Join Allandale Farm for our annual Seed in the City March 21st, 10am and 1pm at Allandale Farm in Brookline. Sign up at allandalefarm.com/community-events
Our seed starting workshop covers all the essentials from selecting the right seeds and seedling care to when to transplant your seedlings outside. Whether you’re new to gardening or a seasoned pro, all are welcome! We will provide seedling trays/domes, labeling materials, growing mix, and our expert guidance. Bring your own seeds – even old seeds! We’re hoping this event be a seed swap too! Don’t have your own seeds? We have them for sale in our store and/or check out Boston Public Library Seed Libraries.
You are cordially invited to the Associates of the Boston Public Library’s seventh annual Pierce Performance Series: A Revelation of Character, in collaboration with Plays in Place. This new, hour-long play explores the fraught relationship between female abolitionists Lydia Maria Child and Maria Weston Chapman. The staged readings will be held at 6 pm on November 12 and 13, and at 2 pm on November 15, at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. Free. Reserve your tickets through Eventbrite HERE.
For the first time ever, Night in the Stacks will take place on Halloween—and we’re taking over every haunted corner of the iconic McKim Building for a one-of-a-kind celebration. Step inside the Library after dark and uncover Boston’s spookiest stories brought to life through live music by the Sweetbeats band, dancing, delicious food, and an open bar. Guests will also enjoy exclusive access to the brand-new Revolution! 250 Years of Art + Activism exhibition—opening just days before the event.
This night of mystery raises essential funds for the Boston Public Library’s free programs and services. Costumes inspired by gothic literature and Boston lore are warmly encouraged.
This is a 21 and older event. $200 through September 30, $220 October 1 – sold out. There will be an open bar, curated small plates and dessert, live music by the Sweetbeats band and dancing, tarot card readers and a wandering haiku poet, and more. Register at https://bplfund.org/nits/
Join Emerald City Plant Shop on May 17 from 11 – 1:30 at the Boston Public Library at 1350 Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan for a free tropical plant giveaway. Limit two plants per person, first come first served while supplies last! Phone 617-298-9218 for more information.
On September 11, 1765, political leaders in Boston attached a plaque to a majestic elm and named it “Liberty Tree” to honor its role in an anti-Stamp Act protest the previous month. New Englanders thus started to commemorate the events of the American Revolution even before they had any idea there would be such a revolution. Over the following centuries, people from New England shaped the national memory of that era through schoolbooks, popular poetry, civic celebrations, monuments, and more.
On the 250th anniversary of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775, the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife will address the broad range of ways the people of New England have looked back on the nation’s founding—and what they forgot, or chose to forget, in the process.
The annual Dublin Seminar is a meeting place where scholars of all kinds—academics, students, museum and library professionals, artisans and craftspeople, educators, preservationists, and committed avocational researchers—join in deep conversation around a focused theme in New England history, pooling their knowledge and exchanging ideas, sources, and methods in a thought-provoking forum.
The Associates of the Boston Public Library are delighted to announce the lineup for the 35th annual Literary Lights dinner on April 27 at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. This black-tie-optional event is our annual opportunity to honor outstanding writers from the Northeast and to celebrate their contributions to literature while raising vital funds to support the preservation of the Boston Public Library’s Special Collections.
Keynote speaker Elizabeth Strout (below) is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge (2008) and one of today’s most celebrated voices in fiction. Born in Portland, Maine, her childhood experiences served as inspiration for the fictional “Shirley Falls, Maine,” the setting of four of her nine acclaimed novels.
A graduate of Bates College, Strout also earned a law degree and a Certificate in Gerontology from Syracuse University. After a brief career in Legal Services, she moved to New York City, where she became an adjunct in the English Department of Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Balancing motherhood, teaching, and her passion for storytelling, Strout began publishing in literary magazines and mainstream outlets like Redbook and Seventeen—paving the way for her remarkable career today.
Also honored will be David Grann, journalist and author of Killers of the Flower Moon, presented by non-fiction writer Nathaniel Philbrick, Elin Hilderbrand, author of the Nantucket novels, presented by Boston Globe columnist & writer Meredith Goldstein, Curtis Sittenfeld, author of the novels Prep and Rodham, presented by writer Tom Perrotta, and Ilyon Woo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master Slave Husband Wife, presented by journalist and writer Caleb Gayle. Jared Bowen, GBH Executive Arts Editor and Host of The Culture Show, will be the Emcee of the evening. For more information on tickets or sponsorship opportunities pleaseclick here or contact Laura Russo, Director of Development and External Affairs, at LRusso@AssociatesBPL.org or (617) 536-3886.
