Festival by the Lake in Wakefield


Despite the unpredictable weather, we had an amazing time at Wakefield's Festival by the Lake on Saturday, June 10, 2023. 

The Festival by the Lake is always a great opportunity to connect with our supporters, educate visitors about our organization and make connections in the community.

This year we were fortunate to have four local authors as guests in our tent available to talk to, purchase books from and to have books signed. Local author essayist and TRtW's Coordinator for Senior & Veterans Programming Linda Malcom joined us to start the day at 10am with her collection of essays, Cornfields to Codfish. To learn more about Linda and her book click here or watch her interview as part of our Journey of a Story series here.


Local writer Lisa Varchol Perron stopped by next at 11am with her nonfiction picture book, Patterns Everywhere, and her very sweet board book about unconditional and enduring nature of a mother's love, My Love for You. To learn more about Lisa and her books click here or watch her interview as part of a collaborative project with WCAT Studios here.

Next up, the wonderful Monica Acker came by with her picture book Brave Like Mom. She received a visit from a family who appreciated the beautiful message in her book. If you would like to learn more about Monica and her book, click here or watch her interview where she talks about the inspiration for her book as well as the process of bringing it to publication.

At 1pm Christine Ricci-McNamee was happy to talk about her children's picture books, Logan and the Lost Luggage and Louella and the Librarian. If you would like to follow Christine on Instagram click here or learn more about her writing journey by watching her interview here.

Last, but certainly not least, David Watts Jr joined us as representative of Boston Pen People. He was under our tent when the rain started to pour and the thunder roared and yet people still found their way to our table to talk to him about all things pens--fountain, dip and otherwise.

Big shout out to Tom Furrier at Cambridge Typewriter who made sure our typewriters were up to snuff and had all the ink they needed to be sure the steady stream of kids who stopped by would leave with their words printed onto their paper of choice. It's always so much fun to see how much fun writing can be for the youngest among us.

The Room to Write will be on hiatus for the summer months, except for our Writers and Illustrators Meet & Greet in July, but we look forward to seeing you on a more consistent basis in the fall.

Write on!


Popular posts from this blog

Seniors to Seniors returned to the Wakefield Senior Center on November 16th

Image
On November 16th the Wakefield Senior Center was brimming with enthusiasm and conversation between two generations that don't always have an opportunity to connect and get to know each other in impactful ways. After several years on hiatus, Seniors to Seniors had made a welcome comeback! “Seniors to Seniors” is a cross-generational event that brings high school seniors and older adults in our community together to get to know each other.  The twenty adults and students who participated in the event had an opportunity to get to know each other over lunch. Each adult got to share some of their lifetime's supply of stories during an interview with the Wakefield High School student senior they were paired up with.   The event was so well received by both the adults and the students involved. Aside from the need to spread tables further apart in the future to make it easier to hear, the feedback was nothing but positivity. Adult participants really enjoyed the opportunity to get to
Read more

Local Author Fair

Image
On Saturday, November 18th from 1-4pm the Wakefield Public Library hosted the 2nd annual Local Author Fair in collaboration with The Room to Write and Whitelam Bookstore .  A huge shout out to Karen Sterm, librarian extraordinaire, for making this event happen. 15 authors from Wakefield and surrounding towns came together to make their books available to the public.  This was a great opportunity for readers to find a locally written book and meet the writer behind the book cover. Another aspect of this fair that gets less attention is the fact that the authors get to meet each other. Part of our mission at The Room to Write is connecting writers, authors and creative minds with each other. Community is such an important part of creativity.  The Wakefield Library's Local Author Fair is a uniquely important event in that it allows both independently published and traditionally published authors to be able to gather together and make their books available to the public at one locatio
Read more