Authors from the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, will present four lectures covering the history of mystery and crime fiction at the Library of The Chathams in Chatham, N.J., throughout next month. These lectures will be part of the library’s Chatham Adult Lifeworks Learning (CALL) program, an adult continuing education series partially sponsored by Friends of the Library of The Chathams.
Launched in 2016, this unique library series is intended to offer the local community an opportunity to learn a variety of subjects through a series of month-long courses facilitated by experts in the subject fields. “Reaching our community in new ways is something we constantly try to do,” says library Reference Supervisor Robert Schriek. “The CALL program is a way for the library to offer academic opportunities to residents who now have the time to learn new things and are looking for affordable classes.” In the past the series has covered topics such as: Classical Music, French Impressionism, and American Foreign Policy. The program has hosted university professors, political science experts, and educators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This year, in an effort to broaden the program’s appeal, the Library of The Chathams invited MWA-NY to facilitate a series of courses on the history of mystery and crime fiction. “It’s great to get MWA involved because mystery is such a popular genre that the subject will have great appeal to the public,” says Schriek. The lectures will be held at the library on four consecutive Tuesdays in June. Each week will focus on a different period of crime fiction history beginning with Edgar Allan Poe and concluding with hardboiled crime fiction of the mid-20th century and today. Four MWA-NY members will speak on a different topic he or she specializes in for each week of the program. All programs will be held on Tuesdays at 1 p.m.
June 6 Peggy Ehrhart on “Edgar Allan Poe”
June 13 Jeff Markowitz on “Anna Katharine Green, the Forgotten Mother of Mystery”
June 20 Lyndsay Faye on “Sherlock Holmes”
June 27 Dave White on “The Hard-Boiled School of Crime Fiction in the U.S.”
Registration through the library is required, and there is a fee of $40 for the four-week program. The library may be able to make exceptions at a fee of $10 per lecture for those who cannot attend all four lectures. You can register online and get further information by clicking here or by calling the library at (973) 635-0603.
—Robert J. Daniher
Robert J. Daniher lives in New Jersey where he works as an IT Support Technician for Madison Public Library and Library of The Chathams. He has been a member of MWA since 2009 and assists the MWA-NY Library Committee with planning author events at North Jersey libraries. His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine for the Mysterious Photograph Contest and in the annual Deadly Ink Short Story Collections of 2007 and 2008.