December 16 from 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Celebrate the season with a magical, light-filled evening in Library Park. This annual tradition will include a luminary walk, music, and baked goods provided by the Friends of the Patten Free Library.
Be sure to bundle up, as all activities take place outdoors.
Saturday, December 16 from 5-7:30 p.m.
Join us for an enchanting evening at this year’s fundraising event, held on the same night as Starry Night.
Immerse yourself in the magical atmosphere of our indoor luminary walk. See the library come to life with the soft glow of lanterns, creating a whimsical path for you to explore. As you wander through the illuminated corridors, let the delightful tunes of live music by the talented Jud Caswell serenade you. Indulge your taste buds with delicious food and drinks provided by local restaurants and businesses. Be sure not to miss the beauty of the Tiny Art Auction, where local art is auctioned off to support PFL. And that’s not all—every attendee is entered to win a basket full of goodies.
Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Kids 12 and under are free.
Buy Tickets1st prize and 2nd prizes will be named in each of six categories:
Grades 6-9: Short Fiction, Non-Fiction
Grades 10-12: Short Fiction, Non-Fiction
Adults: Short Fiction, Non-Fiction
Entries will be judged by a panel including Library staff, trustees, local teachers, community members and Teen Library Council members. First ($100) and second prize ($50) gift certificates will be awarded in each category. Winners will be honored at a reception in January 2024 and winning entries will be published on the Library website. The Writing Contest is made possible with support from the Friends of the Patten Free Library.
Entries accepted October 1 through December 1, 2023.
Guidelines:
• One submission limit per author per category; no co-authors.
• Teen entrants must be in grades 6-12, live in the Library service area; or attend an R.S.U. 1 school or school located within the Library service area (Arrowsic, Georgetown, Bath, West Bath, or Woolwich).
• Adult entrants must be 18 years or older and live in the Library service area (Arrowsic, Georgetown, Bath, West Bath, or Woolwich) or hold a valid Patten Free Library card. Library staff are not eligible for consideration.
• Previously published work will not be accepted.
• Entries may be up to 3000 words. Entries longer than 3000 words will not be considered.
• Include a header on each page with title, category, and page number.
• Submissions will be judged blind. DO NOT include writer’s name anywhere on the submission itself.
• No “fan fiction,” please.
Submissions accepted via online submission form or in print.
Electronic submission:
Submit Here
Print submission:
Writing Contest c/o Patten Free Library
33 Summer Street
Bath, ME 04530
Questions? Call or email Hannah Lackoff (207-443-5141 x1021, hlackoff@patten.lib.me.us)
The contest is made possible with support from the Friends of the Patten Free Library.
In recognition of National Native American Heritage Month, all are invited to a free screening of the Emmy award-winning documentary, Dawnland, followed by post-film discussion. From the Upstander Project, “For decades, child welfare authorities have been removing Native American children from their homes to “save them from being Indian.” In Maine, the first official Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States begins a historic investigation. Dawnland goes behind-the-scenes as this historic body grapples with difficult truths, redefines reconciliation, and charts a new course for state and tribal relations.”
Join us in person for the film screening at 5 p.m. followed by a discussion at 6 p.m. To stream the film at home and join the discussion on Zoom, register for Zoom to receive the streaming link and password by email.
Wednesday, November 8 at 5:30 p.m.
Do you feel well informed about global warming? Would you like to understand more about the science of climate change? Did you know that greenhouse gases have been talked about since 1856? Do you know what a greenhouse gas is? We’ll talk the roots of climate science, how we understand that climate change is happening, and how we understand its causes. You will leave this session with a better understanding of the science that motivates the hard policy decisions that we all face today.
This program part of a continuing series of Bath Climate Conversations focused on learning, discussing, and connecting around ways to sustain and support our vibrant town as climate change occurs. Hosted by Bath Climate Action Commission in partnership with KELT and the Patten Free Library and presented in person and on Zoom. Registration is required for Zoom only.
Register for Zoom View the SeriesSam Patten, former communications strategist and author of Dangerous Company: The Misadventures of a “Foreign Agent,” will talk politics, history, and white collar crime with Richard Kessler, former staff director of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (and former PFL board president!). Books will be available for sale and signing at the event.
