Author Leah Hager Cohen Explores the Unique Dimension of Sorrow Experienced by Each of her Characters in her Novel, "The Grief of Others,"

A roomful of people greeted Leah Hager Cohen on January 15 when she read at the South End branch from her latest, and highly acclaimed, novel, The Grief of Others. Introduced by author Doug Bauer, who substituted for Sue Miller, out with a bad cold, Hager Cohen started out by saying that she is happiest when writing but "second happiest' when in a library "with other library people." She read a section from the novel that harkened back to a summer vacation in a family cabin where a couple and three children from two relationships are united for the first time in years, each bringing with them an assortment of wounds and sorrows that are explored underneath the starry skies of the Adirondack mountains, a place where, as Hager Cohen described it, the lake's  black water  at night "is warmer than the air."  This is the first novel where she used physical details from places she knows well, the Adirondacks and the town of Nyack, NY, something she had resisted in her previous work, she told the spellbound audience, until her agent suggested doing otherwise for this novel.

Author Leah Hager Cohen at the South End library

How people grieve is not quantifiable, the author suggested in response to various comments about how contemporary culture  deals with sorrows large and small because "we each do it in our own unique way." Her mother taught her  "no one lives very long without sorrow or grief," and that, through like experiences,  we are all part of a larger community, in our own time --horizontally-- and through time --vertically-- with our ancestors and descendants.

One of Hager Cohen's earlier non-fiction books, Train Go Sorry, offered personal history of a different kind, specifically the experience of her immigrant grandparents, both deaf, and of her father who ran a school for deaf children, told from the author's perspective as a person with hearing. Or, as Doug Bauer put it, as someone who "yearns to be part of that culture, one she grew up so close to, and yet could not fully be a member of."

Author Doug Bauer introduced Hager Cohen

Answering a question from the audience of how she became a writer Hager Cohen said that, when she was little, she would name each of her fingers and tell stories about them, which her mother transcribed. "She gave me the gift of taking seriously what I was doing," Hager Cohen said. Later on, in journalism school, a professor asked whether he could show the non-fiction she had written, about the deaf culture, to his agent, which set her on the road to being a published writer, first in non-fiction, but in fiction shortly after.

Hager Cohen said she is "excited" about the new book she is working on:  It is based on the question of how to love, or live with, someone who is hard to love.

Her five favorite books are listed on the FOSEL web site under The South End Reads.

Local Advisors for BPL's Project to Add Stores to Copley Library Express Concern about Mixing Library Mission with Commerce but Agree on One Thing: Johnson Building Needs a Major Overhaul

johnson building

A group of local advisors from the Back Bay met at the BPL for the second time on January 10 to look into a proposal by the Menino administration to add retail commercial space to what is by all accounts a dead zone on Boylston Street: the 1972 addition to the Central Library's McKim building, otherwise known as the Johnson building. Its cavernous street-level entry features Soviet-style security gates, a drab circulation counter and a lonely reference desk way down in the center, but "nothing that welcomes or embraces me," complained Meg Mainzer-Cohen of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay. The conference room where the meeting was held came itself under fire from Karen Cord Taylor of the Independent Newspaper Group who looked at the colorless rug, unattractive wood paneling and neon lighting and declared it all "ugly."

Yet fixing the building's shortcomings by adding commercial space to attract shoppers to the library did not appear to be the logical solution to the Community Advisory Committee's (CAC) members, either. "There's no doubt about the demand. I could rent the space tomorrow," said Chris Gordon, a BPL development advisor. "But is it compatible with the BPL? Does it have to be integrated or separate? Is the mission of the BPL revenue or library services?"  "Store owners don't want to feel they're passed by on the way to somewhere else, like a library," added Peter Sherin, also of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay. "I have an aversion to franchises," commented Cord Taylor. "Any retail here should be iconic for Boston. Another "Curious George" store puts me off."

Support for creating a conference center that would bring in revenue seemed equally lukewarm. "There's no daylight downstairs," Gordon pointed out. Cord Taylor said that a conference center is someplace you'd want to go to, not because you have to. She reiterated there's little architectural or visual interest in the Johnson building, as opposed to the adjacent McKim Building, which is filled with natural light and architectural detail. "Or like the JFK Library," piped up several other advisors, extolling the breathtaking water views from that library. How to make the BPL competitive with already available conference space in Boston was not an easy task, the consensus was, and unlikely to generate a lot of money.

A market analysis report by a consultant group, Byrne-McKinney, was not yet available for the committee's discussion, but library-mission-centered proposals seemed to generate most excitement among its members: a light-filled Children's Room; a prominently displayed exhibit about the history of libraries; a place for chess instruction or even  a 'Little League of Chess centered in the library.'  Architect Bill Rawn, who in the 1980s worked on a masterplan to revamp the New York Public Library and more recently designed both the successful Mattapan branch as well as the Cambridge Public Library, said his take on libraries is that they are egalitarian institutions that should be accessible to everyone and offer opportunities to all. "Parts of the Johnson building work very well, but others don't match the excitement of the McKim building,"said Rawn, whose firm heads the Johnson Improvements project. Referring to the library's Boylston Street location as a "weak retail block," Rawn suggested that "we have to think about this project as one that extends into the sidewalk."

BPL trustee, Rep. Byron Rushing, who attended the meeting as an observer, said plainly that the Johnson building was a 'mistake' that we are now 'stuck with.' "Had we had a Community Advisory Committee when planning the Johnson building, it would never have been built," he asserted. "Before there was a Johnson building, we never talked about a McKim building. It was always the Central Library or Copley Library." Rushing expressed a strong desire to change the name of the Johnson building. "The trustees are very open to this project," he said. "We don't want to hear that something is 'too cutting-edge' or even 'too expensive.' "

The next meeting for the Johnson Improvements project will be Wednesday, March 13, 8:30 am, Central Library's Commonwealth Salon. The public is invited.