The Native Plant Trust is pleased that Dr. John Daigle, a tribal member of the Penobscot Indian Nation, professor of Forest Recreation Management, and a program leader for the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism program at the University of Maine, will accept Native Plant Trust’s 2024 Regional Impact Award. The award recognizes individuals or organizations for regionally significant leadership and achievement in conservation, horticulture, or education. Director of Conservation Michael Piantedosi nominated Daigle for his role in the Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik, whose mission is to center, protect, and restore the sacred relationship between Wabanaki peoples and ash ecosystems. In Wabanaki culture, brown (aka black) ash (Fraxinus nigra) appears in the creation story and provides an important basket-making material.
Daigle and his research team collaborate with Wabanaki tribal partners, the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, Brown Ash Task Force, private landowners, and others in order to manage and protect brown ash from destruction by the emerald ash borer. This project exemplifies Daigle’s ongoing efforts to facilitate conversations among individuals who bring unique ways of knowing to a common ecological question.
Dr. Daigle will deliver a talk following his acceptance of the award. Please join us to celebrate Dr. Daigle and learn more about his research to protect brown ash. The event takes place November 16 at 3:30 in the Commonwealth Salon Community Room, Boston Public Library Main Branch, Boylston Street, Boston. Free, but registration required at https://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/regional-impact-award-presentation-and-talk/
UMASS professor and author Ethan Carr discusses his 2023 nonfiction book,Boston’s Franklin Park. Franklin Park is one of the great urban parks of the world. Generations of Bostonians have loved this landscape and invested it with many diverse memories and meanings. Today the park is at a turning point. Mayor Wu has approved an Action Plan to guide its future, and the City of Boston and its partners have proposed new multi-million dollar construction projects. The time is right to consider the past, as well as the future, of Franklin Park.
Ethan Carr is a professor of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His latest book is Boston’s Franklin Park (Amherst: Library of American Landscape History, 2023).
This event is co-sponsored by the Grove Hall Branch of the BPL, the Dorchester Historical Society and the JP Historical Society. It is free and open to the public. It will use a hybrid format you can attend in-person or via Zoom. Please register here for the Zoom details: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pUtwfzf1RL-U8n5yWxCJdw
In the case of heavy snow, the event will be held virtually.
The benefits of membership – show your support of the Back Bay neighborhood by joining The Garden Club of the Back Bay and be eligible to participate in festive events like the Annual Winter Tea at the Courtyard Restaurant at the Boston Public Library on Boylston Street. The tea is a Members’ Only event, so act now. For information visit https://bostonflora.com/
The Associates of the Boston Public Library warmly invite you to our fifth annual Pierce Performance, Faces of Phillis, a staged reading and panel discussion that will celebrate Phillis Wheatley Peters, the first African American and the second American woman in the United States to publish a book of poetry. The event commemorates the 250th anniversary of the publication of Phillis Wheatley Peters’s groundbreaking book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Look for the statue of Phillis Wheatley on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
This three-part event includes:
1. a staged reading written by British-Nigerian playwright Ade Solanke and directed by Regge Life. Faces of Phillis includes two dramatized moments from Phillis Wheatley Peters’ life. Adeola Solanke, also known as Ade, is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and founder of Spora Stories. Her acclaimed debut play, “Pandora’s Box,” received a Best New Play nomination in London’s Off-West End Theatre Awards. Ade has been recognized as the Best Playwright in the Nigerian Entertainment and Lifestyle Awards and received Best Play honors in the African Film Awards. Her work has graced renowned stages across the UK, including Arcola, Young Vic, and Sheffield Crucible Theatres. Ade recently completed two Fulbright Distinguished International Fellowships at Emerson College and the University of Southern California.
2. a panel discussion featuring Ade Solanke, our playwright, Meredith Bergmann, the sculptor for the 2003 Boston Women’s Memorial, and Kyera Singleton, the Executive Director of the Royall House Museum.
3. a dramatic poetry reading by Boston’s Poet Laureate and BPL Trustee, Porsha Olayiwola.
The event will take place in the Boston Public Library’s Rabb Lecture Hall on Boylston Street on December 4 from 6 – 7:30. For those who can’t make it in person, sign up here to access the event virtually on Vimeo for one week following the production.
