Posts from Grand Central Library

A special welcome to Lenny Collado one of our newer members and someone who is helping out a lot.  Lenny brought this poem to our April 29th meeting and shared it with us.  Can you guess the word he's referring to?

As winter kicks in, Teen Central and Grand Central's second Writers' Club newsletter is now available (PDF).  We decided to feature a poem written by Crystal Gomez at the November 26th meeting of the writers' club. She wrote this in response to M.C. K~Swift's exercise on "personification." (Personificaton could be defined as giving human qualities and/or making come alive objects that are not human or often not alive.) -- Crystal's personification pairs included: a lost cell phone; trusting games; joyful paper; a funny building and of course....

On Wednesday, November 10th, Teen Central's newly formed Writers' Club held its first meeting in Grand Central Library's second floor Community Room.

Hip-Hop artist and educator M.C. K~Swift introduced himself and then shared writings from his journal with the other members of the Writers' Club.

It's hard to believe that the LiveStories memoir writing workshop at the Grand Central Library is nearing its conclusion.  This has been a fascinating, emotional, cathartic, and educational journey for us all.  With the help of our two wonderful teaching artists, Annie and Lauren, and our generous funders at Lifetime Arts,  we have learned how to craft our personal stories, and in some cases, even to dramatize them. We have made new friends and, in just a short time, become part of each other's lives.

Come now through December to see an Exhibit at Teen Central in the Grand Central Library of Photos, Stickers and Zines from the streets of São Paulo.

In this pulsating, polluted metropolis of 18 million people – many of whom barely survive – exists a flourishing array of subcultures.  An extraordinary range of vibrant public art thrives amid broken buildings, garbage-strewn streets and abandoned alleyways.

Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short?

Draw from your experience: six NYPL branches will offer creative aging programs this fall. The programs consist of a minimum of eight 90-minute classes and each will end with a culminating celebration.

We just finished a Teen Advisory Group (TAG) meeting. We discussed the proposed budget cuts, and decided it is time to act. We wrote our reasons for loving the library—the ways we use it, why it's so important to us, and why it needs to stay open!

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

16 year old Cameron is just trying to make it through high school without attracting too much attention. His only friends are the other outcasts who hang out in the top floor bathroom at school and his only hobby is searching the used record store for albums made by the Great Tremolo, a singer of schmaltzy love songs who Cameron mocks even as he spends the money he earns flipping burgers on the old albums.

Fans of Supernatural or Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, meet Dru:

What if Buffy had to fight vamps and other monsters without the help of Giles and her seemingly super healing powers? What if the Winchester brothers weren’t searching for their demon-hunting father, just for the monster who turned him into a zombie?

At Teen Central, we spent the first week of March celebrating fandom of all shapes and sizes.  There's a fabulous video that sums up the event -- it was fun, hilarious, and we can't wait to hold it again next year.  You should totally watch it.

Otaku Takeover is ultimately all about fandom -- and I think that's really powerful.  Fandom is about community and connection, which is exactly what the library's about, too.  And all of that is about changing the world and making it a better place.  I think of something like The Harry Potter Alliance and I feel incredibly hopeful.  I think it was really cool that teens got to talk about their