Join Tazewell County Public Library at Critterville Park in Richlands on Monday, April 8 from 2-4:00pm for the Solar Eclipse. Be a Citizen Scientist and help us to document local wildlife’s reaction to the Eclipse. This program is free and open to all ages. Parents or caregivers must accompany children under age 12. A limited supply of Eclipse glasses will be available. No sign up necessary.
Join TCPL-Bluefield and Tazewell County Master Gardeners on Tuesday, 3/26/24, 4:30 – 5:30 pm for early planting in the library garden. We will plant seeds and transplants that are hardy enough to take a little cold weather. All ages are welcome to participate. Children should be accompanied by an adult. This is the beginning of our 2024 garden program at the library. More planting and harvesting are to come.
Come join ASD and Tazewell County Master Gardeners for an introduction to seed starting at the Tazewell County Public Library in Bluefield Virginia on March 26 from 6-7:30 pm. We will discuss the how, when, and why to plant cool and warm season crops. We will explore which companion plants grow well with your crops to help keep pests away and your garden looking magnificent! We’ll discuss which seeds you can save and how to plan ahead for years to come. As a bonus, you’ll be able to learn about the advantages of soils blocks and how to make your own! We are excited to partner on this, and even more excited to share our knowledge with you for a happy, fruitful growing season!
Tazewell County Master Gardeners, Seasons IV Garden Club, and TCPL-Bluefield are partnering to host a Garden Book Club. We will meet each month, on the 3rd Tuesday, at 6:00 pm, at the library in Bluefield to discuss a different gardening book. Anyone interested in gardening is welcome to attend. Library book clubs are a great way to meet people, get suggestions for books to read, and to offer your own ideas.
Our first session will be Tuesday, 4/16/24, 6:00 pm, at TCPL in Bluefield. The book to be discussed is A Guide to Gardening with Southwest Virginia Native Plants: www.plantvirginianatives.org. This book is free to download, and is also available at our TCPL library branches.
In May we will discuss Home Grown Pantry, by Barbara Pleasant. Books for months June through September are still being considered.
There will be a concurrent children’s program during book club.
April is National Poetry Month! Join us for a free poetry event open to the public at the Bluefield Library on Thursday, April 25th from 6:30pm – 8pm.
We all have inherited things from our families. Some of these inheritances may be tangible items—journals, quilts, recipes, letters, jewelry, photographs, or even the gift of living on the same land our ancestors once walked. For others, inheritance is found in memory—stories told (or overheard) about elders or family rituals.
In this generative workshop, “Writing Into Your Family Archive Through Poetry,” we will explore the tangible and intangible forms of what we’ve inherited, read model poems that offer poetry craft tools on writing about our inheritances, and write new poems together. By the end of our time together, it is my hope that you lean into the silences and omissions—both intentional and unintentional—that come with families and family histories and imagine possibilities for, or stumble upon revelations from, these relationships. This workshop is open to adult writers at every stage of their writing journey. We will all learn from each other. Please bring with you to our gathering one item that has been passed down to you or kept in your family.
Workshop leader bio: L. Renée is a poet, nonfiction writer, and collector of her family’s stories.A descendant of proud Black Appalachians who labored in coal towns and tobacco fields, she was selected by the National Association of Black Storytellers as the winner of the 2023 Black Appalachian Storyteller’s Fellowship representing the Commonwealth of Virginia. Nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and two Pushcart Prizes, her work has been published in Obsidian, Tin House Online, Poetry Northwest, Poet Lore, the minnesota review, and American Life in Poetry. She won the international 2022 Rattle Poetry Prize and Appalachian Review’s 2020 Denny C. Plattner Award, and third place for the international 2023 Poetry London Prize. She has earned fellowships from Cave Canem and the Watering Hole. Her work has been supported by the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc., Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Peter Bullough Foundation, Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and others. L. Renée holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University, where she was nonfiction editor of Indiana Review, and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University, where she was a Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Moore Fellow.
Join us for our Books and Brews Book Club at The Front Porch on Friday, March 22nd starting 7pm. We will be discuss the book “Divine Rivals” by Rebecca Ross. Come for the book discussion and community. This is a free social event. If you would like any food or drinks, they can be purchased at The Front Porch.
Join us for our monthly Classics Book Club. For February 2024, we will be discussing “Time Machine” by H.G. Wells. This is a free event open to the public. We regularly meet on the third Friday of every month at the County Admin Building while the main Tazewell Library is closed.
Upcoming Books in 2024
January: “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare
February: “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles
March: “Time Machine” by H.G. Wells
April: “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
May: “Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery
June: “Persuasion” by Jane Austen
July: “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf
August: “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe
September: “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker
October: “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde
November: “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce
December: “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London
The Main Tazewell Library might be closed for renovation, but we have our Tazewell Pop-up library location at the Tazewell County Administration Building. This pop-up location provides limited services, including checking out books and magazines. We are open Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 11am -1pm.
Meet the Library Unicorn and enjoy Dancing and Crafting as we Celebrate Spring at the Tazewell Train Station. Costumes and Dance Shoes Welcome! Free Family Friendly Fun! This event is for all ages with no sign up.
Join us at the Tazewell Train Station on Thursday, February 29th from 3:30pm – 4:30pm for an Information Session. Please bring any comments, questions, or concerns to this meeting about the Tazewell Library building that is currently under construction.