The "South End Writes" Author Series Resumes Tuesday, January 15, with Leah Hager Cohen Reading from her 2012 Novel, "The Grief of Others"

FOSEL president Marleen Nienhuis, author Margot Livesey and novelist Sue Miller

When the Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL) began to sponsor authors at the South End Library to read from their work three years ago, we had no idea how popular the adventure would become, or whether anyone would show up. What we did know was that the South End branch had an incredibly supportive and interested staff who would help us, that the South End is, was, and likely will always be a haven for writers, artists, musicians and other creative minds, and that we had a wonderful graphic designer  on our board, Mary Owens, who would generously and cleverly volunteer to do the posters we needed to announce the readings.

It's easy to take for granted all the different roles a free public library plays in the community it serves, from the vaulted place of research to the simple refuge that is cool in the summer, warm in the winter, with a free, clean bathroom in a culture where that sort of basic amenity can be hard to find.

What FOSEL was not fully cognizant of  at the time is that a library is also a place where local residents can find out who else actually lives here, who is writing what, who is thinking what, and what our local history is. This is what The South End Writes has become: a mirror of literary achievement by the many fine writers, journalists and poets who live where we live, shop where we shop, take the T and go to the polls just like we do. We just didn't know who they were, but increasingly we do. Writers are invited by FOSEL board members, by FOSEL supporters and literary luminaries like Sue Miller and Doug Bauer, and by the South End Library staff, headed by Anne Smart. The ones who have enriched us with their work  include Sue Miller, Doug Bauer, Chris Kimball, Joanne Chang, John Sacco, Phil Gambone, Johnny Diaz, Susan Naimark,, Henri Cole, Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, Stephen Davis, Margot Livesey, Alice Stone, Mari Passananti, Maryanne O'Hara, L. Annette Binder, Edith Pearlman, Christine Chamberlain, Sven Birkerts, Wendy Wunder, Lily King, Susan Conley, Alison Barnet and Scott Pomfret, among others.

Coming up between now and the summer are:Leah Hager Cohen, Lynne Potts, April Bernard, Andre Dubus III, Mari Passananti, Doug Bauer, Dennis Lehane, Alice Hoffman, Alice Stone, and Phil Gambone. Some will read at the South End branch for the first time; others are returning to update us on new work, or work in progress.

Perhaps the best compliment paid to The South End Writes is that another library Friends group, at the Jamaica Plain branch, has begun its own series, Jamaica Plain Writes, with the first author, JP resident Chuck Collins,  appearing there on Thursday, January 24, at 6:45 p.m. Collins is an expert on U.S. inequality, the author of several books, and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank. For further information about the JP Writes series, check the link to their web site here.

Below is the list of writers scheduled to appear at the South End Library until July. Occasionally, schedules need to change, but FOSEL posts them on this web site as soon as they become known.

Wishing you a Happy and Writerly New Year....

UPCOMING READINGS FOR THE SOUTH END WRITES ARE:

January 15, 2013, 6:30 p.m.

Leah Hager Cohen

The Grief of Others

The author, who publishes both fiction and non-fiction, will read from her latest novel which the New York Times described as “her best work yet.” With an introduction by  Sue Miller

Tuesday, January 29, 6:30 p.m.

Lynne Potts

A Block in Time: a History of Boston’s South End from a Window on Holyoke Street. The author, who moved into a house on Holyoke Street with two young children in 1978, has written a personal history that includes what it was like to be young in the 60s, the turmoil and transformations of the South End from the time it was created out of Boston Bay, and captivating details of the characters in her neighborhood. A poet as well as a writer, she splits her time living on Rutland Street and in New York City, where she was Poetry Editor of the Columbia Journal of Literature and Art.

Tuesday, February 5, 6:30 p.m.

April Bernard

The poet (Romanticism)and novelist, most recently of  history (Miss Fuller), is currently the director of creative writing at Skidmore College. With an introduction by South End author Doug Bauer, whose own new collection of essays, "What Happens Next?" will come out this fall.

Tuesday, February 26, 6:30 p.m.

Andre Dubus III

Townie, a Memoir

The examination of the author’s violent past has been described ”best book” of non-fiction of 2011 and 2012 by many literary-gate guardians, and was preceded by his previous novelsHouse of Sand and Fog (made into a movie by the same name) and The Garden of Last Days.  Sue Miller will introduce the author.

Tuesday, March 19, 6:30 p.m.

Mari Passananti

will read from her second novel, The K Street Affair.

Tuesday, April 16, 6:30 p.m.

Doug Bauer

Editor, writer of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction, and revered professor of English at Bennington College (to where he commutes from the South End), Bauer will read from his most recent collection of essays, What Happens Next?, to be published in the fall of 2013  by the University of Iowa Press.

Tuesday, May 14, 6:30 p.m.

Dennis Lehane, the spectacularly successful author who grew up in Dorchester and is ALSO a BPL trustee, published his latest novel, Live by Night, in 2012. Set in Boston in the 1920s, the New York Times’ reviewer called the book a “sentence-by-sentence pleasure.”

Tuesday, May 21, 6:30 p.m.

Alice Hoffman

The Dovekeepers, a historical novel describing the AD70 massacre at Masada from the point of view of four women at the fortress before it fell during the Jewish-Roman war, is the most recent of the nearly two dozen novels by Hoffman and just came out in paperback. To be introduced by Sue Miller.

Tuesday, June 11, 6:30 p.m.

Alice Stone,

the local filmmaker whose mesmerizing documentary, Angelo Unwritten, has followed the life of a teenager adopted out of foster care when he was twelve, will return with an update of new material gathered since December 2011.

Tuesday, June 18, 6:30 p.m.

Philip Gambone

will return to read from his current work-in-progress, retracing the steps of his father who, as a soldier, was sent to Europe during the Second World War.

The five favorite books recommended by the authors mentioned above, and previous speakers, can be found under THE SOUTH END READS.

