Thursday, February 24, 2022, 2:00 pm
Athens-Clarke County Library
Appleton Auditorium
2025 Baxter Street
Athens, Georgia
706 613 3650
Please join us at Athens-Clarke County Library on February 24 at 2:00 pm for a screening of a period film about priests who journey to a foreign land to rescue one of their own.
The screening is free and open to the public. Masks are required in the library. For further information (including the film title), call 706 613 3650. The Athens-Clarke County Library is located at 2025 Baxter Street, Athens.
Exhibition: January 7, 2022 through March 6 • Quiet Gallery
Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter Street, Athens, Georgia, 706-613-3650
Please visit the library for an exhibition of Athens artist Elinor Saragoussi during January and February in the upstairs Quiet Gallery.
Ms Saragoussi uses a variety of media including illustration, soft sculpture, and large-scale installation to build a fantastical personal world in which she strives to inhabit and hopes to give others the opportunity to escape their reality for a moment or two. Her work uses playful, bright, and accessible imagery/mediums to investigate the complex and often melancholic thoughts and emotions that often float through the mind. This juxtaposition of the playful and dark translated through detailed craft creates something that feels special and is best experienced in person, something that cannot be replicated in a virtual environment.
Saragoussi is an artist and musician from Denver, Colorado, and is now based in Athens, Georgia. She graduated with a BS in biology from the University of Colorado in 2014. Over the past four years, she has shown work in and around Georgia at art spaces including the Albany Museum of Art, Bascom Center for Visual arts, Lyndon House Arts Center, and Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation. Her 2020 installation "Escape Plan" was acquired by the Albany Museum of Art in 2021 and she has received honors such as the Shelter Projects Grant from the Willson Center for Humanities & Arts and a grant from the Judith Alexander Foundation.
The exhibition is free and open to the public. Masks are required in the library. For further information, visit www.athenslibrary.org/rslathens, or call 706 613 3650. The Athens-Clarke County Library is located at 2025 Baxter Street, Athens.
Cold Verse 2021: December Poetry
Athens-Clarke County Library
Premiere: Sunday, December 12, 2021
Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, or another winter holiday, it’s time again for meditations on the month of December. A host of local and regional poets recite their favorite seasonal verses, including original works.
Bob Ambrose, Jr. is an environmental engineer retired from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development. He has been writing poetry since 2009 and has been active in the Athens, Georgia Word of Mouth community. Bob has been featured reader at events in Athens, Cincinnati, and Austin. He posts on his blog site “Reflections in Poetry.” His first book of poetry, “Journey to Embarkation,” was published in 2016 and is available at Avid Bookshop.
Donna O'Kelley Butler serves as the Branch Supervisor of the Bogart Library, where she entertains and enlightens hundreds of patrons, school children and teachers with her renditions of folktales, legends, myths and historical tales.
Michelle Castleberry is a writer and therapist living in Oconee County. She owns and operates Four Directions Counseling, LLC.
Bob Deck is a native Georgian but he also was career US Navy, moving 11 times in 20 years, living in Greece, Italy and Diego Garcia. He enjoys reading, exercise, and working at the Bogart Library.
Tammy Gerson may be a retired librarian, but she keeps busy with a multitude of projects. Besides her love of reading all genres, she participates in a contemporary musical ensemble at her synagogue. She loves drumming, cooking, and having fun with her Maltipoo, Luna. Tammy lives in Athens with her husband, and has two children and three grandchildren.
Alice Mohor was born and raised in New Jersey, but has lived in Athens since 1972. She taught in several Clarke County schools. Alice wrote a rhyming poem to open and close each of her elementary physical education lessons, and continues to write and has published two books of poetry.
Theresa Price, Executive Assistant to the Director of ARLS, says: “The holiday season is my favorite time of year! As an elementary school student in an inner city public school, we celebrated ALL holidays. Back then I had no idea what celebrating the Holiday Season inclusively meant. I'm happy and honored to work in a space that strives to represent and include everyone, in every way. Happy Holidays!!”
Clela Reed is the author of seven collections of poetry. Recently Silk (Evening Street Press, 2019) won the Helen Kay Chapbook Prize and then the 2020 Georgia Author of the Year in chapbook competition. A Pushcart Prize nominee, former English teacher, and Peace Corps volunteer, she has poetry published in many journals and anthologies.
