Upcoming Book & Author Events

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• Mother of a Movement: PFLAG, Allies, and Picture Books

  • When
    June 08, 2023
  •  
    2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Register

  Join LILRC as we welcome Rob Sanders, author of The Mother of a Movement:

  Jeanne Manford--Ally, Activist, and Founder of PFLAG (Magination Press

  October 4, 2022), to discuss his picture book. A representative from Magination Press Children’s Books will also participate in the conversation. Magination Press is the children’s book imprint of the American Psychological Association.

  
  

  Praise for The Mother of A Movement 

  
  

  My parents showed families how to love and affirm their LGBTQ children. This is a beautiful celebration of my mother’s life and work, and a powerful story of the importance of allyship.

  —Suzanne Manford Swan

  
  

  Jeanne Manford spoke out publicly and fought by her gay son Morty's side at a time when it was dangerous to do so. She had strength and courage, but it was her unwavering love for her son—and fierce desire to protect him from discrimination, harassment, and harm—that inspired her activism. And now, the organization she founded, PFLAG, has provided support, education, and advocacy to hundreds of thousands of families, and millions of people over the last five decades. The Mother of a Movement: Jeanne Manford—Ally, Activist, and Co-Founder of PFLAG is a beautiful depiction of Jeanne's legacy, and a testament to the power of a parent's love for their child.

  —Brian K. Bond, Executive Director, PFLAG National

  
  

  Rousing prose…a robust list of sources…a timeless feel…Stylish, chic, and strong. Brava!

  —Kirkus, Starred Review

  
  

  ~~~~~~~~~
  

  Code of Conduct

  For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

  Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

  FOR OUR PARTICIPANTS -

  1. If you do not receive a confirmation email after registering, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org to check your registration.  

  
  2.  If you have any questions regarding this program or registration and program access, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org

  Show details
• Remember Liss: The Remarkable True Story of One Woman's Enslavement and Freedom in New York

  • When
    June 22, 2023
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Register

  

  
  

  Join LILRC as we welcome Claire Bellerjeau, co-author of Remember Liss: The Remarkable True Story of One Woman's Enslavement and Freedom in New York

  Remember Liss: The Remarkable True Story of One Woman's Enslavement and Freedom in New York, by Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks sheds light on the experiences of people of color in New York from the colonial period into the early republic. By the time Elizabeth, known as “Liss,” was born into the household of the moderately wealthy Townsend family in the early 1760s, slavery had already been established in New York for over a century—and would persist under legal protection for almost seventy more. Remember Liss follows her long and complex journey towards freedom and examines the laws and customs that kept the institution in place for so long as well as the path to eventually abolishing slavery in the state. Her life reveals the often-overlooked history of slavery in New York and her involvement with Robert Townsend, a spy for George Washington, engages readers with fascinating stories of espionage during the American Revolution. 

  Set primarily against the backdrop of the American Revolution and Liss’s connection with Robert Townsend, Remember Liss allows readers from 4th grade and up a chance to explore the world of New York—and New York’s place in the world—during the 17th, 18th , and early 19th centuries. Prominent figures cross her path such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Jupiter Hammon, Benedict Arnold, John André and John Adams; and stories from America’s founding are re-examined, including the Culper Spy Ring, the Boston Massacre, the Sons of Liberty, the Battle of Long Island, and the Benedict Arnold treason plot. This text also points readers to primary documents and lesson plans through a collaboration with New York Archives’ online platform “Consider the Source.” Remember Liss offers a new perspective to America’s founding, from the point of view of an enslaved Black woman seeking personal liberty in a country fighting for its own.

  PRESENTER: 

  Claire Bellerjeau discovered Liss’s story through seventeen years of original research. In 2021 she co-authored “Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth”(Lyons Press). In 2022 Bellerjeau co-founded Remember Liss, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to sharing Liss’s story with the community. She formerly served as Historian and Director of Education at Liss’s birthplace, Raynham Hall Museum in Oyster Bay, New York. She has been researching the Townsend family and those they enslaved for almost two decades, including curating a yearlong exhibit on the Townsend “Slave Bible” in 2005. In 2015, during a research visit to the New York Historical Society, she discovered what may be one of the earliest poems ever written by Jupiter Hammon, America’s first published African American writer. She has developed educational programs on the subjects of slavery in New York and the American Revolution on Long Island and shares Liss’s story with schools and the community.

   ~~~~~~~~~

  Code of Conduct

  For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

  Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

  FOR OUR PARTICIPANTS -

  1. If you do not receive a confirmation email after registering, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org to check your registration.  
  
  2.  If you have any questions regarding this program or registration and program access, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org

  
  

  Show details
• Author Elizabeth Castellano: Save What's Left

  • When
    July 26, 2023
  •  
    11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Register

  Join LILRC when we welcome author Elizabeth Castellano to discuss her debut novel, Save What's Left (Anchor, 2023), which takes place in a beach town on Long Island!