Pat Loomis & Friends Will Play Their Annual Holiday Jazz Concert at the South End Library Tuesday, December 18 at 6:30 P.M.; Delicious Food Provided by Staff and FOSEL

Pat Loomis & Summer Friends

Every year around the holidays, Pat Loomis & Friends come to the South End Library and get the joint clapping and cheering with their passionate  jazz performance. The teenage son of Loomis takes a turn at the horn. The cheers really take off. The hot chili, shopped for and cooked by  library staff and a spouse, is heaped on paper plates. Plastic forks and knives tick-tock at the edges of the library tables in synch with the rhythm. The chicken is gone before you know it. Patrons lean against bookshelves or sit on whatever chairs can be pulled around. It's that season, and we need this now, more than we ever thought. It's free, too. What are you waiting for..Tuesday night, December 18, 6:30 p.m.   See you there..

South End Photographer/Social Worker Jennifer Coplon Will Talk About Her "Ugandan Elders" Exhibit December 12 at the South End Library

Ugandan Elders Exhibit

On Wednesday, December 12, the strikingly beautiful portraits of Ugandan elders now on exhibit at the South End Library will be further illuminated by Jennifer Coplon, a longtime South End resident and clinical social worker who took the pictures when she traveled to the African country last year. Coplon  uses photography to capture "the resilience, resourcefulness, and courage of elders who are often considered "down and out." The exhibit,  Ugandan Elders: JaJa Mamas and Papas, is part of a larger study in which Coplon is interviewing and photographing elders who have often been marginalized or discounted. Her next focus will be residents at Olmsted Green, the newest housing offered by Hearth, Inc. for formerly homeless elders.

The talk will begin at 6 p.m.

Puppeteer Nicola McEldowney & Her Puppet Troupe Will Perform "The Story of Ferdinand" at the South End Library, Tuesday, November 26, at 6:30 PM

Puppeteer Nicola McEldowney

If everyone were like Ferdinand the Bull, we could replace the Defense Department with a very large Department of Peaceful Negotiations. If you want to know more about this revolutionary thought, come to the South End Library on Tuesday, November 27 to watch puppeteer Nicola McEldowney perform the heart-warming 1936  children's tale by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, The Story of Ferdinand, about sweet-natured Ferdinand who'd rather smell the flowers than lock horns with other bulls and fight.

Nicola McEldowney is a graduate of Columbia University who lived in Paris in 2010 where she studied puppet theatre. She wrote, directed, and performed in several original shows, including her musical Aisle Six, which debuted at the Players Club of NYC.  McEldowney also created the original puppet play, The Golden Stoat, in which she performed the roles of both Princess Marcheline and the penurious mouseherd Alban Turtulutu.  In 2011 she was commissioned by Columbia University's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures to create their first-ever departmental puppet show, for which she was awarded a Gatsby Charitable Foundation Arts Grant. She has performed children's tales at a number of public libraries.

The performance on Tuesday, November 27 starts at 6:30 PM and is sponsored by The Friends of the South End Library, which means... your contributions. Thanks, and please come. After the show, there will be a puppet-making session with Nicola..

Author Marylou Depeiza Will Read from her Suspense Novel, "Walking in her Shoes," the Story of her Mother's Secret Life While Raising a Traditional Family in the South End

Marylou Depeiza

After her mother's death in the mid-1990s, Marylou Depeiza decided to find out what might be the mystery at the center of her mother's life, something she had tried to uncover before but been told to stay away from. Leola Williams, wife of a World War II veteran who was raising a family of six while living in the South End, had a secret life that her daughter discovered doing genealogical research on the Internet. "Walking in her Shoes" is the result. Depeiza will read from the suspenseful novel based on her mother's life at the South End Library, Tuesday, November 27, at 6:30 PM.  

New South End Library Photo Exhibit of Ugandan Elders Highlights Dignity of Homeless/Landless Africans Despite Decades of Civil War and AIDS

A Ugandan Elder, by photographer Jennifer Coplon

Ugandan Elders: JaJa Mamas and Papas, a photo exhibit that will open officially on Tuesday, November 20 at the South End Library,is the brainchild of Jennifer Coplon. A longtime South End resident and community-based clinical social worker, Coplon spent the last few years training to be a photographer as well, at MassArt, the MFA and the New England School for Photography. Last summer, a social-work trip to Uganda brought her face to face with the homeless/landless poor of Uganda. She encountered people who had suffered multiple losses from AIDS, malaria and civil-war trauma, elders for whom there was little likelihood of improvement in their economic circumstances.  Coplon was struck by their dignity, an observation that happened to interface with another passion of hers, creating positive images of the elderly homeless.  Coplon, whose work includes photographing and interviewing formerly homeless elders here placed in permanent housing through Hearth Inc., says that by developing a portraiture  focused on human dignity she hopes to counter the marginalization and discounting of our own elders: "When you look at this man here," she said, pointing to a portrait  of a Ugandan in a brilliant deep-blue garment,"you'd never guess he's dirt-poor."

There's recent precedent for the fusion of photography and homeless-centered social work on display in a library setting. Earlier this year, the San Francisco Public Library mounted the photo exhibit, Acknowledged, which featured portraits of the many homeless serviced by local agencies affiliated with their library system (San Francisco is quite advanced in this area: it is the first public library to have hired a social worker on its staff to deal with homeless patrons). Photographer Joe Ramos, who volunteered for the homeless, was handed a camera in 2006 and asked to tell the agencies' clients' story in portraits. His photographs and accompanying texts shone a light on the frayed social safety net, too close for many Americans, with examples like Ethel, a direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln, and Graham, a middle-class college graduate from Indiana who spiraled into depression, job loss and homelessness after a car accident he caused killed another person.

Jennifer Coplon's exhibit opens Tuesday, November 20, at 6:30 PM, at the South End Library. It is free to all.

Handicapped-access Door Pads Have Been Installed at the South End Library, Easing Access for All

Better handicapped-accessibility at the South End library

Thanks to donations by library supporters and a PruPAC grant collected by FOSEL, opening the doors at the South End branch is now as easy as a tapping on a door pad. No more acrobatics by parents trying to hustle strollers, shopping bags and other youngsters through the entryway all at the same time. No more children tugging at the heavy door to be let in when a stiff wind blowing in from Tremont Street tries to keep them out. Whether you're in a wheelchair, leaning on a cane, or simply carrying too many books and DVDs under your arms to also open the library's door, your access into the branch has been greatly improved.

