Acclaimed author Zadie Smith will be honored in person at The Westport Library on Sunday, November 12, with the inaugural Westport Prize for Literature.
The Westport Prize for Literature is an annual prize established to honor an original work of fiction that explores issues in contemporary society. Smith was recognized this year for The Fraud, described by publisher Penguin Random House as “a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story — and who gets to be believed.”
Going forward, the prize will be overseen and administered by a steering committee of Westport resident volunteers, with an independent jury selecting the winner.
“We are over the moon to announce the Westport Prize for Literature and thrilled that Zadie Smith will be our first honoree,” said Candice Savin, chair of the steering committee. “She is an icon in letters and an inspiration to writers — and a delight for readers — everywhere. We could not imagine a more deserving award winner for our inaugural prize. To have her in Westport is an honor for us and a treat for the entire community.”
Smith will be signing copies of The Fraud following her talk. Registration is now open and includes a copy of the book for $29, covering either one or two attendees.
Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time, as well as the novella The Embassy of Cambodia. In addition, she has written three collections of essays — Changing My Mind, Feel Free, and Intimations — a collection of short stories, Grand Union, and the play, The Wife of Willesden, and is the editor of The Book of Other People.
Among her many honors, Smith has been awarded the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction for On Beauty, the Guardian First Book Award and the Whitbread First Novel Award for White Teeth, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism for Feel Free, and the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright for The Wife of Willesden.
She is also a three-time nominee for the esteemed Booker Prize, and just last year was honored with the PEN America Literary Service Award.
“Zadie Smith is one of the most renowned writers of her generation and a voice that speaks to readers around the globe,” said Bill Harmer, executive director of The Westport Library. “To have her in the Library is a truly special occasion. Without question, she is a most-deserving recipient of the inaugural Westport Prize for Literature, and I commend the committee for their inspired selection.”
Starting in 2024, the Westport Prize for Literature will be presented each fall in conjunction with the Library’s annual StoryFest, the largest literary festival in Connecticut.
The Westport Library Adult Summer Reading Challenge returns for its seventh year in 2023, replete with a fresh set of categories to keep you reading from its June 1 kickoff through the end of August.
That means three months — 92 days — to complete the 25 challenges in this year’s contest. (Full list of categories below.)
“Summer Reading Challenge time is my absolute favorite part of the year,” said Westport Library Reference Manager Melanie Kelly. “The best part is reading something wonderful that I might not have picked up if I hadn’t needed to fit it into a challenge category. It is kismet for books! And there is no pressure. You can do all of the categories or only one, or anything in between, just as long as you have fun reading!”
The challenge itself is simple: Fulfill one of the designated categories and then submit your result via the form available on The Westport Library website. (Click here to access the form.) And check back to the running leaderboard to track your progress, see what everyone else is reading, and provide recommendations to the Library’s community of readers.
The only rules are that each category may be fulfilled only once, and each book you read can be used for only one category.
In addition, join the Westport Reading Challenge Facebook group to talk books all summer long.
Westport Library 2023 Summer Reading Challenge
Read a book …
__ about an antihero
__ that blows your mind
__ about a character in disguise
__ about an escape
__ that takes place in an extreme climate
__ with eyes on the cover
__ that was first runner-up
__ about a golden age
__ that haunts you
__ that you heard about at the Library
__ featuring a librarian
__ in which the location is intrinsic to the story
__ with a neurodiverse protagonist
__ with a nonhuman narrator
__ about a podcast
__ that is published THIS summer
__ with a purple cover
__ recommended by a librarian
__ about a road trip
__ that is short
__ that SHOULD be a movie or a show
__ with a star on the cover
__ that takes place during a holiday
__ in which the time is running out
__ that takes place under the sea
Looking for programs to keep your kids active and engaged this summer? The Westport Library has you covered.
Once again in 2023, the Children’s Library will host a series of offerings for all ages and interests, including STEAM programs, summer learning clubs, and, of course, a summer reading challenge.
