What could be better than working on your favorite knitting or crocheting project while someone reads out loud to you?
Join our yarn circle/adult story time for your dose of productive relaxation! On Wednesday, January 28, we'll be choosing our next book — and you're invited to cast your vote!
Bring your yarn projects to the Library on Wednesday afternoons from 1:30 to 3 pm in the Sheffer Gallery. We'll read aloud while you work on your project. Or you can just listen — no working necessary! No registration is required, and no yarn instruction provided.
Read Like a Librarian
New Books We're Excited About
Knitting and Crocheting
Join your neighbors for a discussion of the WestportREADS selection, All the Water In the World by Eiren Caffall.
Physical copies of the book are available at the Library or through our digital resources. Everyone is welcome!
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
All the Water in the World: A Reader's Guide for WestportREADS 2026
Climate Change
Museum Passes
Once again, WestportREADS returns to unite Westport’s community through the impact of a great book that sparks imagination, invites conversation, and resonates long after the last page is turned. As the 2026 WestportREADS selection, All the Water in the World by Whiting Award-winning author Eiren Caffall does all of this and more.
The Westport Library is thrilled to announce an exciting lineup of thematic programming that promises to enhance readers’ immersion — culminating on Thursday, February 19, in the Library’s Trefz Forum as Caffall joins the community for a keynote conversation on her debut novel with moderator Catherine Shen, host of CT Public’s Where We Live.
The full collection of copies of All the Water in the World will be available for borrowing Wednesday, December 10 (including as an e-book and an audiobook).
Launched in 2002, WestportREADS remains one of the Library’s most cherished annual traditions: a chance for neighbors to meet over a shared reading experience, for new and old friends to delight in discussion, and for the entire community to reflect together on literature that challenges, inspires, and stays with us.
From January through March, there will be discussion groups, including a lively Book Pub at Walrus Alley; screenings of thematically resonant films; an expert environmental talk that will connect the novel to our own lives; and even more communal happenings in the WestportREADS 2026 run of events.
In true community spirit, more than 550 attended the 2025 WestportREADS keynote address with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz, and in 2024 Michael Finkel drew almost 400 for his keynote conversation about The Art Thief.
Selected for its masterful storytelling that speaks to the enduring human condition in the face of disaster, All the Water in the World follows the journey of Nonie, a girl with an intuitive connection to water, in a flooded future New York where a small group of families have built a makeshift settlement atop the American Museum of Natural History. As the group works to safeguard the remnants of humanity’s stories and knowledge, a catastrophic storm forces them north up the Hudson River in search of safety, community, and the possibility of a life rebuilt.
“Eiren Caffall created a fully imaginable world within a horrific new future that wasn’t all doom and gloom within a flooded city," said Jennifer Keller, one of the members of the WestportREADS 2026 selection committee. "All the Water in the World explores family and climate change in a rich coming-of-age story that we can all relate to in some way.”
Released in January 2025, this captivating literary thriller blends climate fiction, adventure, and family drama with stunning prose poignant as it is hopeful. By drawing parallels to real-life stories of curators in Iraq and Leningrad who protected their cultural collections during times of war, Caffall asks the reader to consider how we endure, what we value, and how we care for one another in uncertain times.
Best-selling author Rene Denfield praised the novel, urging, “Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed.”
From a PageTurners discussion group to weekly Tell a Yarn… read-aloud crafting circle sessions to a conversation at the Westport Center for Senior Activities, WestportREADers will have several opportunities to read and discuss the book with others at the Library and around town.
A complementary film series offers a cinematic interpretation of the novel’s shared themes, exploring stories of climate, family, and adaptation with screenings of The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 2040 (2019), Waterworld (1995), and Night at the Museum (2006).
Prefacing Caffall’s keynote conversation is a special talk on Thursday, February 12 with executive director of CIRCA (the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation) James O’Donnell, who will bring local context to the global themes woven throughout the novel. Using calculated projections, O’Donnell will share the real impact of rising sea levels and offer practical changes we can make to offset the effects of climate change on Connecticut’s shoreline and the Long Island Sound — areas that Caffall herself has a long history with, outlined in her award-winning 2024 memoir The Mourner's Bestiary.
All the Water in the World promises to take the reader on a journey that offers hope in the survival of what matters most — love, community, and knowledge. These themes speak to the true mission behind WestportREADS: to share a love of reading and connect with your fellow readers.
Cozy up with your community and enjoy a good book with us this winter!
Past WestportREADS selections include Diaz’s In the Distance, Finkel’s The Art Thief, Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, Towards a More Perfect Union: Confronting Racism by Layla Saad, and Exit West by Moshin Hamid, among others.
For more past WestportREADS selections, and to learn more about the annual event, visit the WestportREADS homepage on The Westport Library website.
WestportREADS is supported through a generous bequest by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
What could be better than working on your favorite knitting or crocheting project while someone reads out loud to you?
Join our yarn circle/adult story time for your dose of productive relaxation! On Wednesday, December 3, we'll be starting All The Water In The World by Eiren Caffall — this years' WestportREADS pick!
In a drowned, storm-ravaged future, a girl who can feel the pull of water flees a sinking New York with her family, racing up the Hudson in search of a new home while guarding the last fragile record of humanity’s past. Library Journal calls this cli-fi novel "Captivating ... The setting, the detailed emotive descriptions, and nail-biting adventure are incandescent."
Bring your yarn projects to the Library on Wednesday afternoons from 1:30 to 3 pm in the Sheffer Gallery. We'll read aloud while you work on your project. Or you can just listen — no working necessary! No registration is required, and no yarn instruction provided.
