The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival will continue its 25th anniversary season on Sunday, July 9, on the grounds of the Hill-Stead Museum, a National Historic Landmark at 35 Mountain Road, Farmington.
The outdoor festival includes programs featuring well-known and emerging poets, as well as pre-reading talks and music. Visitors also can tour the historic house’s Impressionist art collection or walk the trails of the extensive grounds.
The Poetry of Our World program will feature Jericho Brown at 7:15 p.m., following Ladan Osman at 6 p.m. At 4:30 p.m., there will be a Poetry Jam and Roots of Spoken Word performance by Kate Rushin, Tang Sauce and Summer Tate, and at 6:30 p.m., Tang, who grew up in Hartford and has hosted the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival, and DJ Stealth, the professional name of Asaad Jackson, who began learning the craft at WQTQ 89.9 Qute FM, will perform.
Brown has won a Whiting Writers’ Award and various fellowships. His collections have won honors, and his poems have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. He is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Emory University. Osman, who was born in Somalia, writes poetry about race, gender, displacement and colonialism.
Brown also will lead Jump-Start, a poetry writing workshop, on Sunday, July 9 at 10 a.m. The cost is $40 to $60. Registration: hillstead.org.
Festival admission is $12 in advance online, $15 at the gate and free for those 18 or younger. Parking is free. Guests should bring their own seating and can bring picnic suppers or buy food and beverages at the festival. Tickets: hillstead.org and 860-677-4787.
Connecticut Authors Trail
The Ninth Annual Connecticut Authors Trail, a series of more than 25 free talks by authors of many different genres that is presented by a consortium of Eastern Connecticut libraries, will continue with two programs.
On Monday, July 10, at 6:30 p.m. at Bill Memorial Library, 240 Monument St., Groton, Lisa Saunders will speak. Her book, “After the Loss of a Spouse: From Henry VIII to Julia Child” (Act II Publications, $9.95), details how 18 famous people, including Mark Twain, George Burns, Mary Lincoln, C.S. Lewis, Martha Washington, Norman Rockwell, Grandma Moses, Coretta Scott King and William Gillette, coped with losing a beloved spouse. Saunders is a part-time history interpreter at Mystic Seaport and teacher. 860-445-0392.
On Tuesday, July 11, at 6:30 p.m. at Booth & Dimock Memorial Library, 1134 Main St., Coventry, DeeDee Filiatreault will discuss her book, “Tales from the Crib” (Skyhorse, $14.99), a collection of essays on parenthood based on her newspaper columns and blog, TalesFromTheCribBlog.com. 860-742-7606.
The trail will end with a special event, which many of the writers will attend, on Sept. 14, at 6:15 p.m., at Mohegan Sun Casino’s Cabaret Theatre. The featured speaker will be Connecticut novelist Beatriz Williams, whose most recent book is “Cocoa Beach” (Morrow, $27.99).
Free “passports” that serve as guides to the individual events will be available at participating libraries. They are stamped at each event, making the bearer eligible to qualify for a special prize at the finale in September. 860-642-6207 or connecticutauthorstrail.org.
R.J. Julia Events
R.J. Julia Booksellers of Madison will present four events on Wednesday, July 12, and two on Thursday, July 13.
On Wednesday at noon at Pine Orchard Yacht and Country Club, 294 Pine Orchard Road, Branford, a summer luncheon will present talks by authors Laura Dave and Jane Green. Dave’s latest, “Hello, Sunshine” (Simon & Schuster, $25), is about a celebrity lifestyle guru with a popular YouTube cooking show whose life falls apart when a secret is revealed. Green, who has more than 10 million books in print worldwide, will talk about her new novel, “The Sunshine Sisters” (Berkley, $26), about two women estranged from their movie star mother, who becomes ill and asks them to help fulfill her last wishes. Tickets are $55 and include a copy of one of the books.
