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What’s happening in October at Community Libraries of Providence: Family programs and local events

“Knightmare on Elmwood” is a haunted house taking place Oct. 24 at the Knight Memorial Library.
Melissa Rivera/Community Libraries of Providence
“Knightmare on Elmwood” is a haunted house taking place Oct. 24 at the Knight Memorial Library.

The libraries offer a slew of free programming every week for kids and adults at their nine locations around the city. We highlight a few of these events in this monthly segment – from a haunted house to a book club highlighting African American authors

Afternoon host Mareva Lindo talks with Cheryl Space, library director of the Community Libraries of Providence, and Michelle Freeman, library supervisor at the Knight Memorial Library, about what’s happening at the Community Libraries of Providence in October.

Hispanic Heritage Month highlight: Encuentro Literario

Cheryl Space: It will be at the Knight Memorial Library on Oct. 2 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The event will be primarily in Spanish, and it will feature Spanish-speaking educators, authors, poets, a musician. And Jacinda Pena, who’s going to be presenting a project by members of a book club, actually, from the Patchogue-Medford Library in New York, will be coming to Providence to join us. So we’re very excited about this event. We do an annual Feria del Libro every year to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, and this is this year’s offering.

AI in Journalism

Space: Oct. 7 at 6 p.m. at the Rochambeau Library, you can come and hear Tony Silvia, who is the author of “Artificial Intelligence In Journalism: Changing the news.” And he’s going to be talking about how you probably already read articles that have been written with the assistance of AI, talking about how we’re using it. How do we make sense of it? What’s ethical?

Halloween at the libraries: A costume drive, trick-or-treating and a haunted house

Space: If you’re like me, you probably have a closet full, or hanging in the back of the closet, a lot of old Halloween costumes. So we welcome you to bring in outgrown, you know, costumes that have been worn one time. You want to clear them out — bring them to the Wanskuck Library. The whole month of October, we’re going to be doing a costume exchange. So even if you don’t go trick-or-treating, these can be fun for dress-up play at home.

Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. at the Knight Memorial Library, we have one of the highlights of the year, which is “Knightmare on Elmwood,” which is our spooktacular haunted house that happens in the underground stacks at the Knight Memorial Library. The staff pulls out all kinds of fun, and creepy and scary things. I only go through in the middle of the day when the lights are on, but perhaps you’re braver than me.

And finally, if you want to trick-or-treat at the library, you can come to Wanskuck or the Washington Park libraries, which are open on Thursday nights, and they’ll be passing out all kinds of fun treats on Oct. 30.

The African American Fiction Book Club

Michelle Freeman: The book club is called the African American Fiction Book Club, and it’s giving homage to Edna Fraser, the Edna Fraser book collection housed here at Knight Memorial.

For October, we’re reading “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride.

In November, we’ll be reading a book by Angela Flournoy, called “The Wilderness.”

You can participate just by coming into the library and asking about the book club. But you can also find us on the Knight Memorial Instagram. You can also find us on the Knight Memorial webpage and clpvd web page in general.

You can find more information about events at the Community Libraries of Providence at clpvd.org.

Mareva joined Ocean State Media in 2022. In 2023, Mareva received two awards from the Public Media Journalists Association for her work with The Public’s Radio, including a first-place Multi-Media Presentation award for the 2022 Elections page, and a second-place Short Documentary award for editing and co-production of “The Secret of Chiqui Versace.”
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