Author Talks

Join us for a family program featuring a read-aloud of A Rescue Feast, followed by hands-on activities that introduce children to food recovery and composting. Through storytelling and guided exploration, participants will consider how food can be used thoughtfully rather than wasted. After the reading, children will plant green onion roots to take home, sort foods to determine what can be reused or composted, and sample applesauce to connect these ideas to everyday experience. Presented in partnership with Second Chance Foods, a Hudson Valley nonprofit that rescues surplus food and transforms it into nutritious meals for those in need. A portion of the proceeds from this program will directly support the work of Second Chance Foods. Books will be available for sale and signing.

Author and grief coach Kate Doerge knows this too well. Over six years, she lost her father to heart failure and her mother in a car accident five days before Christmas. She also faced the hardest challenge for any parent, losing her sixteen-year-old daughter, Penny, to complications from a rare genetic condition. After Penny's death, Kate knew she had a choice, she could lose herself to a grief so powerful she might not come back from it—or she could find another way through. Reimagining Grief is the result of that search. Drawing from her own experience, the latest research, and conversations with others who have faced devastating loss, Kate offers five actions that can help ground you when you feel out of control, lift you when you're depleted, and help you process the pain of loss. Moderated by Nancy Steiner.

As the author of four novels—most recently the instant New York Times bestseller, It’s a Love Story—Annabel Monaghan has solidified her status as one of the biggest names in summer romance. She has received well-earned comparisons to Nora Ephron and Elin Hildebrand and consistently topped beach-reading roundups from outlets like PEOPLE, The Boston Globe, Town & Country, the Skimm, and more. Books will be available for sale and signing. Monaghan makes her highly anticipated fifth outing this May with Dolly All The Time, another swoon-worthy, bingeable love story for readers of Carley Fortune and Emily Henry. Set in a fictional seaside town in Rhode Island, this charming, big-hearted novel centers around Dolly Brick, a hardworking single mom who returns to her hometown for the summer and stumbles into a fake dating situationship with a wealthy, workaholic scion. Monaghan’s knack for balancing pitch-perfect wit with high emotional stakes shine here once again, in an irresistible love story about the importance of caretaking, putting yourself first, and opening yourself up to love. With its picturesque coastal backdrop and endearing, lived-in characters you can’t help but root for, Dolly All The Time has all the makings of an instant summer classic and one of the biggest books of the season.

Duston Spear discusses her debut novel Bird Girl in conversation with art historian and critic Judith E. Stein. Set between present-day Western Massachusetts and the 1970s Soho art world, Bird Girl explores authorship, visibility, and the long afterlife of a formative artistic act. When a viral podcast reframes a decades-old incident involving a young artist and her lover, a reclusive painter is thrust into public view and must decide whether to reclaim her narrative.