From 2011–2015, Forbes Library presented the Local History/Local Novelists, a reading and lecture series which explored links between local history and contemporary novelists, held the first Wednesday of the month at 7 pm in the Coolidge Room, October through May. The 2014/15 season, curated by Forbes Writer in Residence Susan Stinson working closely with Forbes Assistant Director Lisa Downing, varied the theme to include strange stories of science, an evening of poetry about Northampton, and some evenings appropriate for teens as well as adults.

Stinson said, “This is a particularly varied series. It’s exciting to see poets taking on themes in local history, as well is YA and Middle Grade novelists engaging young people with history through story. As always in this series, we’ll be bringing together the work of writers and thinkers who look at the world in very different ways, to help vary and deepen the experience of reading, thinking and living here now.”

Forbes Writer in Residence Susan Stinson is the author of three novels and a collection of poetry and lyric essays. Awarded the 2011 Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize from the Lambda Foundation, she is also a writing coach, freelance editor, and gives cemetery tours. SPIDER IN A TREE, her novel about Northampton in the time of 18th century Calvinist preacher Jonathan Edwards, was published in October 2013. Her website is www.susanstinson.net/.

Please see the archived Complete Local History/Local Novelists Reading and Lecture Series Calendar for a list of completed events.