Sam Patten is a communications strategist, author of the forthcoming memoir Dangerous Company: The Misadventures of a ‘Foreign Agent,’ long-time political operative in the U.S. and globally, and a felon re-entering society after being convicted in a high-profile investigation of Russian meddling in U.S. elections.
The ninth American to be convicted of failing to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938, Patten cooperated with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2018-19 probe and pleaded guilty to the lobbying charge, for which he was sentenced to three years probation. Prior to this, Sam worked as an advisor to political leaders in other countries, including Iraq, Ukraine, Georgia, the DR Congo and many others. It was his work for a Ukrainian political party that landed him in the crosshairs of U.S. investigators.
During the second administration of George W. Bush, Sam served as a senior advisor to the undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs. He’d also worked extensively in the field for the International Republican Institute (IRI) as the democracy group’s country director in Russia (2001-4) and political director in Iraq (2004-5). He also ran Freedom House’s Eurasian programs from 2009-11, with a focus on Central Asia. In 2000, Sam coordinated Bush’s campaign in Maine, where he had been working for U.S. Senator Susan Collins and U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe.
Growing up on the coast of Maine, Sam has — like sea captains who lived there a centuries ago — long been fascinated with the lands beyond America’s shores. In college, he studied the Soviet Union just as it was falling apart, and in the early 1990s, he found a way to Kazakhstan, where he worked as a teacher and advisor to energy companies. Both Sam’s parents are the children of foreign service officers, and both are direct descendants of John Jay, America’s first minister of foreign affairs and chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Upon completing his sentence in the Washington, DC area, Sam returned to Maine, where he lives with his dog, Pepper. He volunteers to teach in state prisons, and is a justice ambassador for Prison Fellowship. Much of Dangerous Company was written in the Patten Free Library Reading Room.
Richard Kessler served in a variety of senior professional positions in Congress for 25 years, retiring in 2014 as staff director of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He also served as staff director for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Richard was also a subcommittee staff director on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee responsible for the Federal workforce and a professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and on the House International Relations Committee where he was responsible for East Asia, the Pacific, South Asia, and UN peacekeeping policy issues. Before joining the Senate staff, he was a Senior Associate at The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-directed an energy study at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.
Richard earned a MA, MALD and a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He has a BA in French from Colgate University. He served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam in military intelligence and was awarded a Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal, and Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.
He moved to Bath in 2014 and has been President of the PFL (where he is currently a trustee), is chair of the Sagadahoc County Democratic Party, is a member of Grace Episcopal Church, and serves on the board of the international non-profit Internews, which promotes journalism.
Free speaker series lecture and Q&A cohosted by Patten Free Library and Bath Area Family YMCA. This program is presented live and on Zoom. Registration is required for Zoom only.
Register for ZoomReza Jalali is an author, educator, and immigrant advocate, who served as Executive Director of the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center. He is profiled in Making it in America: a Sourcebook on Eminent Ethnic Americans and has been featured in National Public Radio’s acclaimed storytelling program, The Moth Radio.
As a member of Amnesty International USA Board of Directors, Jalali has led delegations to refugee camps in Turkey and Bosnia. In 1992, he visited the White House as part of a national delegation to discuss the plight of Kurdish refugees fleeing Iraq. He has taught at the University of Southern Maine and Bangor Theological Seminary.
His books include the award-winning children’s book, Moon Watchers and Homesick Mosque and Other Stories. Jalali also co-authored New Mainers and Dear Maine. His books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Tuesday, October 3 at 5:30 p.m.
In her new memoir, A Hard Silence, Melanie Brooks interrogates the silence that surrounded her father’s illness after he was infected with HIV from a blood transfusion in 1985. In retelling this story on her own terms, she’s able to travel beyond her trauma and recognize the value of inviting readers to share in the experience with her. With acclaimed author Susan Conley, Melanie will discuss the redemptive work of bringing such hard stories to the page, and together they will offer both writers and readers insights on how rigorously exploring our personal pain can bring collective healing and understanding.
This program will be presented in person and on Zoom. Registration is required for Zoom only.