Head librarian, Anne Smart, told FOSEL she's making it her job to instruct everyone how to use the pads. There are three: one on the outside of the building, at the corner of Tremont, as illustrated in the picture where library user Francis Pugliese is pointing to it. The second pad is one the inside between the two glass doors, on the left when entering and the right when leaving. The third is on the inside, across from the staff counter. The South End Library is now one of only a few in the BPL's constellation of branches that is fully handicapped accessible. An elevator to its second floor was installed more than a decade ago, and its bathrooms are fully equipped for wheelchairs and strollers. The campaign for automatic doors was sponsored by FOSEL and its president, Glyn Polson. Thanks to the board, the generous contributors in the South End, and the grantors at Pru-PAC.

Recent Readings by Authors at the South End Library Illustrate the Varied Richess of the Local Writing Scene and the Unique Role Played by Branch Libraries in their Neighborhoods

FOSEL founding president Marleen Nienhuis and novelists Margot Livesey and Sue Miller

The range of authors who came to talk about their work at the South End Library during Halloween season provided a nice illustration of the  deep and varied pool of writing talent that exists at the local level, and the supportive role neighborhood libraries play in hosting them. On October 25, Maryanne O’Hara, a short-story writer who lives in the South End, discussed her much-praised first novel, Cascade, which is based on the flooding of a town in Western Massachusetts in the 1930s. She was followed a few days later by acclaimed novelist  and Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College,  Margot Livesey, who talked about her latest work, The Flight of Gemma Harding,a re-imagening of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. That same week, rock biographer Stephen Davis, arrived at the South End branch with a seemingly inexhaustible collection of anecdotes and observations about the rock and pop stars he’d written about for decades, after reading from his most recent (unauthorized) biography of Carly Simon, More Room in a Broken Heart.

Maryanne o'Hara giving a talk at the South End library

O’Hara’s novel, while a fictionalized account of a to-be-drowned town, attracted an audience interested in the actual flooding of small towns in Massachusetts by the Quabbin reservoir in the 1930s. The author did not disappoint: she brought copies of old photographs of the four towns that became submerged –Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott– and, after signing copies of her book, even used a stamp with a special postmark of the novel's make-believe town, Cascade, on the last date of its supposed existence, December 27, 1934. Part of the research for the novel was done at the Waterworks Museum on Chestnut Hill, O’Hara said, which documents the history of the country's first metropolitan water systems. O’Hara’ inspiration for the main character, artist Dez who is torn between ambition and family tradition, was sparked by an interview with WPA painter James Lechay in Truro, MA, a decade ago. Her subsequent interest in the WPA, and the 1930s' government support for the arts, turned first into a magazine article, but eventually found its way into her novel, as did O'Hara's love for Shakespeare --a Shakespeare summer theatre features prominently,-- and the author's fascination with the actual drowned towns of the Quabbin reservoir.

Author Stephen Davis

Margot Livesey was introduced by novelist Sue Miller, who said she loved Livesey's novels before she ever met the author, and especially appreciated what she described as the novelist's thoughtfulness for the “mysteriousness of otherness.”  Livesey explained that in The Flight of Gemma Hardy she examined why 21st-century female readers of Jane Eyre still identify in such profound ways with the 19th-century character, even though their lives are vastly different. She suggested that the novel, which has not been out of print in 165 years,  still speaks to readers for two reasons: the heroine represents the arche-type of orphan and pilgrim, and it explores the fundamental question asked by the Bronte sisters of how a girl of no special talents, without a family or special skills, can make her way in the world. In The Flight of Gemma Hardy she wanted to “re-imagine the appeal of Jane Eyre for those who loved it and those who hadn’t read it.” Having been raised herself in a boys’ private school in Scotland, where her father was headmaster, and her ‘severe’ stepmother’s notion of children was they best be ‘seen but not heard,’ the author recounted she spent much time hoping for a natural disaster that would destroy the school and its Gothic buildings. Nevertheless,the English landscape has been the setting for most of her writings but after living in the US  for many years, her current work-in-progress, or  as she described it, “the novel I am failing to write,” is set in contemporary New England.

Stephen Davis’s animated talk about the world of pop and rock as he experienced it, writing first for the Boston Phoenix and Rolling Stone magazine and concentrating on rock biographies later, centered on the life of singer/songwriter Carly Simon, who he knew closely through friendships with her brother Peter, and the time their families spent on Martha’s Vineyard growing up. Describing her rise to fame, Davis placed her squarely in the culture of the 60s and 70s, when successful female singers were few and far between but the female audience of baby boomers was ready for their music, even when they didn’t know it until they heard it. “Carly was part of the continuum of how things should be rather than were,” Davis said. “When her Greatest Hits came out, it was what the women in minivans listened to taking their kids to soccer practice.” The talented Simon had romantic relationships with many stars, and “learned from her boyfriends,” said Davis. They included Cat Stevens --a date with him inspired Simon's song Anticipation-- and  James Taylor, who was her husband until she “threw him out” when she feared his drug addiction would become an issue for their two children. “She doesn’t have his phone number to this day,” said Davis, even though theirs was a “great romantic love story,” he added. Davis, who ghost-wrote the autobiography of Michael Jackson at the request of  Doubleday's then-editor Jacqueline Onassis  --"she made the phone calls; someone else edited,” he said,-- is currently working on the biography of Stevie Nicks, the singer/songwriter who sang for many years with Fleetwood Mac.

The five favorite books recommended by the authors mentioned above, and previous speakers, can be found under THE SOUTH END READS.

UPCOMING READINGS FOR THE SOUTH END WRITES ARE:

January 15, 2013, 6:30 p.m.

Leah Hager Cohen

The Grief of Others

The author, who publishes both fiction and non-fiction, will read from her latest novel which the New York Times described as “her best work yet.” With an introduction by  Sue Miller

Tuesday, January 29, 6:30 p.m.

