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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260919T143000
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SUMMARY:WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party Brings a National Democracy Event to Bank Square Books
DESCRIPTION:WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party brings a nationwide Writers for Democratic Action event to Bank Square Books in Mystic on Saturday\, September 19\, as historian and bestselling author Heather Cox Richardson receives the inaugural Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award. \nThe local gathering begins at 2:30 p.m. with refreshments\, conversation and an opportunity to submit questions before the national livestream starts at 3 p.m. \nRichardson will receive the new award before sitting down for a conversation with novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt\, a founding member of Writers for Democratic Action and author of the 2026 memoir Ghost Stories. \nBank Square Books is one of a network of locations around the country holding what WDA calls Solidarity Watch Parties. The Mystic event adds a decidedly local component: a representative from the League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut will be available to register voters and answer questions about voting in Connecticut’s upcoming elections. \nAdmission is free\, but Bank Square Books is requesting advance registration. \nA Watch Party Connected to a National Event\nThis isn’t a prerecorded author talk being shown at the bookstore. \nWriters for Democratic Action is bringing together hundreds of its members online while people gather simultaneously at bookstores\, libraries\, homes\, retirement communities and other locations around the country. \nAt 3 p.m. Eastern\, those separate gatherings will join the same livestream honoring Richardson. \nThe national organization says the watch parties have a second purpose beyond recognizing her work. They also mark the launch of WDA’s Book the Vote campaign ahead of the November election. \nWriters for Democratic Action describes itself as a national community of more than 4\,000 writers committed to defending democracy\, freedom of expression\, truth and justice. \nIts membership includes novelists\, poets\, journalists\, essayists and other writers who have chosen to become actively involved in civic issues rather than keeping their political concerns separate from their literary work. \nSaturday’s event puts one of the country’s most widely read historians at the center of that effort. \nHeather Cox Richardson Has Turned the Daily News Into a History Lesson\nRichardson is a professor of history at Boston College\, but the audience for her work now extends far beyond a university classroom. \nShe’s a specialist in 19th-century American political and economic history whose academic work has examined the Civil War\, Reconstruction\, the Gilded Age\, the American West and the development of the Republican Party. \nHer books include The Death of Reconstruction\, West from Appomattox\, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre\, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party\, How the South Won the Civil War and Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. \nBut millions of readers know her primarily through Letters from an American. \nRichardson began what became the newsletter in 2019 as she tried to explain rapidly developing political events by putting them into a larger historical context. \nRather than treating each day’s political news as an isolated story\, she connects contemporary developments to earlier periods in American history. \nA dispute over the power of the presidency might lead backward to Reconstruction. \nA modern argument over voting rights can become a discussion of the post-Civil War amendments. \nPolitical rhetoric can be traced across generations to show where ideas came from and how their meanings changed. \nThe approach turned an academic historian into a major national voice. \nBy 2026\, Letters from an American had grown into an audience measured in the millions across Substack and social media. \nRichardson’s Subject Is Increasingly Democracy Itself\nRichardson’s academic specialty might be 19th-century America\, but a common thread running through much of her recent public work is a much larger question: \nHow does a democracy survive? \nHer 2023 bestseller Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America examines the historical forces Richardson argues brought the United States to its current political moment. \nThe book moves between the country’s founding\, abolition\, Reconstruction\, the rise of modern political