On this page you’ll find events supported or sponsored by the Friends. There are many other events at the library, so you may want to check the library calendar as well.
A flyer for the 2022-2023 First Wednesdays season is available here.
If you have any questions about this page, please email us.

August 2021
BookPage is back …
Get the scoop on the best new books across all genres. The Friends have renewed the library's subscription to BookPage, an editorially-independent monthly magazine featuring only books it highly recommends.
Find out more »Garden Party
The Friends invite you to a garden party fundraiser in West Brattleboro on Saturday, August 28th, 2-5pm; rain date: Sunday, August 29th. Enjoy homemade treats in a splendid wooded garden setting at 744 Meadowbrook Rd., West Brattleboro. Tickets are $20 in advance (call the library at 802-254-5290 to RSVP and get directions). Tickets are $25 on the day.
Find out more »September 2021
Fundraising News
Our late-summer fundraisers - Garden Party and Ice Cream Social - were a great success, together raising close to $5,000 to help support the library. Many thanks to Sharon Myers for hosting the Garden Party and to the Brattleboro Food Coop and Circus Minimus for their contributions to the Ice Cream Social!
Find out more »October 2021
Daisy Turner’s Kin
Presenter: Jane Beck, founder of the Vermont Folklife Center
Time: October 6th, 7pm, via Zoom
Folklorist Jane Beck shares the story of the Turner family, a saga that spans four generations and two centuries. This rare account of the Black experience in New England covers the capture in Africa, the middle passage, two generations of enslavement, escape from bondage, and eventually a family farm on a Vermont hilltop. Jane Beck is the author of Daisy Turner's Kin, an African American Family Saga, based on sixty interviews with Turner, the daughter of enslaved people.
To register for this online talk, visit https://www.vermonthumanities.org/event/digital-daisy-turners-kin/
Find out more »November 2021
Philanthropy and Civil Society in Challenging Times
Presenter: Stuart Comstock-Gay, former president of the Vermont Community Foundation
Time: November 3, 7:00pm, via Zoom
The pandemic year of 2020 challenged every aspect of modern community, including our visions of equality, civility, health, and democracy. Stuart Comstock-Gay, who has spent his career addressing issues of community, democracy and civil rights, discusses how civic engagement can help us rebuild our communities and reclaim our dreams.
To register for this online talk, visit https://www.vermonthumanities.org/event/digital-philanthropy-and-civil-society-in-challenging-times/
Find out more »Book Sale, cont.
Last chance: if you missed the Book Sale in November, you can still shop for remainders, on sale during regular library hours until January 8th. In addition to books, you'll find CDs, DVDs, and puzzles - all in good condition and sale priced!
Find out more »December 2021
Learning Hidden History with Picture Books and Graphic Novels
Presenter: Laura Jiménez
Time: December 1st, 7:00pm, via Zoom
Dr. Laura Jiménez, Department Chair for Language and Literacy Education at Boston University, studies literature and literacy through a social justice lens. The current renaissance of picture books and graphic novels written by and about marginalized communities provides new ways to engage with history. Jiménez describes how contemporary authors and illustrators use visual literature to center narratives previously unseen in mainstream publishing.
To register for this online talk, visit
Find out more »January 2022
Atlantic is a Sea of Bones
Presenter: Jarvis Green
Time: January 5, 7:00pm
Place: Brooks Memorial Library (in person)
Jarvis Green, founder of the Black theater company JAG Productions, invites us to reflect individually and collectively on the afterlives and the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. Green will explore how Black queer and feminist artists have created ways to honor this history and heal ancestral trauma.
Find out more »February 2022
Boneyarn: New York Slavery Poems
Presenter: David Mills
Time: February 2, 7:00pm, online
The oldest and largest slave cemetery in the United States is located in the shadow of Wall Street. Actor and poet David Mills reads from and discusses his award-winning poetry collection, Boneyarn, featuring groundbreaking poems about slavery in New York City, a topic rarely addressed.
David Mills holds MFAs from both New York University and Warren Wilson College and is a cum laude graduate of Yale University. He has published two full-length poetry collections in addition to Boneyarn: The Dream Detective and The Sudden Country.
To register for this online talk, visit https://www.vermonthumanities.org/event/digital-boneyarn-new-york-slavery-poems/
Find out more »April 2022
The Poetics of Girlhood and Womanhood in America
Presenters: Diana Whitney, Shanta Lee Gander, Christal Brown
Time: April 6, 7:00pm
Place: Brooks Memorial Library (in person)
Poets and writers Diana Whitney and Shanta Lee Gander join Christal Brown, associate professor of Dance at Middlebury College, in a conversation that explores how girlhood and womanhood in America are manifested across the boundaries of poetry, dance, and lived experience.
Diana Whitney’s edited work "You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves" ranges across intersectional, intergenerational, and gender-fluid voices.
In "GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues" Shanta Lee Gander navigates between formal and vernacular styles to examine butterflies and female sexuality, vulnerability, classical Greek myths, and more.
Christal Brown’s original dance piece “The Opulence of Integrity” was inspired by the public life and inner searching of Muhammad Ali, boxing’s outspoken superstar.
Find out more »