  An outrageously funny debut novel about a woman who moves to a small beach town looking for peace, only to find herself in an all-out war with her neighbors.

  When Kathleen Deane’s husband, Tom, tells her he's no longer happy with his life and their marriage, Kathleen is confused. They live in Kansas. They’ve been married thirty years. Who said anything about being happy? But with Tom off finding himself, Kathleen starts to think about what she wants. And her thoughts lead her to a small beach community on the east coast, a town called Whitbey that has always looked lovely in the Christmas letters her childhood friend Josie sends every year.

  It turns out, though, that life in Whitbey is nothing like Josie’s letters. Kathleen’s new neighbor, Rosemary, is cantankerous, and the town’s supervisor won't return Kathleen’s emails, but worst of all is the Sugar Cube, the monstrosity masquerading as a holiday home that Kathleen’s absentee neighbors are building next door to her quaint (read: tiny) cottage. As Kathleen gets more and more involved in the fight against the Sugar Cube and town politics overall, she realizes that Whitbey may not be a fairytale, but it just might be exactly what she needed.

  Save What’s Left can best be described as the “un-beach read.” It pulls back the curtain on life in a beach town, revealing the true cost of a pretty view. Told from the candid and irreverent perspective of a newcomer turned local, this is a story of forgiveness, fortitude, and second chances.

  Praise for Save What's Left

  “I loved every page of Save What’s Left—this voice, this eye, this story, its originality and wit, its offbeat social satire, its loopy cynicism, and a whole town’s good intentions gone awry. Fighting city hall has never been so delicious. Brava, Elizabeth Castellano. I can’t wait for your next book.”

  —Elinor Lipman, author of Rachel to the Rescue

  “Save What’s Left is an absolute delight. It’s laugh out loud funny and full of heart. I loved it.”

  —J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of Friends and Strangers

  “Laugh-out-loud funny, Save What’s Left is a novel about life in a town that makes the perfect escape.”

  —Today.com

  About the Author

  Elizabeth Castellano grew up in a beach town. She lives in New York. Save What's Left is her debut novel. 

  ~~~~~~~~~

  Code of Conduct

  For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

  Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

  Program Recording: Yes
  

  FOR OUR PARTICIPANTS -

  1. If you do not receive a confirmation email after registering, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org to check your registration.  
  
  2.  If you have any questions regarding this program or registration and program access, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org

  Show details
• I Kick and I Fly: Ruchira Gupta on Human Trafficking

  • When
    August 08, 2023
  •  
    11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Register

  Join LILRC as we welcome author Ruchira Gupta for a moderated conversation about her Young Adult novel, I Kick and I Fly (Scholastic, 2023), a story of the human trafficking of young girls. 

  In I Kick and I Fly, Ruchira Gupta has given young readers an irresistible story, and also one that could save lives. This book is a gift." -- Gloria Steinem

  "Any work from Ruchira Gupta is sure to further the cause of liberating women, especially, and in this novel, girls. It takes a strong belief in us, and especially in our young ones, to persevere as she does in both art and politics. The absolute belief that if the heart is moved, so might be the positive activities for justice and freedom of the mind." -- Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

  "I Kick and I Fly is a powerhouse of a debut. Ruchira Gupta has crafted a page-turner of a read, stepped in place and full of indelible characters, managing to be at once propulsive and enlightening, infuriating and inspiring. But maybe most important, Heera’s story is a beacon of hope to a generation of young people trying to transform an unjust world." -- Gayle Forman, New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay and We Are Inevitable

  Ruchira Gupta is an Emmy winning journalist and founder of the anti sex trafficking NGO, Apne Aap that helps women and girls exit systems of prostitution. I Kick and I Fly is her debut fiction novel. 

  Ruchira has been given the French Ordre National du Mérite, Clinton Global Citizen Award, and the UN NGO CSW Woman of Distinction among other honors for her contribution to the establishment of the UN Trafficking Fund for Survivors, the passage of the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act and her grassroots activism with Apne Aap. She holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Smith College. Ruchira has worked for the United Nations in Nepal, Thailand, Kosovo, Iran, and USA. She teaches occasionally as a visiting professor at New York University.  She divides her time between New York and Forbesganj, her childhood home in the foothills of the Himalayas, where she paints her mother’s garden.

  www.ruchiragupta.com

   ~~~~~~~~~

  Code of Conduct

  For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

  Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

  FOR OUR PARTICIPANTS -

  1. If you do not receive a confirmation email after registering, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org to check your registration.  
  
