by | Oct 27, 2022 9:43 am | Comments (1)
Laura Glesby Photo
Board of Directors President Anderson: The search is on.
The city’s public library has hired a search firm to find a permanent replacement for the late City Librarian John Jessen roughly five months after the beloved city figure died of cancer.
Continue reading ‘City Starts Search For Next Top Librarian’
by | Oct 24, 2022 8:55 am | Comments (4)
Laura Glesby Photo
Erycka recites poetry on the Lit Fest stage ...
... as Lindsey Pina and Royal Bleu look for books on a whim.
Professional poets, emerging authors, scholars of Black literature, and kids learning to sound out words collectively transformed the Q House into a story-fueled time machine at the third annual Elm City Lit Fest.
by | Oct 21, 2022 8:46 am | Comments (12)
Allan Appel photo
Board Chair Maryann Ott with State Sen. Looney.
Institute Library Executive Director Jan Swiatek won’t have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning for much longer to worry about rain pouring through the historic Chapel Street bookspace’s roof — thanks to a major renovation-funding grant approved by the state.
Continue reading ‘Institute Library Raises A Glass To Roof Repairs’
by | Oct 20, 2022 11:35 am | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen photo
Dwayne Betts and Nicholas Dawidoff at public library book talk.
What makes a neighborhood unique? What makes a neighborhood “iconic”? What makes a neighborhood, well, a neighborhood?
After eight years of research and 500 interviews for his landmark new book about a Newhallville murder, author Nicholas Dawidoff found the answers to those questions in the many individual voices that — taken together — add up to something rich and profound.
by | Oct 14, 2022 1:25 pm | Comments (6)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Bobby Johnson walks out of Church Street courthouse to freedom in 2015 after nine years of false imprisonment.
The individuals who murdered an innocent man, who framed an innocent teen, who copped a fake confession all made choices. So did Nicholas Dawidoff when he told their story — and he has now left New Haven with a choice of our own.
Continue reading ‘New Blockbuster Book Explores Backstory Of Newhallville Murder Case’
by | Oct 11, 2022 9:20 am | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Author Lary Bloom at WNHH FM.
Lary Bloom’s parents retired to a gated community in Florida that didn’t allow anyone under 55 inside.
by | Sep 1, 2022 3:36 pm | Comments (15)
Maya McFadden Photos
Properietor Lauren Anderson with regulars Makayla and Janeska.
Maya McFadden photo
Visitors at Wednesday's open house.
Middle-schoolers Janeska and Makayla have found a new neighborhood hangout spot — and a new hobby, reading — inside Edgewood’s Possible Futures.
Continue reading ‘Indy Bookstore Brings New Life To Edgewood’
by | Aug 30, 2022 8:48 am | Comments (0)
Lindsay Skedgell Photos
Your Queer Plant Shop.
The outer edge of Pitkin Plaza on Sunday was lined with rare plants, bursts of pollinators, handmade leather goods, zines, and two birthday cakes of four different flavors. Nestled between vibrant murals, performers sang and folks from all around New Haven filled the brick park. One man next to a mural waved a cigar around in circles, dancing to the music Love n’ Co played. The band’s singer — Lovelind Richards — had various shades of blue painted across her eyes in thick bands. A leather worker from Beacon Craft Studio stitched a deep maroon leather piece with thick thread. It was East Rock House’s first birthday.
Continue reading ‘A Year After 1st Queer Open Mic, East Rock House Celebrates Milestone’
by | Aug 29, 2022 9:27 am | Comments (2)
Brian Slattery Photos
The music poured onto Temple Street all the way from the plaza in the middle of the block, directing and enticing a steady stream of pedestrians and shoppers to the long rows of canopies set up for the Black Wall Street Festival, an afternoon-long event designed to showcase a wide range of Black entrepreneurs.
Thanks to the robust turnout, a live band, and a pervasive sense of cheer, the festival was true to its name, turning Temple Street Plaza into something like bazaar meets block party.
Continue reading ‘Black Wall Street Festival Brings Out The Artrepreneurs’
by | Aug 25, 2022 11:40 am | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photo
The Institute Library at 847 Chapel.
The Institute Library plans to embark on a comprehensive set of building repairs and improvements at its historic Chapel Street home, thanks to a recently approved $1.725 million grant from the state.
Continue reading ‘$1.7M State Grant To Support "Full-Scale Restoration" At Institute Library’
by | Jul 29, 2022 9:21 am | Comments (9)
Future imperfect: Sinclair Lewis.
Lately, like a truffle dog on the hunt, I have sniffed along the New Haven trail of the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for literature.
The search led me to Yale’s Old Campus, where Harry Sinclair Lewis took his bachelor’s degree in 1908; up to the summit of East Rock, where his imagination flourished; down to the reading room of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where his papers are store; and finally to his forecast of the advent of Donald Trump.
by | Jul 1, 2022 11:26 am | Comments (0)
Author Sarah Darer Littman at WNHH FM.
The reality of what Sarah Darer Littman had gotten herself into with her latest book hit home as she was reading the proofs.
by | Jun 17, 2022 9:12 am | Comments (0)
“The genius of a lot of Octavia’s work,” said Toshi Reagon about visionary science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, is that the circumstances she describes in her books are “applicable to anyone at any time.” Reading Butler’s work, she said, the reader may think, “that could happen to me.” Or: “I hope that never happens.” Or: “I can imagine myself there.”