movements\, the Nixon era and the events surrounding January 6\, 2021. \nRichardson’s central method is historical rather than predictive. \nToday’s conflicts become easier to understand\, she argues\, when they’re placed beside earlier struggles over political power\, economic opportunity\, citizenship and who gets to participate in American government. \nThat combination of scholarship and public engagement has brought Richardson recognition beyond the academy. \nShe was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022 and has received the Authors Guild Award for literary activism. \nOn September 19\, another award will be added to that list. \nThe First Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award\nWriters for Democratic Action will present Richardson with its inaugural Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award during Saturday’s livestream. \nThe names behind the award are significant. \nTodd Gitlin was a writer\, sociologist\, political activist and longtime commentator on American politics and culture. As a young man\, he served as president of Students for a Democratic Society and later became a prominent scholar and critic. \nPaul Auster was the acclaimed novelist\, essayist\, poet\, screenwriter and filmmaker whose books included The New York Trilogy\, Moon Palace\, The Book of Illusions and 4 3 2 1. \nBoth were among the writers involved in creating Writers for Democratic Action. \nGitlin died in 2022. \nAuster died in 2024. \nNaming WDA’s new democracy award for them ties the organization’s present work to two writers who believed that literary and intellectual life could not always remain separate from public life. \nRichardson becomes its first recipient Saturday. \nSiri Hustvedt Joins Richardson for the Conversation\nFollowing the award presentation\, Richardson will be joined by Siri Hustvedt. \nHustvedt is a novelist\, essayist and scholar whose work has frequently crossed boundaries among fiction\, philosophy\, psychology\, neuroscience and art. \nHer books include What I Loved\, The Summer Without Men\, The Blazing World and numerous collections of essays. \nShe’s also a founding member of Writers for Democratic Action. \nThe connection to Saturday’s award is particularly personal. \nHustvedt and Paul Auster were married for 43 years\, until Auster’s death from lung cancer in April 2024. \nHer latest book\, Ghost Stories\, published in May 2026\, is a memoir of their life together and her experience of grief following his death. \nThe book incorporates previously unseen material from Auster\, including letters and unfinished writing\, while exploring memory\, love\, loss and what remains of a shared life after one person is gone. \nThat makes the pairing Saturday more than a conventional author interviewing another author. \nHustvedt is helping present an award that carries her late husband’s name\, then joining its first recipient for a public discussion about the ideas that led WDA to create it. \nMystic’s Watch Party Has Its Own Civic Component\nThe livestream is national. \nWhat happens around it at Bank Square Books is local. \nGuests can arrive at 2:30 p.m.\, giving them about half an hour to mingle\, have refreshments and submit questions before the livestream begins. \nA representative of the League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut will also be at the bookstore. \nThe League representative can help eligible residents register to vote and answer practical questions about voting and Connecticut elections. \nThat gives people an immediate way to move from a national discussion of democracy to one of its most basic local functions. \nConnecticut’s next general election is Tuesday\, November 3\, 2026. \nFor someone uncertain about registration\, election procedures or where to find reliable nonpartisan voting information\, Saturday provides an opportunity to ask a person rather than sort through conflicting information online. \nBank Square Books Has Become a Gathering Place as Well as a Bookstore\nThe setting also fits the event. \nBank Square Books has served Mystic-area readers since 1988. \nIts current location at 80 Stonington Road\, Suite 8\, gives the independent bookstore enough room to regularly hold author talks\, signings\, book clubs and other community programs. \nThat role matters in an era when books can be purchased without ever entering a bookstore. \nAn independent bookstore can sell the same book that arrives in a cardboard box on someone’s doorstep. \nWhat it can do that the box can’t is put readers in the same room. \nSaturday’s watch party takes that idea a step further. \nThe featured historian won’t physically be in Mystic. Neither will Hustvedt. \nBut