Adult Featured Programs
“Strengthening Pontiac Through Literacy Partnerships”
Mondays, 04/26, 05/03, 05/10, 05/17, 05/24, 06/07, 06/14, 06/21, 06/28, 07/12, 07/19, 07/26, 08/02, 08/09, 08/16, 08/23, 08/30, 09/13, 09/20, 09/27, 10/04, 10/11, 10/18, 10/25, 11/01, 11/08, 11/15, 11/22, 11/29, 12/06, 12/13, 12/20, 12/27, 6-7pm, Zoom: Join us for our returning Heartfulness Medication program online. The Heartfulness Meditation Program offers a simple set of relaxation and meditation exercises, which when practiced daily, help restore balance in life, manage stress, better your health, and most of all will lead you to inner calm and peace. The relaxation and meditation techniques are taught over free courses: Each class covers both the conceptual framework as well as practical meditation and relaxation sessions (classes last for 1 hour). The entire program will be conducted by certified Heartfulness trainers, who have been meditating and training for several years. The Zoom meeting link follows:
Saturday, 10/30, 3:30-5pm, Auditorium: Come to our library for a program with author Martha Bloomfield. In an effort to dissipate prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination, award-winning author, Martha Bloomfield, passionately shares stories of immigrants based on oral history interviews in the greater social/historical context. Stories reflect personal/family memories of their life journeys and struggles—leaving home, coming to Michigan, adapting to new homes, their contributions to Michigan and dreams and hopes for future generations. She shares their stories to inspire others to discover other peoples’ stories and their own stories through words, personal artifacts, documents and photographs.
Bio: Award-winning author, Martha Bloomfield, coauthored The Sweetness of Freedom, Stories of Immigrants, (2010) with Steve Ostrander, which won a national IPPY Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, Silver Medal for Multicultural Adult Non-Fiction and a Michigan Notable Book Award, 2011. Her other books include My Eyes Feel They Need to Cry, Stories from the Formerly Homeless (2013); Hmong Americans in Michigan (2014), a first book about Hmong people in Michigan, and Romanies in Michigan (2019), a groundbreaking book as it is the first book in the United States to include oral histories of Romanies. Michigan State University Press has published all these books.
This April (2021), The Stolen Narrative of the Bulgarian Jews and the Holocaust, by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Jacky Comforty with Martha Bloomfield, was published by Rowman and Littlefield, in their Lexington Studies in Jewish Literature. Martha has presented talks at the state Michigan Oral History Association meetings, the national Oral History Association meetings, the International Oral History Association meeting in Prague, the Czech Republic (2013), Columbia University (2019) and libraries throughout Michigan. She also organized a symposium on homelessness with Czech colleagues, sponsored by the American Embassy in Prague in 2010 and another symposium on homelessness with Bulgarian colleagues in 2013, also sponsored by the American Embassy in Sofia.
Refreshments will be provided!
Saturday, 11/13, 3:30-5pm, Auditorium: Meet us at the library’s Auditorium to watch Author Phoenix Q. Brown presenting her book: Behind The Scenez: The Rise Of Resilience.
Description: Phoenix Q. Brown, is a young woman who has dealt with multiple traumas by the people who she thought were supposed to protect her. The fight for her life began at an early age and the story of most of the black families also became her own. Little did Phoenix know that little seeds planted would give her hope and the biggest struggles would be the journey of finding self love. Phoenix gives insight to everyone’s experience, someone’s trauma, and hopefully the Resiliency to survive.
Bio: Marquetta A. Turner, is born and raised in Detroit, MI, a mother of three, and currently a Clinical Therapist in Wayne County. Marquetta loves reading, writing poetry, music, and is very active in giving back to the community by volunteering and serving as a member in various organizations. Marquetta also provides mentoring, serves as a Moderator, and hopes to add Motivational Speaking to her resume. Marquetta took on the Pen Name Phoenix Q Brown due to symbolic reasons and the journey of writing Behind the Scenez: The Rise of Resilience was to encourage break generational curses and help others to Hope, Cope, and Achieve.
Refreshments will be provided!