Register for ZoomMelanie Brooks is the author of A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All (Vine Leaves Press, September 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches professional writing at Northeastern University and creative nonfiction in the MFA program at Bay Path University in Massachusetts. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program. She recently completed a Certificate of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in Psychology Today, the HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, the Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from college), and two Labs.
Susan Conley is the award-winning author of five critically-acclaimed books, including her newest, best-selling novel Landslide which was named a New York Times “Editor’s Choice,” a TODAY Show “Best Summer Read,” a Vanity Fair “Book We Can’t Stop Thinking About,” and a New York Times “Paperback Row” Best Paperback Pick. It was also named a “Best Book” by Good Morning America, The New York Post, Medium, Bustle, Biblio Lifestyle and others, and it was chosen as Maine NPR’s “All Books Considered” Bookclub Pick.
Her writing has appeared in places like The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Lithub, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Harvard Review, Downeast Magazine, Maine Magazine, Wildsam and others. She’s been awarded multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Maine Arts Commission, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. She’s won the Maine Book Award and the Maine Award for Publishing Excellence and has been a featured Tedx Speaker, where her talk the “Power of Story,” has been viewed widely. She’s taught at a host of colleges and art-residencies including Emerson College, Colby College, The University of Massachusetts, as the Jack Kerouac Visiting Fellow, The Haystack School, The Spannochia Foundation, La Napoule Foundation, The Beijing Hutong and the Maine Media Workshops. She’s on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program and is co-founder of the Telling Room, a creative writing lab for kids in Portland, Maine.
https://www.patten.lib.me.us/event/brooks/
1st prize and 2nd prizes will be named in each of six categories:
Grades 6-9: Short Fiction, Non-Fiction
Grades 10-12: Short Fiction, Non-Fiction
Adults: Short Fiction, Non-Fiction
Entries will be judged by a panel including Library staff, trustees, local teachers, community members and Teen Library Council members. First ($100) and second prize ($50) gift certificates will be awarded in each category. Winners will be honored at a reception in January 2024 and winning entries will be published on the Library website. The Writing Contest is made possible with support from the Friends of the Patten Free Library.
Entries accepted October 1 through December 1, 2023.
Guidelines:
• One submission limit per author per category; no co-authors.
• Teen entrants must be in grades 6-12, live in the Library service area; or attend an R.S.U. 1 school or school located within the Library service area (Arrowsic, Georgetown, Bath, West Bath, or Woolwich).
• Adult entrants must be 18 years or older and live in the Library service area (Arrowsic, Georgetown, Bath, West Bath, or Woolwich) or hold a valid Patten Free Library card. Library staff are not eligible for consideration.
• Previously published work will not be accepted.
• Entries may be up to 3000 words. Entries longer than 3000 words will not be considered.
• Include a header on each page with title, category, and page number.
• Submissions will be judged blind. DO NOT include writer’s name anywhere on the submission itself.
• No “fan fiction,” please.
Submissions accepted via online submission form or in print.
Electronic submission:
Submit Here
Print submission:
Writing Contest c/o Patten Free Library
33 Summer Street
Bath, ME 04530
Questions? Call or email Hannah Lackoff (207-443-5141 x1021, hlackoff@patten.lib.me.us)
The contest is made possible with support from the Friends of the Patten Free Library.
We are thrilled to announce that the Patten Free Library has been awarded $100,000 in the Remote Work through Libraries Initiative administered by the Maine State Library and the Department of Economic and Community Development. As a community and business hub for the mid-coast region, the Library will use the funds to promote physical access to the library, build and improve designated space for remote workers, and implement technology upgrades to meet the demand for telecommunication, virtual meetings, and networking opportunities for remote and hybrid workers.
Governor Mills’ Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan is committed to attracting new residents to live and work in Maine, and sees remote and hybrid work as an economic growth opportunity. Libraries, which are centered in every community and already provide high speed internet access, connectivity, and research capacities, are natural service centers for this growing sector.
We have already seen a huge increase in patrons using the Library for remote and hybrid work, especially since the pandemic. This grant will allow us to enhance remote workers’ experiences in the Library by offering improved spaces and technology, and improved physical access to the building.
We will begin work this fall, in conjunction with the City of Bath and other community partners, for this exciting and timely project.