Read Like a Librarian
New Books We're Excited About
Knitting and Crocheting
Watch the award-winning innovative documentary 2040, part of this year's WestportREADS film series!
This film explores a vitally important topic from an optimistic lens. In it, award-winning director Damon Gameau embarks on journey to explore what the future would look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet and shifted them into the mainstream. Structured as a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Damon blends traditional documentary footage with dramatized sequences and high-end visual effects to create a vision board for his daughter and the planet.
Click here for more screenings in this year's WestportREADS film series.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
Watch the 1995 action-packed cli-fi movie Waterworld, part of this year's WestportREADS film series!
In a future where the polar ice caps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged, a mutated mariner (Kevin Costner) fights starvation and outlaw "smokers," and reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl try to find dry land. Thirty years since its release, the themes explored in this film are still relevant today — and the special effects still hold up!
Click here for more screenings in this year's WestportREADS film series.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
All the Water in the World: A Reader's Guide for WestportREADS 2026
Climate Change
Museum Passes
Watch the 2006 comedy Night at the Museum, part of this year's WestportREADS film series — perfect for all ages!
Tying into All the Water in the World's central location of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, this film stars Ben Stiller, who plays a newly recruited night security guard at the Museum and discovers that an ancient curse causes the animals and exhibits on display to come to life and wreak havoc.
Click here for more screenings in this year's WestportREADS film series.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
All the Water in the World: A Reader's Guide for WestportREADS 2026
Climate Change
Archaeology and Cultural Heritage
Museum Passes
Watch the 2004 climate fiction thriller The Day After Tomorrow, part of this year's WestportREADS film series!
This film is based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. It stars Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm. It depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation, in which a series of extreme weather events usher in climate change and lead to a new ice age.
Click here for more screenings in this year's WestportREADS film series.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
All the Water in the World: A Reader's Guide for WestportREADS 2026
Climate Change
Museum Passes
Join members of the community at Walrus Alley for a community discussion of All the Water in the World, this year’s WestportREADS selection. Bring your appetite for conversation, cocktails and dinner.
Registration is required.
For copies of the book, please call 203-291-4807. New participants are always welcome!
This isn't a book club; it's a book pub! Not your typical discussion group, this event is a chance to connect with others over a book that promises to spark interesting conversations. Whether you're joining the discussion with old friends or making new ones, enjoy a community-wide literary conversation over tasty bites in a fun, relaxed atmosphere!
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
All the Water in the World: A Reader's Guide for WestportREADS 2026
Climate Change
Museum Passes
Join friends and neighbors at the Westport Center for Senior Activities for a community discussion of All the Water In the World, this year’s WestportREADS selection. Registration is required through link or in person at the Center.
Digital and audio copies are available. For copies of the book, please call 203-291-4807. New participants are always welcome!
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
All the Water in the World: A Reader's Guide for WestportREADS 2026
Climate Change
Museum Passes
Join PageTurners for a discussion of the WestportREADS selection, All the Water In the World by Eiren Caffall.
For copies of the book, call 203-291-4807. New participants are always welcome!
Contact Carolyn Zygmont at [email protected] for more information.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Created in 2002, WestportREADS is a way for the Westport community to bond over a book and is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate our shared love of reading.
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
PageTurners
READ Like a Librarian
NoveLlist Plus
Award-winning author Eiren Caffall joins the Westport community for a keynote conversation on the 2026 WestportREADS selection, All the Water in the World, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future — and a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world.
Caffall will be in conversation with Catherine Shen, host of Connecticut Public’s morning talk show and podcast, Where We Live.
WestportREADS is designed to deepen our community’s engagement in literature and bring us together over the common bond of a shared book and a love of reading.
Throughout January and February, there will be events and programs centered on All the Water in the World, book discussions, celebrations, and much more. It is a chance to not only read a great book but to engage with the community, meet new people, and celebrate reading.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river toward what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story ― with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most ― love and work, community, and knowledge ― will survive.
"When the world collapses, will our love for each other? Eiren Caffall answers the hard questions in this luminous novel. All the Water in the World is a masterful story of a family fighting to not be drowned by a changing world. Each sentence is a treasure. Read this and be changed." — Rene Denfeld, best-selling author of The Child Finder and Sleeping Giants
Caffall is an author and musician based in Chicago. Her writing on loss and nature, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, The Writer’s Digest, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV: Fire (The Center for Humans and Nature, 2024). She has received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale.
She is the author of the memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary (Row House Publishing, 2024) and the novel All the Water in the World (St. Martin’s Press, 2025).
Shen is the host of Connecticut Public’s morning talk show and podcast, Where We Live, which focuses on going beyond the headlines to bring in meaningful conversations that put Connecticut in context.
Shen started her journalism career in the Los Angeles fashion scene and subsequently worked as a freelance reporter for several newspapers, breaking stories about local government, law enforcement, and education. After a successful stint out west, she moved to the East Coast and covered a mix of academic news, nonprofit projects, and human feature stories both off and on camera in New Jersey, before moving to Connecticut and reporting for the New Britain Herald. There, she won several Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists awards for her coverage on the COVID-19 pandemic, social justice movements, and police accountability.
Shen joined Connecticut Public's newsroom in 2021, covering a variety of stories like student mental health, childcare shortages, and teacher burnout. Before her current position, Shen was Connecticut Public’s education reporter for just over a year.
***
WestportREADS is funded by the estate of Jerry A. Tishman.
All the Water in the World: A Reader's Guide for WestportREADS 2026
Climate Change
Museum Passes
