we will discuss Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity by Joseph Lee.

About the book:

Before Martha’s Vineyard became one of the most iconic vacation destinations in the country, it was home to the Wampanoag people. Today, as tourists flock to the idyllic beaches, the island has become increasingly unaffordable for tribal members, with nearly three-quarters now living off-island. Growing up Aquinnah Wampanoag, journalist Joseph Lee grappled with what this situation meant for his tribe, how the community can continue to grow, and more broadly, what it means to be Indigenous.

This discussion is part of the 2026 Great Reads MA program, sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Participants who register for this discussion will receive a free copy of the book (while supplies last) and be invited to a virtual Q&A with the author on September 29 at 6pm.

About the Author: Joseph Lee is an Aquinnah Wampanoag writer based in New York City. He has an MFA from Columbia University and teaches creative writing at Mercy University. His writing has been published in The Guardian, BuzzFeed News, Vox, Electric Literature, High Country News, and more. He was a Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and a Senior Indigenous Affairs Fellow at Grist. He has won multiple awards from the Indigenous Journalists Association for environmental coverage, health coverage, and beat reporting and was awarded a 2024 Silvers Grant for Work in Progress. Follow him on X at @JosephVLee and on Instagram at @Joseph.V.Lee.

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
 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/93620070920?pwd=c0tKQnorNDNqRGxFajRvWWlRNnJyQT09


Meeting ID: 936 2007 0920
Passcode: 340325
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Meeting ID: 936 2007 0920
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Drop in and work on your knitting or crochet projects together. 

Ukulele Strum Group is a community ukulele club, part of the larger Pioneer Valley Ukulele Community (Meetup). We meet weekly at Forbes Library in Northampton to sing and play together just for the fun and joy of it, but also to improve our skills. We are ukulele enthusiasts of all levels of playing experience, including beginners. And we always welcome new members to play, sing, or just watch and listen.

Find out more about our group on our Meet-Up page.

Every Saturday from 10:30 am-1:30 pm in the Watson Room, join fellow writers for companionable writing time. The Writing Room is ongoing throughout the year (except that there are no Saturday sessions during summer). 

How the Writing Room Works: each session opens at 10:30 am sharp with brief hellos, followed by the pleasure of getting work done in the company of others. Some writers work in other parts of the library, then join us at 12:45 pm to check in about how the work went, discuss matters related to writing, and make announcements. At (roughly) 1 pm, anyone who wishes to read for the group does briefly, without critique or spoken response. We're done by 1:30 pm.

There are writing prompts on the table for those who like to use them. There are four-hour parking meters in the back of the lot. Consider bringing a sweater. Writers are welcome to come for all or part of the session.

*The Writing Room also meets virtually on Wednesday mornings via Zoom.*