Camp Explore returns for its fourth year of STEAM exploration, with workshops kicking off June 27 and running into August. Among the courses offered this year are Microbit Makery with Josh Burker for grades 6-8, African Mask Making with Iyaba Ibo Mandingo for grades 5-6, and Matica Arts (circus skills) with Heidi Kirchofer and Joel Melendez for grades 6-8. In addition, there will be a one-day class on jewelry making with the Library’s own Sharon Cooper and a Matica Circus performance on August 8 at 10 am that is fully open to the public, no registration needed.
The Summer Learning Clubs integrate math, literacy, and STEAM activities into a thematic approach, with each class blending inquiry, design, research, writing, and the arts. Taught by certified teachers, this program melds traditional academic activities into a Project Based Learning experience and student-driven study. The Library offers three sessions for kids of all ages: Three-hour classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for Grades 1-3, three-hour classes on the same days for Grades 4-5, and weekly sessions on Mondays for middle schoolers.
Both Camp Explore and the Summer Learning Clubs are brought to the Library by the continuing generosity of Roz and Bud Siegel.
“Camp Explore and the Summer Learning Clubs are two of our most popular offerings,” said Youth Services Director Mary Parmelee. “They’re a great way to get kids active in the summer, keep their minds working and growing, and apply many of the concepts they’ve learned in school in a way that is both social and fun.”
The summer reading challenge — Imagine Your Summer — kicks off June 1 and encourages kids to read anything, anytime, anywhere, all summer long. It runs through September 3. To take part, kids can register online and keep track of minutes read. For every 100 minutes read, kids can decorate a summer sun that will be displayed in the Children’s Library. At 500 minutes, kids earn a treat from Shake Shack. And at 1,000 minutes, they get to choose a free book to keep from the Library’s selection of titles.
And, of course, there will be weekly free programming offered throughout the summer, including Miss Lynne’s Summer Storytime, Princess Diana’s Storytime, Ready Readers, Rhythm & Rhyme, Story Fun with Mrs. Olson, Storytime on the Green, and Tummy Time.
Climate change and the fight for racial justice are two of the most pressing issues of our time. And they are not independent events, but interconnected realities that impact how we interact with our natural world and how the changes in our natural world affect people everywhere.
On June 1, Roosevelt Institute Director of Climate Policy Rhiana Gunn-Wright will explore these interconnections between environmental justice and racial justice with the Westport community in a can’t-miss talk held at 7 pm in The Westport Library’s Trefz Forum. (Click here to register.)
In the talk, Gunn-Wright will discuss how to cultivate regional responses to the climate crisis, recognizing that environmental impacts cross town lines.
The event is part of a Lilly Foundation-funded initiative at the Saugatuck Congregational Church to “embrace our coastal community” and is the result of a community partnership featuring the Library, the Congregational Church, TEAM Westport, and Sustainable Westport.
“To reverse the climate crisis, we need to think and live regionally,” said Saugatuck Congregational Church Rev. Alison J. B. Patton, “recognizing our interdependence with neighbors across town lines and learning from those who have been most directly impacted by climate events and environmentally unsustainable practices. How do we ensure that all people and parts of our shared ecosystem can flourish?”
“This vitally important talk was inspired by Westport's commitment to becoming a sustainable, thriving community — economically, environmentally, and socially — and by our ongoing community-based efforts to dismantle systemic racism,” said Harold Bailey Jr., chair of TEAM Westport. “It is a significant opportunity for each of us to build awareness that the sustainability of our most distressed regional neighbors today could easily signal the sustainability of our own community tomorrow.”
Gunn-Wright leads the Roosevelt Institute’s research at the intersection of climate policy, public investment, racial equity, and public power. Along with her colleagues, Gunn-Wright aims to create a body of work that examines the role of economic policy and large-scale economic transformation in catalyzing just and rapid responses to the climate crisis. She also supports Roosevelt’s engagement with the Green New Deal Network and other partners in the climate movement.
Prior to joining Roosevelt, Gunn-Wright was the policy director for New Consensus, charged with developing and promoting the Green New Deal, and the policy director for Abdul El-Sayed’s 2018 Michigan gubernatorial campaign. A 2013 Rhodes Scholar, she has also worked as the policy analyst for the Detroit Health Department, acted as the Mariam K. Chamberlain Fellow of Women and Public Policy at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and served on the policy team for former First Lady Michelle Obama.