At 3 p.m. at Morgan School Auditorium, 71 Killingworth Turnpike, Clinton, best-selling author and Golden Globe-winning actor Chris Colfer will take part in an interactive program to celebrate the publication of the sixth and final book in his “Land of Stories” series of fantasy fairy tales. The event will include a reading, a Q&A session, “The Land of Stories” trivia, a costume contest and prizes. Tickets are $19.99 plus tax, including one copy of “The Land of Stories Book 6: Worlds Collide” (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $19.99). A ticket for one additional guest can be obtained by purchasing any of the other books in the series. Each purchase earns one raffle ticket for a drawing at which five fans will be chosen to meet Chris for photos and to have their books personalized. Those who attend in costume will receive an additional raffle ticket. Others may purchase pre-signed copies. No paraphernalia or memorabilia of any kind will be signed.
At 5:30 p.m. at the bookstore, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, a free program called Echoes will begin. It is a five-session workshop for aspiring or established poets ages 14 to 18. The roundtable sessions (July 12 and 26 and Aug. 2 and 16) will cover Critiquing, Linebreaks, Published Poet Exploration and Figurative Language and Sound. The Aug. 30 session will be an open mic.
At 7 p.m. at the bookstore, Christina Kelly will give a free talk about her debut novel, “Good Karma” (Harper, $15.99), a romantic tale set in a Savannah retirement community, where a longtime marriage faces unexpected challenges.
On Thursday, July 13, Sally Sanford will discuss her book, “Henry and the Huckleberries: A Visit with Mr. Thoreau at Walden Pond” (Prospecta Press, $17.99), which is based on a true story about the famous naturalist who turns a berry-picking mishap into a lesson about nature. Caldecott Honor winner Ilse Plume illustrated the book.
At 7 p.m., Patrick J. Lynch of North Haven, an award-winning author, designer, illustrator and photographer, will give a free talk about “A Field Guide to Long Island Sound: Coastal Habitats, Plant Life, Fish, Seabirds, Marine Mammals, and Other Wildlife” (Yale University Press, $27.50), which offers maps, photographs and drawings and explores the geology, meteorology, history and resources of the area. All R.J. Julia events require registration: 203-245-3959 or rjjulia.com.
Book Club Hosts Fundraiser
Book Club Bookstore, 869 Sullivan Ave., South Windsor, will host a fundraiser for the South Windsor Democratic Town Committee on Friday, July 14, at 7 p.m., featuring author David Daley, a South Windsor native. His best-selling nonfiction book is “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count” (Liveright, $26.95), and he is an authority on political gerrymandering, the process that gives an unfair advantage to one party. Daley, a former Courant reporter and editor, also is a former editor-in-chief of the Salon website and a senior fellow at FairVote.
Tickets are $25. Reservations: Elizabeth McGuire at 860-690-1126 or southwindsordems@gmail.com. 860-432-7411 or bookclubct.com.
Bank Square Books
Bank Square Books, 53 W. Main St., Mystic, will host a book release party on Saturday, July 15, at 1 p.m. with Mystic author Debbi Michiko Florence for her books: “Jasmine Toguchi: Mochi Queen” and “Jasmine Toguchi: Super Sleuth” (both Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15.99). The event celebrating the children’s books about an eight-year-old Japanese-American girl will include crafts, mochi rice and cookies, and a reading and book signing. 860-536-3795 or banksquarebooks.com.
Minor At Hickory Stick
Author and illustrator Wendell Minor will visit The Hickory Stick Bookshop, 2 Green Hill Road, Washington Depot, on Saturday, July 15 at 2 p.m. to celebrate two books he illustrated: The 25th anniversary release of “The Seashore Book” by Charlotte Zolotow (Charlesbridge, $16.99) and “Ben’s Revolution: Benjamin Russell and the Battle of Bunker Hill” by Nathaniel Philbrick (Penguin Random House, $17.99). 860-868-0525 or hickorystickbookshop.com.