Theresa Rice has served as a creative consultant to artists, writers, and arts organizations. She has done all manner of writing, from press releases to novels, catalog copy to short stories. She loves old fashioned poets like Emily Dickenson, Robert Frost, e.e. cummings, and Walt Whitman. Theresa works in the ACCL Children’s Department.
Grady Thrasher was an Atlanta attorney for more than 30 years before he retired to Athens and his farm in Watkinsville in 2003. Grady is a published children’s book author—he was 2008 Georgia Author of the Year for Children's Picture Books in 2008 and 2011. Grady and his wife Kathy Prescott, aka Sunnybank Films, have produced Athens in Our Lifetimes and other films.
Eddie Whitlock retired this year from managing the Library Store and coordinating volunteers for the Athens-Clarke County Library. He is the author of two books: Evil is Always Human (2012) and POTUS of the Living Dead (2014). He is currently working on a sequel to his first novel.
Come join us at Athens-Clarke County Library on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 5, for an afternoon of beautiful music, storytelling and crafts as we celebrate the different facets of the season.
You can visit the Appleton Auditorium and hear local storytellers spinning tales about Hanukkah and Christmas at 2:00 p.m., listen to the The Green Flag Band performing Christmas music at 3:00 p.m., and in Multipurpose Rooms B & C we will be creating holiday crafts at 4:00 p.m. with which you can decorate your home.
You’ll hear a pair of festive tales beginning at 2:00 p.m. David Oates will read A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, an anecdotal reminiscence of a Christmas from the viewpoint of a young boy, portraying a nostalgic and simpler time. Lizz Bernstein will read Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric A. Kimmel, featuring the prominent Jewish folk hero and trickster figure Hershel of Ostropol.
Enjoy a free, festive Live! @ the Library concert at 3:00 p.m. featuring The Green Flag Band, an Athens-based acoustic music ensemble that stays close to the heart of traditional Irish and other Celtic music. The band features Carl Rapp on fiddle, Dave Coons on guitar and vocals, Ken Ross on accordion, and Julia McDermott on hammered dulcimer and vocals.
Following the concert, you’re invited to Multipurpose Rooms A & B to make holiday crafts presented by Michaels, while supplies last.
Live at The Library is sponsored by The Friends of Athens-Clarke County Library. The programs are free and open to the public. Masks are required in the library.
Listening in The Dark VIII: Plague of The Lousy Arachnids
Evan Michael Bush • Bob Deck • Joy Ovington • Eddie Whitlock • Candace Wiggins
Athens-Clarke County Library
2025 Baxter Street • Athens, Georgia • 706 613 3650
If you haven’t already been creeped out enough by the Jorospiderfestation in your yard, please tune into our eighth annual Halloween Storytelling for Grownups (From a Safe Distance). You’ll be treated to the scariest tales, some original, by Listening in The Dark veterans Evan Michael Bush, Bob Deck, Joy Ovington, Eddie Whitlock, and Can Wiggins.
Watch the video on YouTube.
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Evan Michael Bush has lived in Athens for over 16 years as a librarian, storyteller, musician, artist and collector of midnight tales. He was the creator of October Country, an evening of supernatural horror and suspense, and was the chair and organizer of the Stitching Stars Storytelling Festival here in Athens.
Bob Deck is a native Georgian but he also was career US Navy, moving 11 times in 20 years, living in Greece, Italy and Diego Garcia. He enjoys reading, exercise, and working at the Bogart Library.
Joy Ovington has enjoyed a lifetime of working in all aspects of performing and holds an MFA from the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for Professional Actor Training. Favorite roles include Witch #3 in MacBeth and Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. She enjoys choir singing and working with theatre companies around town.
Eddie Whitlock recently retired from Athens-Clarke County Library, where he managed the Library Store and coordinated volunteers. He is the author of two books: Evil is Always Human (2012) and POTUS of the Living Dead (2014). He is currently working on a sequel to his first novel.
Candace Wiggins first published in the online crime zine, “Hardluck Stories”; while writing art and movie columns for various newspapers and working at CNN, TBS and Reuters. She has stories in anthologies from Planet X Publications, including “The Phantasmagorical Promenade”; “Strange Stories From the Sea”; “Test Patterns: Weird Westerns”; and many others. She’s had stories published in The AWA Collective straight outta Athens, Georgia and co-wrote a script, “Eidolon”.
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