“We are remarkably fortunate to have such an esteemed expert as Rhiana Gunn-Wright here to discuss how climate justice and racial justice intertwine and impact each other,” said Westport Library Executive Director Bill Harmer. “This is a timely and important event for Westport and the greater Fairfield County community as we all work together to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to grow and thrive — now and for generations to come.”
Pulitzer Prize finalist Nicholas Dawidoff will be appearing at The Westport Library on Thursday, May 25, at 7 pm to talk about his riveting 2022 book, The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Injustice, and the American City.
Dawidoff will be in conversation with Norwalk Community College Professor and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Althea Seaborn.
Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event. Register here for this free event.
Dawidoff is the critically acclaimed author of five books, including The Catcher Was a Spy, The Fly Swatter, and In the Country of Country. In addition to being a Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Fly Swatter, he has also been a Guggenheim, Berlin Prize, and Art for Justice Fellow.
For The Other Side of Prospect, Dawidoff returned to his hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, and dedicated eight years to researching and writing. Urban decay, white flight, redlining — the transformation of Newhallville, in Dawidoff’s telling, make these symptoms of racist neglect vividly clear. As Bobby, the subject of the book, says, “Lack of jobs. Men don’t know how to be. That’s the tragedy of our world.”
The Other Side of Prospect was a finalist for the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism and also for the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts.
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Description from book publisher W.W. Norton & Company:
One New Haven summer evening in 2006, a retired grandfather was shot point-blank by a young stranger. A hasty police investigation culminated in innocent 16-year-old Bobby being sentenced to prison for 38 years.
In The Other Side of Prospect, he has produced an immersive portrait of a seminal community in an old American city now beset by division and gun violence. Tracing the histories of three people whose lives meet in tragedy — victim Pete Fields, likely murderer Major, and Bobby — Dawidoff indelibly describes optimistic families coming north from South Carolina as part of the Great Migration, for the promise of opportunity and upward mobility, and the harrowing costs of deindustrialization and neglect.
Foremost are the unique challenges confronted by children like Major and Bobby coming of age in their “forgotten” neighborhood, steps from Yale University. After years in prison, with the help of a true-believing lawyer, Bobby is finally set free. His subsequent struggles with the memories of prison, and his heartbreaking efforts to reconnect with family and community, exemplify the challenges the formerly incarcerated face upon reentry into society and, writes Reginald Dwayne Betts, make this “the best book about the crisis of incarceration in America.”
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Event Information:
Nicholas Dawidoff Discusses ‘The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Justice, and the American City'
Thursday, May 25
7 pm
Trefz Forum, The Westport Library
The Westport Library is unveiling three new exhibitions for spring, highlighting the work of Connecticut artists Nancy Moore and Charles Douthat as well as the art of the album with a display related to the Chicago blues.
All three exhibits are currently on view and will run through August 8, with Moore’s Women Telling Stories in the Sheffer Gallery, Douthat’s Three Seasons in the South Gallery, and Chicago Blues displaying in the Jesup Gallery.
With a background as a book editor, Moore has internalized the art of storytelling to inform her passion as a painter. She paints primarily on large slices of archival paper, working mainly with watercolor and also with graphite, gouache, metallic paint, colored pencil, and wax crayon. Themes of her work include transformation, ethnography, design, shape-shifting, gender identity, fashion, and creation myth.
Moore (pictured above) is a proud, self-taught artist who revels in the distortion of body proportions and perspectives, with a goal of creating narratives from emotion and instinct that flow from the heart and hand onto the paper. The resulting work resides in many private homes, and in galleries, museums, and other public institutions.
There will be an event and reception on June 4 to celebrate the exhibit, from 2 to 4 pm, with a talk between Moore and Miggs Burroughs at 3 pm.
“How wonderful to have my work hanging here in this glorious space,” Moore said. “I grew up in my neighborhood library in New Haven internalizing the voices of countless authors who entertained me, guided me, and kept me company. I went on to become a book editor, spending 38 years in the company of people compelled to describe the world and to tell stories. Around the edges of that career, I painted — a passion I discovered in childhood and never lost. The need to tell stories, to communicate through my work, has propelled me forward in my career as an artist.”