Lynne Potts

A Block in Time: a History of Boston's South End from a Window on Holyoke Street. 

Details will be posted as they become available.

Tuesday, February 5, 6:30 p.m.

April Bernard

The poet (Romanticism)and novelist, most recently of  history (Miss Fuller), is currently the director of creative writing at Skidmore College. With an introduction by South End author Doug Bauer

Tuesday, February 26, 6:30 p.m.

Andre Dubus III

Townie, a memoir

The examination of the author’s violent past has been described ”best book” of non-fiction of 2011 and 2012 by many literary-gate guardians, and was preceded by his previous novelsHouse of Sand and Fog (made into a movie by the same name) and The Garden of Last Days.  Sue Miller will introduce the author.

Tuesday, March 19, 6:30 p.m.

Mari Passananti

will read from her second novel, The K Street Affair.

Tuesday, April 18, 6:30 p.m.

Doug Bauer

Editor, writer of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction, and revered professor of English at Bennington College (to where he commutes from the South End), Bauer will read from his most recent collection of essays, What Happens Next?, to be published in the fall of 2013  by the University of Iowa Press.

Tuesday, May 14, 6:30 p.m.

Dennis Lehane, the spectacularly successful author who grew up in Dorchester and is ALSO a BPL trustee, published his latest novel, Live by Night, in 2012. Set in Boston in the 1920s, the New York Times' reviewer called the book a "sentence-by-sentence pleasure."

Tuesday, May 21, 6:30 p.m.

Alice Hoffman

The Dovekeepers, a historical novel describing the AD70 massacre at Masada from the point of view of four women at the fortress before it fell during the Jewish-Roman war, is the most recent of the nearly two dozen novels by Hoffman and just came out in paperback. To be introduced by Sue Miller.

Tuesday, June 11, 6:30 p.m.

Alice Stone,

the local filmmaker whose mesmerizing documentary, Angelo Unwritten, has followed the life of a teenager adopted out of foster care when he was twelve, will return with an update of new material gathered since December 2011.

Tuesday, June 18, 6:30 p.m.

Philip Gambone

will return to read from his current work-in-progress, retracing the steps of his father who, as a soldier, was sent to Europe during the Second World War.

Rock'n Roll Biographer Stephen Davis Reads From the Unauthorized Biography of Singer/Songwriter Carly Simon, "More Room in a Broken Heart," at the SE Library, Thursday, November 1, at 6:30 p.m.

stephen davis

Music journalist Stephen Davis will read from his most recent rock'n roll biography, More Room in a Broken Heart: the True Adventures of Carly Simon, at the South End Library this Thursday, November 1, at 6:30 p.m.  It is an unauthorized biography, ostensibly because singer/songwriter Simon feels the book is 'too revealing,' according to Davis, who was interviewed earlier this year on the Emily Rooney show. Controversy also centered on other authors accusing him of using their material in this book. Davis says he'd prefer to recast that criticism as 'copying' of material already published although, he freely acknowledged, without the complete bibliographic attribution by the publisher he had hoped for. "In the paperback, we'll do that," Davis told Rooney.

Davis has a distinguished record of more than a dozen pop and rock biographies, including Hammer of the Gods: the Led Zeppelin Saga (1985), Watch You Bleed: the Saga of Guns 'N Roses (2008), and Bob Marley: Conquering Lion of Reggae (1994). He was the ghostwriter for the autobiography of the late pop star Michael Jackson, Moon Walk, which was edited by Jacqueline Onassis and sold out as soon as it hit the New York Times bestseller list. It was never reprinted or issued in paperback. Davis, whom the Boston Globe described as "the gold standard of rock biographers,"  began his career at The Boston Phoenix. His articles, written in an engaging and lively prose style, have been featured in Rolling Stone magazine and the New York Times, among other publications.

The author will be introduced by FOSEL board member Courtney Fitzgerald, who invited him to speak at the South End branch. Davis has promised to give the audience "an excruciating evening of R & R lore unfit to print but fun to hear about."

Davis's books will be  available for purchase and signatures and, thanks to head librarian Anne Smart, for borrowing, as well.

Margot Livesey Will Read from her Latest Novel, "The Flight of Gemma Harding," Tuesday Night, October 30, at 6:30 P.M.

livesey

Scottish-born Margot Livesey, who is currently a distinguished writer in residence at Emerson College, will read from her latest novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, this coming Tuesday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m., at the South End Library.  She will be introduced by novelist Sue Miller, who invited her to The South End Writes program. Liveley has suggested that a novel, "as its name intimates, brings us news of another kind, and it is news that we vitally need, though it may not make the headlines. For what a novel does is to help us fill the abyss between the self and other." About learning the craft of writing a novel, she has said, "I had spent many happy hours in the house of fiction, but I knew nothing about plumbing or wiring or putting up drywall."

The Flight of Gemma Harding is Livesey's seventh novel and is loosely based on Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Other novels include Eva Moves the Furniture  (2001) and The House on Fortune Street (2008). While writing, she has taught at Boston University, Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon, Cleveland State, Emerson College, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Tufts University, the University of California at Irvine, the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers, and Williams College. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the N.E.A., the Massachusetts Artists' Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Livesey's books will be available at the reading for borrowing, purchasing and signing.

FOSEL Book Bags for Sale to Help Pay for Library Programming for Young, Old and In-betweens

In case you wondered what to buy your friends and relatives for holiday gifts, you can stop that right now. FOSEL has just received its order of beautiful, 100 percent cotton book bags, designed by our tireless and talented graphic-design volunteer, Mary Owens, as per the pictures alongside this text.

The totes have a color-accented bottom and an additional shoulder strap for easy carrying. The green tote features a logo that says, "The South End Library Rocks," as indeed it does. The red bag's logo consists of six sayings about libraries that should warm the heart of all patrons, as displayed above.

They will be available at FOSEL-sponsored events like The South End Writes, and can be ordered and picked up at the South End branch. FOSEL also offers payment through PayPal on the web site by clicking on DONATE. The cost per bag is $10. All proceeds will be used to fund programs for young and old at the library.

