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In this 90-minute workshop, you’ll learn the basics of sewing machine operation and safety. This session will cover machine setup, basic functions, threading the machine, reloading the bobbin, sewing straight stitches, and recognizing when stitch tension has gone awry. We’ll also cover some safety best practices when operating a sewing machine. As we learn together, we’ll work on a simple sewing project—a drawstring bag—which most students will be able to complete by the end of the class. You must complete Hive Safety Training before registering for this workshop.

In this 90-minute workshop, you’ll learn the basics of sewing machine operation and safety. This session will cover machine setup, basic functions, threading the machine, reloading the bobbin, sewing straight stitches, and recognizing when stitch tension has gone awry. We’ll also cover some safety best practices when operating a sewing machine. As we learn together, we’ll work on a simple sewing project—a drawstring bag—which most students will be able to complete by the end of the class. You must complete Hive Safety Training before registering for this workshop.

A series of classes with instruction from Comedian Jack Grey. Learn how to seamlessly integrate interactive improv games, scenes, and skillful storytelling that all come together with performance. The 10-week course will occur every Thursday, 1:30pm-3:30pm, starting February 27 through May 1. The final class will now take place on May 15. No class on May 1 or May 8. This will be an in-person program at the Main Library. Space is limited to 15 participants. Due to the popularity and to gain the most out of this program, we expect all participants to commit to all sessions in this 10-week course. Instructor Jack Grey is a local comedy performer with over nine years of combined improv and stand-up comedy experience. They produce their own shows and workshops in Camberville, believing that kindness and community can be born from laughter. Learn more at constellationcomedy.com. Sponsored by the Cambridge Public Library Foundation

This Month's Read: The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty Reading Interests: The group concentrates on science fiction and fantasy. An advanced reading schedule is published each fall. Example selections include: Neuromancer by William Gibson and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Requirements: A love of speculative fiction and a desire to talk about books. The group is friendly and informal. How to get the print book: Copies of the print book are set aside at the Main Library Question and Answer desk on the ground floor. Visit the Main Library at 449 Broadway during service hours and a staff member can help you check out a copy. E-books and digital audiobooks are available on Libby or Hoopla. We'll meet in the Rossi Room on the ground floor of the Main Library. For more information, contact Carrie at csauder@cambridgema.gov.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Gabrielle Hamilton—chef and owner of Prune restaurant in New York City’s East Village, and award-winning author of Blood, Bones & Butter—for a discussion of her memoir Next of Kin. Registration is required.

Learn how to access LinkedIn Learning with your Cambridge Public Library card, for free! LinkedIn Learning is an online educational site with thousands of courses in business, software, technology, and creative skills. LinkedIn Learning can be used in English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, and Portuguese. To view and register for other Basic Tech Classes at the Library, please go to tinyurl.com/basictechclass.

To mark the 250th anniversaries of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, a coalition of local non-profits and government agencies will present Washington in American Memory, a seven-part speaker series. Trace how diplomacy, collaboration, and conflict shaped the early republic through Washington’s relationships with Native people, featuring: Colin Gordon Calloway, author of The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation and the John Kimball, Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College Kabl Wilkerson, enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation (Bourassa & Muller families; Bear Clan) and doctoral candidate in the History Department at Harvard University

Art on a nice Summer night? Nothing sounds better than that! Come to the Library and enjoy an art filled evening learning the techniques of printmaking. In partnership with artist Brooke Lambert, a professional printmaker and painter, she will take you through this guided art class. The library will provide all materials. Please try your best to arrive on time or notify us if any lateness. There will be a 10 minute grace period to keep your spot held before going to waitlisted registrants.

In January 2020, the largest and most eagerly awaited cache of new materials written by the Nobel-Prize-winning poet T. S. Eliot was finally opened: the 1,131 letters he sent Emily Hale, his little-known American love, over the course of their lifetimes. Their relationship was, in their own words, an “unnatural” love affair, one that began in Cambridge in 1913, when Eliot was a graduate student at Harvard and Hale, an aspiring amateur actress, and that played out in Boston, England and California over the years. Named as one of its "Fifty Notable Non-fiction Books of 2024" by the Washington Post, Fitzgerald's biography of Hale is based on the embargoed letters and extensive research into Hale’s life and times. Hale was much more than just a muse to a literary celebrity. She overcame personal hardship to pursue a career as a professor of speech and drama at prominent American women’s colleges and schools, including Simmons and Smith Colleges and Abbot and Concord Academies. She was a talented amateur actress and director, who performed at many Boston area theaters and later guided Eliot as he tried his hand at playwriting. But in the end, Eliot disavowed her, sending a secret letter to Harvard in 1960 that claimed his love for Hale was that of “a ghost for a ghost,” and confirming that he had arranged for Hale’s side of their 27-year correspondence to be destroyed. In the words of The Washington Post reviewer, “Missing letters, a secret love affair, a famous poet, a beautiful actress—what else could you possibly want in a story?" Sara Fitzgerald is a retired journalist whose career included fifteen years as an editor and new media developer for The Washington Post. In 2020, she also published The Poet’s Girl: A Novel of Emily Hale and T. S. Eliot. Since then, her essays about Hale have appeared in multiple volumes of the Journal of the T. S. Eliot Society and the T. S. Eliot Studies Annual. She has presented at the annual meetings of the Modern Language Association, the American Historical Association, the International T. S. Eliot Society, and at the T. S. Eliot Summer School at Oxford. She is also the author of the biography, Elly Peterson: “Mother” of the Moderates and Conquering Heroines: How Women Fought Sex Bias at Michigan and Paved the Way for Title IX.

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