Douthat is a poet, retired litigator, visual artist, and member of the Artists Collective of Westport. A graduate of Stanford and the University of California, Douthat is a self-taught painter who works within the traditions of abstract expressionism and lyrical abstraction. He began painting 15 years ago, toward the end of a long career as a trial lawyer in New Haven. In 2019, he received an MFA in fine arts from Warren Wilson College.
His paintings, featured individually in many curated and juried shows, were most recently the subject of the one-person exhibition, Everyone Has Feelings, at Metro Art Studios in Bridgeport, and a two-person exhibition, Moving Lines, at the Kershner Gallery in Fairfield.
Douthat will be appearing in the Library on June 14 for a reception and talk with Burroughs, from 6 to 8 pm. The talk kicks off at 7 pm.
“I grew up in Southern California, and though living here for over 40 years, I still can’t make myself like New England winters,” said Douthat. “Partly it’s the cold and the short, dark days. Partly it’s the absence of vivid colors in the world around me. The best I can say for winter is that the more it lingers, the more I long for it to end. And sometimes I’m able to paint out of that longing, as I did this year for the three new works in this exhibit, which were all started and finished during the coldest months. You’ll notice no winter painting among the three. Yet if they’re strong paintings, I suspect that winter walks behind them, that each expresses my winter longing for spring.”
Chicago Blues features albums from the collection of Ellen and Mark Naftalin, the American blues keyboardist who was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 2015. The exhibit features album covers of some of the original blues musicians who made their way to Chicago and changed the face and sound of American music forever.
The Chicago blues evolved from rural country blues following the Great Migration of African Americans from the southern U.S. to the industrial cities of the east, north, and west. The blues was one of the most significant influences on early rock music, with Chuck Berry crediting Muddy Waters and playing with Willie Dixon and others on his early Chess recordings.
Across the Atlantic in the 1960s, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and the Animals brought Chicago blues to a younger audience, while at the same time American artists such as the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, John P. Hammond, and Charlie Musselwhite performed in the style of Chicago blues.
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Pictured above (L to R): Muddy Waters cover, courtesy Ellen and Mark Naftalin; Nimbus, by Nancy Moore; and Spring 40x40, by Charles Douthat
If you’re looking to stock up on books for your summer reading, you’re in luck: The Big Spring Book Sale is returning to The Westport Library, Friday, May 5 through Monday, May 8, with great books and great deals for anyone and everyone.
The sale will be held on the Library’s main floor — spanning the Trefz Forum, Brooks Place, and the Komansky Room — with thousands of gently used books for children and adults in more than 50 categories of nonfiction and fiction, as well as noteworthy, vintage children’s and antiquarian books, music CDs, and movie and television series DVDs, as well as a limited selection of ephemera and artwork.
The book sale hours, with free admission, are as follows:
Friday, May 5: 12-6 pm
Saturday, May 6: 9 am – 5 pm
Sunday, May 7: 11 am – 5 pm (almost everything half-price)
Monday, May 8: 9 am – 5 pm (shoppers can fill our logo bag for $8 per bag, or your own equivalent-sized bag for $5, or buy individual books at half-price)
On Friday morning, May 5, from 8:45 am to noon, the Book Sale will be open only to those who purchase an Early Access ticket in advance. Early Access tickets are available online at WestportSpring2023BookSale.eventbrite.com.
Of special interest for this sale are books donated from the homes of NBC Sports producer Ricky Diamond; philanthropist and educator Elisabeth Luce Moore, sister of Henry Luce, who founded Time-Life, Inc.; and Joseph A. Califano Jr., who served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter Administration.
Many of the books in the Califano collection have been signed and inscribed to him or his wife, Hilary. Most are in nonfiction categories ( American history and politics, biographies, business, sports) and have been signed by everyone from a former U.S. president (Lyndon Johnson) and cabinet members (Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, Alexander Haig, Hilary Clinton), to historians (Arthur Schlesinger), journalists (Woodward and Bernstein, Jim Bishop), entertainers (Art Buchwald, Sidney Poitier, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Tony Bennett), and authors (Dick Francis, Robin Cook, Stuart Woods), to name just a few.