BPL President Amy Ryan Thanks FOSEL for Funds Raised to Pay for the Installation of a Handicapped-Accessible Door at the South End branch

FOSEL president Glyn Polson and Mayor Thomas Menino

The Friends of the South End Library (FOSEL) received a letter of thanks from the president of the BPL, Amy Ryan,  thanking the organization for its  check to pay for a handicapped-accessible door at the South End branch. Glyn Polson, the president of FOSEL, applied for a grant to pay for the door from Pru-PAC last and received a check a few weeks ago. PruPAC is a fund established by developers 25 years ago to benefit neighborhoods around the Prudential Center. The Prudential Project Advisory Committee, a city-formed group composed of neighborhood residents and business representatives, had awarded the grant earlier this year. . The Friends of the South End Library was among a dozen of downtown non-profits that collected a total of more than $210,000 from the PruPAC  fund recently.Once installed, the library will be one of a handful of BPL branches that is fully handicapped accessible. An elevator to the second-floor community room was added to the building in previous years. Polson is working closely with the BPL’s Facilities Department to complete the project as quickly as possible.

According to Christine Schonhart, director of branch libraries at the BPL,  electricians will meet with the contractor at the branch next week to review the door and set a schedule. "While we won’t have to close the branch to install the switch, there might be some disruption to the entrance for people to move around the workers," she wrote. Further details will be posted as soon as they come over the wire...

The BPD's Archivist Margaret Sullivan and her Colleague Dr. Kim L. Gaddy Shine a Light on the History of Boston's Fairest

After personnel files were put on microfilm at the Boston Police Department in the 1970s, a sergeant detective about to retire dumped a box of women's roster cards on the desk of another, Kim L. Gaddy, saying she didn't have the heart to shred them. "That's how it all started," Dr. Gaddy told a rapt audience at the South End Library on October 16, during the slide show of "Boston's Fairest." With Margaret Sullivan, the BPD's archives and records manager, Dr. Gaddy spent hundreds of hours at Radcliffe's library and the "dank basement" of the BPL, among other places, to document the history of Boston police women.

They only had to go back to the 1920s.  The time between the two world wars was one of  social change and the 1919 Boston Police Strike had decimated the department. It  consisted of "rookies and old men," said Sullivan. In 1921 the first six women who had been allowed to take the entry exam were appointed. They were denied uniforms, weapons, cars and handcuffs. But they had their badge. They'd show it, presumably bark "you're under arrest,"  and haul the perps to the police station by hailing a cab. More women were hired in the 1940s, including the first African-Americans, among them Dorothy "Harry" Harrison, the daughter of physician Columbus Harrison, who practiced from his home on Chandler Street. "Can you explain why these women were placed in the South End which was one of the most dangerous parts of Boston?" one member of the audience wanted to know. "Because they were good," said Sullivan, "and they knew the district very well."

The BPD remained largely the domain of men. But the perpetrators included women, as did of course the victims of crime. Handling female prostitutes or battered women caused discomfort among male law enforcement. The female recruits were expected to focus on women by protecting them from "mashers" (men who'd harass them) and bring home lost children. They did that --even bought kids ice cream on the beaches of South Boston-- but would land punches, if necessary, with the best of them.

Despite nine decades of proving their worth, the BPD’s percentage of female officers is still only 14 percent, roughly on par with the police departments elsewhere. “Police work has a very macho image but it is 85 percent social work, instead of knocking heads” said Dr. Gaddy, explaining part of the reason why women many not even see police work as suitable for them to this day. Answering another audience question, the speakers affirmed no specific efforts are underway by the BPD to demystify  what this profession is all about. "It's hard to get across why police work might appeal to college women" now looking to make career choices, agreed Sullivan. "It's not the only barrier," she said, referring to  other disincentives: jobs are not necessarily there right now, you have to be put 'on the list,' you have to live in Boston, there are several tests. "By the time you take care of that, most will have made other choices," she said.

The first African-American female olice officer, Dorothy Harris

A few years ago, Sullivan helped uncover the history of Boston's first  African-American officer in the BPD in 1878,  Sgt. Horatio J. Homer. She is currently working on the biographies of some twelve police officers (she calls them her "dirty dozen") who made difficult choices in their careers, including resigning when that was 'the right thing' to do. "It's hard to be a good cop sometimes," Sullivan said. One of her subjects is a former resident of Rutland Square, Captain Francis Wilson, whose father, Butler Wilson, a staunch Republican, helped start the Boston branch of the NAACP.

Short-story Writer Maryanne O'Hara Will Read from her Debut Novel, "Cascade," Thursday, October 25 at 6:30 PM

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Maryanne O'Hara's first novel, Cascade, provides a fictionalized account of the attempted flooding of a small town in Western Massachusetts. Something like this really happened, of course,  in the 30s, when the creation of the Quabbin reservoir 65 miles east of our fair city flooded not just one, but four towns: Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott.

The image of a drowned town once alive with community and history has been an enticing one for storytellers, including South End novelist, Sue Miller, who also used the metaphor in her 2001 novel, The World Below.

O'Hara's Cascade refers not to the flood, but to the actual town in which the main character, Desdemona, is born and raised. When Cascade is jeopardized by the damming of a nearby river, she fights for her own survival as an artist and a wife, as well as the town's.  "Gorgeously written," said Caroline Leavitt, who reviewed it this summer for The Boston Globe.

O'Hara's reading on Thursday, October 25,  starts at 6:30 p.m. Copies to borrow, buy and sign are available at the event.

Dr. Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Says Today's Seniors Seek to Redefine Success in Unconventional Ways During the Third Chapter of Their Lives

Dr. Sara Lawrence Lightfoot walked the 142 steps from her home in the South End to the local library the other day, where a packed room of neighbors and library patrons awaited her. "It's good to be home," she said appreciatively. Reading from her book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years after Fifty, the distinguished author and professor of sociology reminded the audience that, each day, 10,000 Americans turn 60. They are healthier, live longer, and represent a specific new demographic group in the 21st century the way 'adolescents' were newly defined in the 20th. They feel less bound by traditional rules, want to reinvent themselves more readily, and hope to leave a legacy that makes a positive difference. "We've honed our expertise," she said, "we're re-calibrating the meaning of success and want to look back and give forward."