the audience will. \nRather than watching the livestream individually at home\, people can hear the same conversation together\, discuss it and connect it to the civic work happening where they actually live. \nThat’s the entire idea behind WDA’s Solidarity Watch Parties. \nYou Can Arrive at 2:30 or Join for the Livestream at 3\nBank Square Books is inviting guests to arrive at 2:30 p.m. for the social portion of the event. \nRefreshments will be available\, and attendees can submit questions. \nThe national program begins at 3 p.m. \nThere is a slight discrepancy in the published ending time. Bank Square Books’ current event calendar lists the event from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.\, while regional event calendars list the gathering through approximately 4 p.m. The national WDA schedule describes the livestream itself as running from 3 to 4 p.m. \nAnyone attending should therefore plan on the main livestream running until about 4 p.m.\, with the bookstore’s event window potentially continuing afterward. \nThe event is free. \nAdvance registration is requested. \nAn Author Event Where the Book Isn’t the End of the Conversation\nThere’s an interesting inversion at the heart of Saturday’s event. \nRichardson became famous in part by using history to explain politics. \nWriters for Democratic Action is using writers to encourage political participation. \nBank Square Books is using a bookstore as a place for civic gathering. \nAnd the League of Women Voters will be there to turn some of those conversations into the decidedly practical business of making sure people can vote. \nBooks are still at the center of it. \nSo are writers. \nBut the WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party is built around the idea that reading about democracy and participating in one are related activities. \nOn Saturday afternoon\, those two things meet at a bookstore in Mystic. \nDetails\nEvent: WDA Heather Cox Richardson Watch Party\nDate: Saturday\, September 19\, 2026\nArrival/Mingling: 2:30 p.m.\nNational Livestream: 3 p.m.\nLivestream End: Approximately 4 p.m.\nBank Square Books Calendar Window: 2:30–4:30 p.m.\nLocation: Bank Square Books\nAddress: 80 Stonington Road\, Suite 8\, Mystic\, CT 06355\nAdmission: Free\nRegistration: Advance RSVP requested\nFeatured Guest: Heather Cox Richardson\, historian\, author and Boston College professor\nAward: Inaugural Gitlin-Auster Defender of Democracy Award\nConversation: Heather Cox Richardson and Siri Hustvedt\nPresented Nationally By: Writers for Democratic Action\nLocal Host: Bank Square Books\nLocal Civic Resource: League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut representative available for voter registration and election questions\nBefore the Livestream: Mingling\, refreshments and question submission\nGeneral Election: Tuesday\, November 3\, 2026\nBank Square Books Phone: 860-536-3795 \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo reserve your spot\, click the Event Registration link below. \n  \n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown. \nResources\nWriters for Democratic Action\nHeather Cox Richardson – Boston College\nHeather Cox Richardson – American Academy of Arts and Sciences\nDemocracy Awakening – Penguin Random House\nGhost Stories – Siri Hustvedt\nConnecticut Voter Information
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/wda-heather-cox-richardson-watch-party-brings-a-national-democracy-event-to-bank-square-books/
LOCATION:Bank Square Books\, 80 Stonington Rd\, Mystic\, 06355\, United States
CATEGORIES:Bank Square Books
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260919T170000
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UID:10008451-1789837200-1789844400@thectbeacon.com
SUMMARY:Don Winslow Brings Crime\, Corruption and The Final Score to Mystic & Noank Library Author Talk
DESCRIPTION:Don Winslow Brings Crime\, Corruption and The Final Score to Mystic & Noank Library Author Talk on Saturday\, Sept. 19\, when the bestselling crime novelist sits down with writer and longtime local arts journalist Rick Koster inside Snediker Yacht Restoration in Old Mystic. \nThe Mystic & Noank Library’s fifth annual Author Talk runs from 5 to 7 p.m.