This year’s book sale also features a collection of works by or about James Joyce; an extensive collection of History books, especially American History & Politics, World War II, and world history; and an almost-complete set of the 1972 Encyclopedia Britannica “Great Books” collection, in very good condition.
Also, back by popular demand is the $1 Fiction Room — an entire conference room filled with hardcover fiction, mystery, science fiction and fantasy books, and young adult fiction, plus paperback novels, all offered at just $1 each.
In addition, graphic novels, large print books, and a wide assortment of vinyl will be available for sale at the nonprofit Westport Book Shop. (And you can shop any time at the Book Sale’s Online Store.)
For more information on this year’s Big Spring Book Sale, visit the book sale website.
Tickets for BOOKED for the evening, The Westport Library’s signature fundraiser, will go on sale Monday, May 8, at 10 am, available for purchase on the Library’s BOOKED for the evening homepage.
BOOKED for the evening this year will be honoring award-winning theatre, film, and television actress Laura Linney, who will be appearing in person in the Library’s Trefz Forum on Thursday, July 13, at 8 pm.
Now in its 24th year, BOOKED for the evening honors an individual whose work reflects the purpose of the Library: to nurture a love of learning and to enhance our understanding of the world.
In her remarkable career, Linney has been nominated three times for an Academy Award, five times for a Tony Award, once for a BAFTA Award, and eight times for a Golden Globe. She has won one SAG Award, one National Board of Review Award, two Golden Globes, and four Emmys.
Her film credits include Genius, Nocturnal Animals, Mr. Holmes, Kinsey, You Can Count on Me, Mystic River, Love Actually, and The Truman Show. Among her prominent Broadway productions are The Crucible, Time Stands Still, Sight Unseen, and Six Degrees of Separation. And on television, she has starred in the Showtime series The Big C and the HBO mini-series John Adams, as well as Tales of the City and Frasier. She currently features as Wendy Byrde in Ozark, a role for which she has earned Emmy and SAG Award nominations.
Linney holds honorary doctorates from her alma maters, Brown University and The Julliard School. She has been honored for her work in cancer advocacy and is a sought-after speaker focusing on reconsidering the arts as essential for success, easing the pain of cancer and finding beauty in tragedy, and navigating gender inequality in the film industry. She also delivers master classes on acting and theatre.
Previous BOOKED for the evening award recipients include Tom Brokaw, E.L. Doctorow, Calvin Trillin, Wendy Wasserstein, Pete Hamill, Martin Scorsese, Arthur Mitchell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Halberstam, Oscar Hijuelos, Adam Gopnik, Will Shortz, Patti Smith, Barry Levinson, Jon Meacham, Nile Rodgers, Lynsey Addario, Ron Chernow, Alan Alda, Justin Paul, Frederic Chiu, Itzhak Perlman, and 2022 guest of honor Shonda Rhimes.
The Westport Library is striving to bring civility back to civic discourse with the launch of the Common Ground Initiative, Westport’s new forum for public discourse on issues of importance to the community.
The aim of the initiative is to host a positive, productive conversation on how we work together to move forward as a civil society, to encourage respectful, constructive dialogue, and to build capacity to tackle challenging and controversial issues.
The program planning for the initiative is led by The Westport Library in conjunction with community leaders representing a wide array of constituents and ideological standpoints.
“In recent years, and in so many capacities and on so many stages, we have witnessed a breakdown of decorum in public conversation and people focusing on that which divides us, not what unites us,” said Bill Harmer, Westport Library executive director. “We have seen that nationally as well as locally. But we have also witnessed, particularly in Westport, a great capacity for kindness, compassion, and compromise. It is those ideals that we want to strive for, and we look forward to the Common Ground Initiative in helping us find that balance.”
The Common Ground Initiative officially launches on Tuesday, May 2, at 7 pm with a conversation between Senator Roy Blunt and noted attorney Steve Parrish. Blunt will appear virtually, via the videowall in the Library’s Trefz Forum, while Parrish will appear in person.