In assessing what new thinking might help people navigate the Third Chapter more easily, Lawrence Lightfoot, who is the Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard University, focused on four areas:education, which by encouraging specialization at too early an age discourages later learning choices that may be very different but more suitable; the need for an intergenerational compact of 'respectful reciprocity' that reduces competition between young and old by means of mentoring and apprenticeships; crossing boundaries between race, class, gender and age to help us make a "bodacious leap of faith" into different arenas we may be fearful of; and a public discourse that uses imagery and innovation to infuse the purpose of our lives with a more collective view, rather than just individual achievement.

Elaborating on these themes in response to many questions, Lawrence Lightfoot suggested, for example,  that in the classroom the concept of how long "wait time" can be matters. Referring to the time a child is allowed by the teacher to answer a question, wait time has been decreased to accommodate larger classes or packed curriculum requirements. But by asking too many questions that have only one correct answer, a child may not develop a necessary comfort level with open-ended questions, or those with multiple answers, and circumscribe new learning later on in life. In a different setting, the institutions people interface with daily, like banks or medical clinics, employees too easily refer to older people as "honey" or call them by their first name, infantilizing them. "We have to learn to say, "don't call us that," Lawrence Lightfoot stated firmly. With respect to her own Third Chapter transformations, she said she cares less about what people think of her, and that she has taken up long-distance swimming again.

Answering another question about her most recent book, Exit: the Endings That Set Us Free, Lawrence Lightfoot explained that it is not a sequel to The Third Chapter, but an exploration of the premise that we live in a society pre-occupied with beginnings. "We ignore the departures," she asserted. For this book, she looked at many 'exits' and found that instead of the negative space of regression and loss it is made out to be, it is a process that can unlock the regenerative powers 'that set us free.'.

FOSEL inquired whether the author would want to return to explore this subject further, and she did not turn us down. Stay tuned.

Sociologist, Educator and Author Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Will Read from "The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50," Tuesday, October 9, at 6:30 p.m.

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Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, a MacArthur prize-winning sociologist and Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard University, will be at the South End branch Tuesday night to talk about her book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50. Written a few years ago when she had entered her sixties, Lawrence Lightfoot discards the notion that being over fifty means acting enthusiastic about new adventures and directions is either "inappropriate" or "undignified," or that just playing golf and leading a life of self-centered leisure is the recipe for successful retirement. Instead, she explores how the bulge of healthy but aging baby-boomers in the population snake is forcing a reconsideration of the options available in the --now extended-- later stages of life.

In her interviews with forty educated and financially stable men and women, the South End resident explored what motivates people in their 'Third Chapter' of life to want to learn something new, even when they have been very successful up till then and even if the new direction is difficult and has a high risk of failure. She asserts her subjects were no longer interested in making it to the top of the ladder of individual achievement but wanted to find a way "to use their privilege, skills, networks, and access for the benefit of the broader community."

Lawrence Lightfoot wants to know what "institutional innovations, cultural priorities, and educational reforms might support the translations from individual gain to public good?"

You wondered about that yourself? The South End library is the place to find the answer Tuesday night, where the author will be introduced by health coach and wellness counselor, Colette Bourassa.

Lawrence Lightfoot has written nine books, including The Good High School: Portraits of Character and Culture (1983), which received the 1984 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association and Balm In Gilead: Journey of A Healer (1988), which won the 1988 Christopher Award.Her most recent book, Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free, was published in May 2012. Her selection of five favorite books can be found at The South End Reads. The event starts at 6:30 p.m.

Future South End Writes authors are listed below:

Tuesday, October 16, 6:30 p.m. BPD Archivist Margaret Sullivan and Sgt. Detective Dr. Kim L. Gaddy"Boston's Fairest," an exhibit and lecture about the first 50 years of women in the Boston Police Department by the BPD's archivist, documenting the careers of wives and mothers who took on gangsters and bootleggers.

Thursday, October 25, 6:30 p.m. Maryanne O'Hara a former associate editor at Ploughshares and oft-published short-story writer, O'Hara will read from her debut novel Cascade, a recent People magazine pick, and described as "richly-satisfying" by the Boston Globe.

Tuesday, October 30, 6:30 p.m. Margot LiveseyThe Flight of Gemma Hardy, the seventh novel of Scottish-born Livesey which just came out in paperback, is modeled on the English classic, Jane Eyre, a "risky move" at which she for the most part succeeds, according to the New York Times. Introduction by novelist Sue Miller

Thursday, November 1, 6:30 p.m. Stephen DavisMore Room in a Broken Heart: the True Adventures of Carly Simon, the unauthorized biography of one of the most gifted folk singers by a former Rolling Stone magazine's editor and (now former) Simon family friend.

Tuesday, December 4, 6:30 p.m. Victor Howes A South End poet, decades-long college professor of literature and World War II veteran who published poems and book reviews in the Christian Science Monitor for many years, will read from his selected work.

January 15, 2013, 6:30 p.m. Leah Hager CohenThe Grief of Others The author, who publishes both fiction and non-fiction, will read from her latest novel which the New York Times described as "her best work yet." With an introduction by Sue Miller

Tuesday, February 5, 6:30 p.m. April Bernard The poet (Romanticism)and novelist, most recently of history (Miss Fuller), is currently the director of creative writing at Skidmore College. With an introduction by South End author Doug Bauer

Tuesday, February 26, 6:30 p.m. Andre Dubus IIITownie, a memoir The examination of the author's violent past has been described "best book" of non-fiction of 2011 and 2012 by many literary-gate guardians, and was preceded by his previous novelsHouse of Sand and Fog (made into a movie by the same name) and The Garden of Last Days. Sue Miller will introduce the author.

Tuesday, March 19, 6:30 p.m. Mari Passananti will read from her second novel, The K Street Affair.