\, beginning with an hour-long reception featuring wine and hors d’oeuvres before Winslow and Koster take over the conversation at 6 p.m. Bank Square Books will also be there with copies of Winslow’s books available for purchase. \nThis isn’t simply a stop on a book tour. The $125-per-person evening is one of the library’s major annual fundraisers\, with proceeds helping support its programs and services. It also brings together an interesting combination: a crime writer who grew up in coastal Rhode Island\, a Connecticut journalist and novelist who has spent decades writing about this corner of New England\, and a working Old Mystic boat shop devoted to preserving vessels from another era. \nDon Winslow Took a Long Road to Crime Fiction\nBefore Don Winslow became a bestselling novelist\, he accumulated the kind of résumé that sounds suspiciously like research for one. \nThe son of a sailor and a librarian\, Winslow grew up in a small coastal community in Rhode Island. He left at 17 to study journalism at the University of Nebraska\, where he also earned a degree in African Studies. \nThen things got less conventional. \nWinslow traveled through southern Africa\, worked as a movie theater manager in New York and became a private investigator in Times Square. He earned a master’s degree in military history\, worked for a photographic safari company in Kenya\, led hiking expeditions in China and directed Shakespeare productions during summers in Oxford\, England. \nThrough all of it\, he was writing. \nHis first novel\, A Cool Breeze on the Underground\, introduced private investigator Neal Carey and earned an Edgar Award nomination. Investigative work later took Winslow and his family to California\, where they lived in hotels for nearly three years while he worked cases and served as a trial consultant. \nEventually\, a publishing and film deal for The Death and Life of Bobby Z allowed him to leave investigative work behind and write full time. \nThe detective work\, travel and years spent watching people in unusual circumstances left fingerprints all over the fiction that followed. \nFrom The Power of the Dog to City on Fire\nWinslow has written more than 20 novels\, but two sprawling crime sagas account for a large part of his reputation. \nThe Power of the Dog\, published in 2005\, opened an ambitious fictional chronicle of the drug trade and the decades-long conflict surrounding it. Winslow continued the story with The Cartel and The Border\, creating a trilogy stretching across roughly four decades of the war on drugs. \nThen he came back toward home. \nCity on Fire\, published in 2022\, begins another trilogy\, this time centered on Irish and Italian organized-crime families in Rhode Island. City of Dreams followed in 2023 and City in Ruins completed the trilogy in 2024. \nThe Rhode Island setting brings Winslow’s crime fiction back to the landscape where he grew up. It’s also likely to give Saturday’s Old Mystic audience something familiar beneath the gunfire and betrayals: coastal New England\, family loyalties\, neighborhood identities and communities where everybody seems separated by only a few degrees. \nWinslow’s books have also repeatedly attracted Hollywood. Savages became a 2012 Oliver Stone film\, while The Death and Life of Bobby Z was adapted for the screen earlier. His work has drawn interest over the years from filmmakers and actors including Michael Mann\, Martin Scorsese\, Ridley Scott\, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. \nSix Crimes\, Six Stories in The Final Score\nSaturday’s conversation arrives with a newer book on the table. \nThe Final Score trades the enormous canvas of Winslow’s trilogies for six shorter crime novellas. The stories stand independently\, but Winslow returns to familiar territory: criminals making calculations\, ordinary people being pushed into extraordinary choices\, corruption\, loyalty and the moment when somebody decides the risk is worth taking. \nThe title story begins with an irresistible premise for crime fiction: an impossible multimillion-dollar casino robbery. \nA legendary thief facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars sees precisely what everyone else sees. The score can’t be pulled off. \nThat’s what makes him want to do it. \nElsewhere\, a college-bound teenager delivering illegal alcohol finds his future threatened by a crooked police officer\, a customer and a phony guru. Two mobsters swap stories over breakfast in another tale\, while The North Wing puts an otherwise honest patrol officer between loyalty to his profession and loyalty to a troublesome cousin. \nThe shorter form changes the machinery. Winslow doesn’t have hundreds of pages to slowly tighten the screws. Characters have to arrive quickly\, choices have to matter almost immediately and the trapdoor beneath them can’t take forever to open. \nThose six stories\, along with the much larger novels that preceded them\, give Koster plenty to work with Saturday night. \nRick Koster Takes the Other Chair\nThe person asking the questions is a writer himself. \nRick Koster spent decades as an arts journalist and columnist at The Day in New London\, covering music\, books\, food and the