In a public service career that has spanned nearly five decades, Blunt earned the respect of his peers and colleagues for his willingness to find common ground, make the legislative branch of the federal government work, and for achieving principled, bipartisan compromise.
“In every position he has held, Roy Blunt has shown the value of listening to others and working across the aisle to find common ground solutions for complicated problems," said Parrish.
Blunt was elected to U.S. House of Representatives in 1993 and served six consecutive terms before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, serving in the chamber from 2011 to 2023. His leadership roles in the Senate included vice chair of the Republican Conference (2012-18), chair of the Committee on Rules and Administration (2017-19), and chair of the Republican Policy Committee (2019-23).
Before serving in Congress, Blunt was a history teacher and a county official, and in 1984 he became the first Republican in more than 50 years to be elected as Missouri’s secretary of state. The senator also served four years as the president of his alma mater, Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri.
Parrish is the founder of Steve Parrish Consulting Group, LLC, which specializes in crisis management, corporate social responsibility, public affairs, and communications for senior executives of corporations, law firms, and nonprofit organizations. Previously, he was senior vice president, corporate affairs, of Altria Group, Inc., and served as secretary of the Public Affairs and Social Responsibility Committee of the board of directors of Altria Group, Inc.
Parrish is a member of the board of trustees of Carleton College and the board of directors of Orchestra Lumos (formerly the Stamford [CT] Symphony Orchestra). He also is board member emeritus and past board chair of Safe Horizon, an internationally recognized leader in the field of victim assistance. His past board service includes the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation.
In a talk as timely as it is fascinating, award-winning author, constitutional scholar, and Duquesne University President Ken Gormley will be making a special trip to The Westport Library on Wednesday, April 26, to speak on presidential scandals.
The event, which will take place at 7 pm in the Trefz Forum, will be moderated by noted attorney Steve Parrish. The talk is free and open to the public; please register in advance.
Gormley, who has published bestselling books on Watergate, the scandals that engulfed the Clinton presidency, and constitutional crises facing U.S. presidents throughout history, will discuss these topics and more — and connect them to current issues confronting Donald J. Trump during and after his presidency.
“President Gormley is an accomplished author, historian, and scholar, as well as a sought-after speaker,” said Bill Harmer, Westport Library executive director. “We’re thrilled he can be here with us to discuss what we’re sure will be a topic of great interest to our — and every — community.”
Gormley’s first book, Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation, the authorized biography of one of the leading lawyers and public servants of the 20th century, was awarded the 1999 Bruce K. Gould Book Award for outstanding publication relating to the law. In 2010, he published The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, a New York Times bestseller chronicling the scandals that nearly destroyed the Clinton presidency, which received a 2011 Silver-Gavel Award (Honorable Mention) from the American Bar Association.
His most recent non-fiction work, The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History, was published by NYU Press in 2016 and was likewise critically lauded. The Presidents and the Constitution came out as a two-volume paperback in the fall of 2022, with a new chapter on the Trump presidency.
Gormley, who was named Duquesne's 13th president in July 2016, previously served as dean and professor in the Duquesne University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and taught at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He has testified in the U.S. Senate three times; served as president of the Allegheny County Bar Association, the first academic to hold that position in the organization's 137-year history; and was mayor of Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, from 1998 to 2001.
Parrish is the founder of Steve Parrish Consulting Group, LLC, specializing in crisis management, corporate social responsibility, public affairs, and communications for senior executives. Previously, he was senior vice president of corporate affairs for Altria Group, Inc., and served as secretary of the public affairs and social responsibility committee of the board of directors of Altria Group, Inc.
In addition, Parrish is a member of the board of trustees of Carleton College, the board of directors of Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation, and the board of directors of Orchestra Lumos. He is also board member emeritus and past board chair of Safe Horizon, an internationally recognized leader in the field of victim assistance. His past board service includes the United Negro College Fund and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Near the end of their set during the VersoFest 2023 kickoff concert, Sunflower Bean lead singer and bassist Julia Cumming posed a rhetorical question to the audience: “Did you know this isn’t the first time we’ve played in a library? But it wasn’t as cool as this library. This is the COOLEST library!”