Tuesday, April 18, 6:30 p.m. Doug Bauer Editor, writer of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction, and revered professor of English at Bennington College (to where he commutes from the South End), Bauer will read from his most recent collection of essays, What Happens Next?, to be published in the fall of 2013 by the University of Iowa Press.

Tuesday, May 21, 6:30 p.m. Alice HoffmanThe Dovekeepers, a historical novel describing the AD70 massacre at Masada from the point of view of four women at the fortress before it fell during the Jewish-Roman war, is the most recent of the nearly two dozen novels by Hoffman and just came out in paperback. To be introduced by Sue Miller.

Tuesday, June 11, 6:30 p.m. Alice Stone, the local filmmaker whose mesmerizing documentary, Angelo Unwritten, has followed the life of a teenager adopted out of foster care when he was twelve, will return with an update of new material gathered since December 2011.

Tuesday, June 18, 6:30 p.m. Philip Gambonewill return to read from his current work-in-progress, retracing the steps of his father who, as a soldier, was sent to Europe during the Second World War.

A New FOSEL Section, "The South End Reads," Will List the Five Favorite Books of Each Author in "The South End Writes" Series, Starting Now..

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Since the start of The South End Writes series in 2010, members of the audience routinely asked what the authors themselves were reading. Unsurprisingly, they would come up with a number of tantalizing titles that immediately got lost in the hubris of subsequent questions, laughter, greetings, autographing of books, and clean-up as the library closed for the night. To rectify this, FOSEL will post each speaker's five favorite books, beginning this season. In addition, we'll try to, belatedly, find out from previous writers and poets what lives at the top of their lists. Here is what we can offer you now:Susan Naimark (09/20/12 "The Education of a White Parent:  Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools"):

1. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

2. The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander

3. Country of My Skull, by Antjie Krog

4. The Education of a WASP, by Lois M. Stalvey

5. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman

L. Annette Binder (09/25/12, "Rise")

1. No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy

2. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

3. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

4. Play It as It Lays, by Joan Didion

5. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, by David Foster Wallace

Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (10/09/12: "The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years after Fifty")

1. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

2. The Known World by Edward P. Jones

3. Plainsong by Kent Haruf

4. Brown Girl Brownstones by Paule Marshall

5. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Margaret Sullivan and Sgt. Detective Dr. Kim L. Gaddy (10/16/12:“Boston’s Fairest,”  an exhibit and lecture about the first 50 years of women in the Boston Police Department by the  BPD’s archivist, documenting the careers of wives and mothers who took on gangsters and bootleggers.)

1.Sarah's Long Walk: The free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America,  by Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick

2. THE SISTERS: The Saga of the Mitford Family, by Mary S. Lovell

3.  DARK TIDE: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, by Stephen Puleo

4.  A City in Terror : The 1919 Boston Police Strike,  by Francis Russell. Digitized by the Boston Public Library at <http://archive.org/details/officersmenstati00tapp>http://archive.org/details/officersmenstati00tapp

Maryanne O'Hara (10/2//5/12, "Cascade")

1. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte 

2. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

3. Immortality, Milan Kundera

4. The Master, Colm Toibin

5. Selected Stories, Alice Munro

6. Collected Stories, William Trevor

Margot Livesey (10/30/12, "The Flight of Gemma Hardy")

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

2. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West

3. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

4. Middlemarch by George Elliot

5. The Leopard by Lampedusa.

Stephen Davis(11/1/12, "More Room in a Broken Heart: the True Adventures of Carly Simon")

1. The Aleph,  by Jorge Luis Borges

2. Collected Stories, by Paul Bowles

3. Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald

4. For Your Eyes Only, by Ian Fleming

5. Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst

Leah Hager Cohen (1/15/13, "The Grief of Others")

1. How Green Was My Valley, by Richard Llewellyn

2. Dime Store Alchemy, by Charles Simic

3. The Keeping Days, by Norma Johnston

4. Binocular Vision, by Edith Pearlman

5. Middlemarch, by George Eliot

Lynne Potts(1/29,  "A Block in Time: a History of the South End from a Window on Holyoke Street")

1. The Baron in the Trees by  Italo Calvino  (fiction)

2. Pale Fire  by Vladimir Nabokov  (fiction)

3. Omenos, by  Derek Walcott (poetry)

4. To the Lighthouse , by Virginia Woolf (fiction)

5. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: a Journey through Yugoslavia," by Rebecca  West (non-fiction)

April Bernard (2/5, "Miss Fuller")

1. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

2. Geography IIIby Elizabeth Bishop

3. Virgil's Eclogues, translation by David Ferry

4. Villette by Charlotte Bronte

5. Desire by Frank Bidart

Andre Dubus III(2/26, "Townie")

1. Ironweed, by William Kennedy

2. Let the Great World Spin, by Column McCann

3. Any short story collection by Alice Munro

4. Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Alison

5. Dalva, by Jim Harrison

South End Writer L.Annette Binder Spins a Modern-day Fairy Tale With a Reading from her Short-story Collection,"Rise"

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"Freda weighed eighteen pounds when she was born. Her feet were each six inches long. At ten she was taller than her father." So began Nephelim, read by L. Annette Binder, from her award-winning debut short-story collection, Rise, at the South End Library recently. Husky-voiced, slightly swaying while leaning into her attentive audience, the author spun a magic tale of love and death, a dance between the physical fate of Freda and her all too human quest for love, which centers on the neglected boy of a neighboring family. Finely woven details describe the cruelty of physical deformity and the tenderness with which Freda's mother tries to find a place in the world for her doomed large child.

The former attorney, a classics major who was born in Germany but raised and educated in Colorado, told the listeners she finds the seeds of her materials from "something I hear on the street," or "a blip in the newspapers," but that what drives her stories is "character." Binder's first novel, unpublished, is stored in a 'lined desk drawer,' as she put it, but she is currently at work on another, based on a short story also included in Rise, called "Dead Languages." Binder's five favorite books are listed under The South End Writes tab on this web site.