Continue reading ‘Opera Delivers Visionary Author's Urgent Message’
by | May 30, 2022 2:28 pm | Comments (9)
Book Trader Blue Hawaiian (coconut/vanilla) & Lilikoi (passion fruit) shave ice.
A chilled sweet taste of Hawaii has hit Chapel Street just in time for the summer heat — and to help a local business survive the pandemic with a new passion (fruit) lure.
Continue reading ‘Today's Special: Duda's Hawaiian Shave Ice’
by | May 27, 2022 3:02 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
City Librarian John Jessen.
A decades-long champion of reading and neighborhood engagement who bolstered the public library system’s social services as he led it through a pandemic, City Librarian John Jessen passed away from cancer on Friday. He was 56 years old.
by | May 11, 2022 3:31 pm | Comments (7)
Melissa Bailey Photo
"The guy keeps winning": The late Winfred Rembert in the Newhall Street apartment where he made the magic happen.
Estate of Winfred Rembert / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Looking for My Mother, 2019; reprinted in Chasing Me To My Grave.
Lillian Rembert dropped her mail sack on Shelton Avenue to see why her phone was blowing up with alerts — to discover that her late father won a Pulitzer Prize.
by | Apr 25, 2022 1:12 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photos
Comic fans leave the pages to meet real-life superheros.
Javon Stokes at DiasporaCon.
A justice league of comics creators, collectors, and historians were all signaled to gather for a first annual African DiasporaCon.
Continue reading ‘"DiasporaCon" Brings Black Heroes To Life’
by | Mar 18, 2022 3:15 pm | Comments (8)
Paul Bass Photo
Red-hot author Tochi Onyebuchi at WNHH FM.
Run for cover: Urban pioneers are returning to New Haven — from a space colony to which they originally fled from riots and flames and eviscerated property values. They’re bringing with them “plans” anew for the Model City.
Luckily for us, Tochi Onyebuchi has his eye on them. He has his eye on the “stackers” who never left, as well.
by | Feb 28, 2022 8:43 am | Comments (0)
Daniel Shoemaker Photo
Bridge & Tunnel Crowd booth: Sometimes wi-fi doesn't reach the loo.
The buzz and joy around the Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op in East Rock was palpable, from the crowds of jacketed chatters outside to the low hum of many people inside the communal space. The community turned out for the NHV Zine Fair — the first such event in years.
by | Feb 23, 2022 8:54 am | Comments (2)
Everyone who’s raised a child has faced that moment, said professor Laura Briggs, when “you’re trying to get to work and you can’t because your kid won’t put on his shoes.”
It’s a problem because “there’s nobody else who’s going to be home. The kid has to go to day care, and we have to go to work.”
The struggle of maintaining work and family, for many, got even worse during the pandemic. In a talk on Tuesday night, Briggs laid out the ways in which that acute problem is the result of larger fights about reproductive politics that have been raging for over 40 years.
Continue reading ‘The Reproductive Is Political: Author Issues Call For Change From Below’
by | Feb 21, 2022 9:52 am | Comments (9)
Brian Slattery Photo
The crowd Sunday at Bloom Black History event.
Book lovers descended Sunday on Bloom to sample not only the assortment of flowers and soaps, but the works of James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Colson Whitehead, and Jesmyn Ward — brought into the Edgewood Avenue lifestyle store and gathering place courtesy of Bamn Books, a New Haven-based mobile bookstore that focuses on the literature of the African diaspora.
by | Feb 11, 2022 2:01 pm | Comments (2)
Paul Bass Photo
Whistleblower author Greg Dillon at WNHH FM.
Greg Dillon proudly wore a cop-solidarity “thin blue line” face mask when Covid-19 hit.
At the same time he was working a book about how he watched the cop-solidarity “thin blue line” lead to corruption and cover-ups in law enforcement.
Continue reading ‘FBI Whistleblower Straddles Thin Blue Li(n)e’
by | Feb 10, 2022 8:47 am | Comments (1)
Courtesy Octavia E. Butler Estate
Butler.
A new art exhibit, and a panel on migration facilitated by Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS). The screening and discussion of the “first-ever ethnographic acid Western.” A Sun Ra tribute concert.
All these events and more, happening between now and the middle of May, are organized around a single novel by a science-fiction visionary that is the focus of this year’s One City: One Read, a campaign organized by the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, in partnership with Yale’s Schwarzman Center, the New Haven Free Public Library, Artspace, and Best Video.
by | Feb 8, 2022 1:54 pm | Comments (3)
Abby Cadet with the new book she wrote with her mom.
A mom who started seeking to fill her daughter’s home library with more books featuring Black characters has begun publishing some of those books herself — with her daughter.
by | Feb 1, 2022 8:43 am | Comments (2)
Fernanda Franco Photo
Fernanda Franco
Fernanda Franco brings every aspect of her artistic self to her new job as outreach director of New Haven Reads. “I walk into the office at Bristol Street, and I feel like Belle from Beauty and the Beast because you walk in and the walls are lined with books and it’s beautiful,” she said. She sang that last line, not unlike the character did in the movie.
Continue reading ‘Fernanda Franco Books New Gig At New Haven Reads’