  2.  If you have any questions regarding this program or registration and program access, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org

  Show details
• Pandit Dasa: Mindfulness For the Wandering Mind

  • When
    August 28, 2023
  •  
    10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Register

  Written by a monk-turned-leadership-guru, Mindfulness For the Wandering Mind offers unique insight on how you can focus your mind, become more resilient, respond better to conflict, and build stronger professional (and personal) relationships. It’s all possible when you begin to understand how your mind works and take control of this complicated mechanism. This book will show you how to identify and close the “apps” that are constantly running in your own mind, so you can eliminate distractions and find greater peace and productivity in your daily life.

  In this book, you’ll find specific meditation processes and actions you can take to help you succeed as you begin or continue your journey. Through presentations and talks across the country, Author Pandit Dasa has offered his wisdom on applying mindfulness in the workplace. In this book, he shares his wisdom with you, revealing that, no matter what your external circumstances or environment, you can find the time and space to reflect and unlock the benefits of mindfulness.

  • Reduce stress and anxiety by eliminating unnecessary distractions and closing unused “apps” in your mind
  • Harness the principles of forgiveness, patience, compassion, and selflessness to improve work-life balance and mental health for yourself and your employees
  • Break through the stigma surrounding mental health concerns and identify the obstacles that are keeping you from happiness and fulfilment
  • Complete reflection questions and exercises to develop a deeper awareness of how your mind works―and what you can do to improve it

  Mindfulness For the Wandering Mind is for anyone who is looking for a solution to the constant feelings overwhelm, distraction, and anxiety that plague us in today’s fast-paced, media-saturated world. Teach your brain how to block out the noise and find focus, and observe the radical transformation that mindfulness can make in your life.

  ~~~~~~~~~

  Code of Conduct

  For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

  Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

  FOR OUR PARTICIPANTS -

  1. If you do not receive a confirmation email after registering, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org to check your registration.  
  
  2.  If you have any questions regarding this program or registration and program access, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org

  Show details
• Shaunna Edwards and Alyson Richman: The Thread Collectors

  • When
    October 12, 2023
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Register

  Join LILRC as we welcome authors Shaunna Edwards and Alyson Richman to discuss their compelling novel, The Thread Collectors  (Graydon House, Harper Collins 2022).

  1863: In a small Creole cottage in New Orleans, an ingenious young Black woman named Stella embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army. Bound to a man who would kill her if he knew of her clandestine activities, Stella has to hide not only her efforts but her love for William, a Black soldier and a brilliant musician.

  Meanwhile, in New York City, a Jewish woman stitches a quilt for her husband, who is stationed in Louisiana with the Union Army. Between abolitionist meetings, Lily rolls bandages and crafts quilts with her sewing circle for other soldiers, too, hoping for their safe return home. But when months go by without word from her husband, Lily resolves to make the perilous journey South to search for him.

  As these two women risk everything for love and freedom during the brutal Civil War, their paths converge in New Orleans, where an unexpected encounter leads them to discover that even the most delicate threads have the capacity to save us. Loosely inspired by the authors' family histories, this stunning novel will stay with readers for a long time.

  Shaunna J. Edwards has a BA in literature from Harvard College and a JD from NYU School of Law. A former corporate lawyer, she now works in diversity, equity and inclusion. She is a native Louisianian, raised in New Orleans, and currently lives in Harlem with her husband. The Thread Collectors is her first novel. Find her on Instagram, @shaunnajedwards.

  Alyson Richman is the USA Today bestselling and #1 international bestselling author of several historical novels including The Velvet Hours, The Garden of Letters, and The Lost Wife, which is currently in development for a major motion picture. Alyson graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in art history and Japanese studies.  She herself is an accomplished painter and her novels combine her deep love of art, historical research, and travel.  Alyson's novels have been published in twenty-five languages and have reached the bestseller lists both in the United States and abroad. She lives on Long Island with her husband and two children, where she is currently at work on her next novel. 

  Praise for The Thread Collectors 

  “An unforgettable story of female strength, hope and friendship. This collaborative work is magnificent—a true revelation!”

  - Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman with the Blue Star

  “A brilliant story brimming with unexpected friendships and family ties. Historically sound and beautifully stitched, The Thread Collectors will stay with you long after the last page is turned.”

  - Sadeqa Johnson, international bestselling author of Yellow Wife  

  “The Thread Collectors is a gift—not only for lovers of historical fiction, but for readers everywhere who search for hidden truths behind the facts we think we know. Like the fearless, sensitive, and resourceful women they write about, Edwards and Richman have stitched together a glorious tapestry of resilience, survival, friendship, and love. This is a Civil War story unlike any other—a story readers will treasure from the very first page.”

  - Lynda Cohen Loigman, USA Today bestselling author of The Two-Family House and The Wartime Sisters

  ~~~~~~~~~

  Code of Conduct

  For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

  Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

  ​Program Recording: ​Yes
  

  FOR OUR PARTICIPANTS -

  1. If you do not receive a confirmation email after registering, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org to check your registration.  
  
  2.  If you have any questions regarding this program or registration and program access, please contact Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org

  Show details