For four days, The Westport Library was indeed the coolest library, playing host to its annual VersoFest — a celebration of music, media, and creativity featuring concerts, panel discussions, workshops, and so much more.
The festival truly had something for everyone, from the rollicking keynote conversation between renowned producer Steve Lillywhite and Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer Chris Frantz to the insightful Malloy Lecture in the Arts with artist and Psychedelic Furs frontman Richard Butler to the emotional oral history interview with the legendary Miriam Linna and Beehive Queen Christine Ohlman.
And that is just a portion of all that was showcased at VersoFest 2023. The concerts with Sunflower Bean (Thursday), with DJ HYSTERICA opening, and the Smithereens featuring Marshall Crenshaw (Friday), with Amilia K Spicer opening and Linna serving as DJ, drew more than 750 people to the Library’s packed Trefz Forum. Hundreds more assembled over the weekend for panels ranging from rock fashion and rock photography to vinyl record collecting, podcasting and radio, and the business of music, culminating Sunday afternoon with a celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip hop in Connecticut that regularly brought the capacity crowd to its feet.
VersoFest also carved out space for a record fair featuring vendors from across the tri-state area as well as intimate workshop sessions on songwriting, screenwriting, photography, and TV and media production. There was also a hands-on TeachRock session utilizing a 1:4 replica of the Grateful Dead’s “Wall of Sound” PA system that entertained throughout the weekend with a steady diet of the Dead’s best.
In addition to the Wall of Sound, VersoFest’s other installation was a museum of Alice Cooper Group artifacts courtesy Alice Cooper bassist Dennis Dunaway, who closed out the festival with a showing of Live from the AstroTurf, the Alice Cooper Group reunion documentary.
In the Q&A following the documentary, Dunaway echoed Cumming’s words from three days’ prior, pointing to the Library’s forum, lit up for the evening show with a kaleidoscope of colored lights and decorated with Alice Cooper fans young and old, and said, “You call this a library, but this is WAY more than a library.”
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Photos: Chad Anderson of Chad Anderson Photography & Brendan Toller
VersoFest 2023 will feature two headlining concerts and an array of experts in the fields of music, media, and more, providing a multitude of opportunities to explore and create over a four-day immersive experience.
And if they play their cards right, attendees could leave with an autographed album to boot.
Some of VersoFest’s headliners and guests, including legendary producer Steve Lillywhite, Psychedelic Furs frontman Richard Butler, and Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth, will be autographing copies of their vinyl records that will be up for giveaway and auction during the festival.
Two of those albums will be part of the VersoFest record giveaway. Festivalgoers can submit their entries for the giveaway starting with the March 30 kickoff concert featuring rising American rock band Sunflower Bean, with submissions open through the festival’s completion on Sunday April 2 — a day that will include a record fair, presented by Record Riots, from 11 am to 4 pm, and a vinyl record panel brunch featuring WPKN DJ Alec Cumming, producer Dooley-O, Kraftjerkz Records’ Kid Ginseng, WFUV DJ and House of Wax host Eric Holland, New Haven Independent arts reporter Karen Ponzio, and moderated by the Zambonis’ Dave Schneider.
Additionally, there will be a silent auction held Saturday and Sunday of the festival (April 1-2). Those in attendance will be given an opportunity to bid on a wide variety of signed albums associated with several of the festival’s speakers and guests. The highest bidder will receive the signed copy, with all proceeds going to support future VersoFest endeavors.
“This is a really cool opportunity to bring home some of the best vinyl albums produced in the last 50 years,” said Westport Library Executive Director Bill Harmer. “Beyond that, these signed copies are collector’s items — a keepsake to enjoy for its own sake, to commemorate what we think will an unforgettable four days celebrating music, media, and creativity, and a unique way to raise money so we can bring this festival back to Westport and the tri-state area next year and again in the years to come.”
To learn more about this year’s festival, including to buy concert tickets and register for workshops, visit the VersoFest 203 landing page.