cultural life of southeastern Connecticut. Before journalism\, he spent years playing rock music\, and he’s also the author of several books. \nHis fiction includes White Ghost Blues\, a supernatural story steeped in New Orleans music\, along with other novels and nonfiction. \nKoster has become a familiar interviewer for the Mystic & Noank Library’s annual event. He also sat across from bestselling Connecticut novelist Wally Lamb during the library’s 2025 fundraiser at Snediker. \nThat local connection should make Saturday’s conversation different from a generic promotional interview. Winslow grew up in coastal Rhode Island and later returned to the state as the setting for the City on Fire trilogy. Koster has spent much of his professional life documenting southeastern Connecticut and its arts community. \nThere’s plenty of common New England ground between them. \nA Book Talk Inside a Wooden Boat Shop\nThe setting might be the most unusual part of the evening. \nSnediker Yacht Restoration isn’t an event hall dressed to resemble a boat shop. It’s the real thing. \nThe Old Mystic company has spent more than 30 years building\, repairing and restoring classic wooden boats using traditional construction techniques. Its small crew collectively represents about 150 years of boatbuilding experience. \nThe projects vary dramatically. Some boats return to the water to race or cruise. Others are museum pieces that may never sail again. \nAmong Snediker’s recent restorations is The Kid\, the last surviving American Yacht Club One-Design Class Raceabout. Designed by B.B. Crowninshield and built by Rice Brothers in 1902\, the boat was originally constructed for yachtsman Oliver Harriman Jr. and later raced on Long Island Sound under owner Clifford D. Mallory as Cliphora. Following an extensive restoration at Snediker\, the century-old boat sailed again. \nFor an author fundraiser in Mystic\, it’s hard to imagine a setting more rooted in the character of the region: wooden hulls\, old boats and the smell and machinery of a working restoration shop rather than rows of seats in a hotel ballroom. \nThe library has made the location part of the tradition\, too. Its 2024 annual report notes that author and historian Hampton Sides appeared for a fundraiser at Snediker while promoting The Wide Wide Sea. Wally Lamb followed in 2025 with The River Is Waiting. \nNow Winslow becomes the fifth annual Author Talk’s featured writer. \nAn Evening That Supports the Library\nBefore the books take center stage\, the evening begins socially. \nDoors open for a reception from 5 to 6 p.m.\, with drinks and hors d’oeuvres included in admission. Bank Square Books will offer Winslow’s books for sale\, and the conversation with Koster follows from 6 to 7 p.m. \nThe library will also recognize its 2026 Volunteers of the Year\, Friends of the Library Co-Presidents Kathy Busse and Patricia Menno-Coveney\, for their service to the organization and community. \nMost importantly\, the night raises money. \nThe Mystic & Noank Library is a nonprofit organization\, and the Author Talk is part of its 2026 annual fundraising effort. Proceeds help sustain and expand the library’s programs and services. Tickets are limited\, and the library says it expects the event to sell out. \nSo\, yes\, there’s a bestselling crime writer in the middle of a wooden-boat restoration shop on Saturday night. \nBut there’s also a library behind him. \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \nDetails\nEvent: 5th Annual Author Talk with Don Winslow at Snediker Yacht Restoration\nDate: Saturday\, Sept. 19\, 2026\nTime: 5–7 p.m.\nReception: 5–6 p.m. with drinks and hors d’oeuvres\nAuthor Conversation: 6–7 p.m.\nFeatured Author: Don Winslow\nInterviewer: Rick Koster\nFeatured Book: The Final Score\nLocation: Snediker Yacht Restoration\nAddress: 35 Campground Road\, Old Mystic\, CT 06372\nAdmission: $125 per person\nAge Group: Adults\nBooks: Bank Square Books will have Winslow’s books available for purchase\nFundraiser: Proceeds support Mystic & Noank Library programs and services\nHonorees: 2026 Volunteers of the Year Kathy Busse and Patricia Menno-Coveney\, co-presidents of the Friends of the Mystic & Noank Library\nAvailability: Space is limited\, and the library expects the event to sell out\nContact: Chris Bradley\, 860-536-7721 \n  \n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown.
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/don-winslow-brings-crime-corruption-and-the-final-score-to-mystic-noank-library-author-talk/
LOCATION:Snediker Yacht Restoration\, 35 Campground Rd\, Old Mystic\, 06355\, United States
CATEGORIES:Snediker Yacht Restoration
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