Events for: 2023-2024

Koliba brings together musicians from places like Senegal, Mozambique, and Guinea. Dancing and singing along to their African songs and dances, Koliba will surely bring the audiences to their feet with their electrifying and rhythmic performance.

“Ben Rudnick & Friends” play the hippest family music around. With countless awards to their credit, including seven Parent’s Choice awards, their high-energy blend of happy, upbeat acoustic music is guaranteed to entertain the entire family. Bending musical styles from country to bluegrass, rock to second-line New Orleans, familiar tunes and their get-up-and-dance original songs make you sing and dance and make you happy.

The Ridiculous Magician! Stevie delights audiences with hilarious, interactive, and quirky magic shows for children of all ages. Stevie engages and excites audiences with off-the-charts energy, laugh-out-loud comedy, and tons of audience participation.

In her memoir, Feed Me: A Story of Food, Love and Mental Illness, author Erika Nichols-Frazer writes about learning to cope with bipolar disorder, an eating disorder, and alcohol addiction in her family through the healing power of food and community. She will discuss mental health and the stigma surrounding it as well as strategies for coping with mental illness in yourself or loved ones.

Artist Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord made her first Spirit Book in 1992 and coined the name for the series which now numbers 101. The Spirit Books merge her response to the mystery and miracle of nature with the long-standing tradition of books as testaments of faith and belief. Working with handmade papers, natural materials, beads, and stitching, she has created contemplative objects that straddle the boundary between sculpture and book. Acknowledging the strength and the fragility of nature, they are both celebration and elegy. Susan’s involvement in the arts includes roles as artist, teacher, speaker, writer, designer, and publisher. She works in multiple media with a focus on sculptural bookmaking and calligraphy. Her work has been featured in magazines and books and exhibited across the U.S. and Canada and in South Korea. When Susan lived in North Billerica from 1979 to 1985, she was very involved in the Lowell art scene.

Our Good Name is the story of Stefano and his young bride Celestina, both Italian immigrants who leave behind the back-breaking field labor in their beloved Northern Italy to find their place in a strange new country. Inspired by true events, this is a historical novel that surprises with a fresh and honest perspective about the hard realities of immigrant life in the United States and the courage required to make a home of one’s own in the “New World.” Catherine was born and raised in Milford, Massachusetts. She is an active member of the vibrant literary community of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She divides her time between Mexico and Cape Cod.

The life of Mary Wygodski is a first person account of a woman who lost her entire immediate family in the Holocaust. She survived three concentration camps, made her way to Israel where she took part in the War of Independence, and eventually settled in America where she has been a passionate spokesperson about the Truth of the Holocaust. Tom will touch on the heroic but ultimately frustrated efforts of Edith Nourse Rogers to bring orphaned Jewish children to America.

In the Keynote Address for the “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!” Literary Festival, Paul Marion will discuss the evolving public perception of 20th-century author Jack Kerouac in his hometown, examining the dynamic relationship between an innovative, news-making writer and the city that shaped him. The editor of Kerouac’s early writing, “Atop and Underwood” (Viking/Penguin, 1999), Marion is the author of “Mill Power,” about the modern revival of Lowell, and several collections of Poems.

Discover the heartwarming tale of the Coughlin family as they navigate three decades of life in a former mill city on the brink of rebirth. Fran will take you on a journey through his family’s experiences, sharing personal and poignant vignettes that capture the joys, sorrows, and laughter of everyday life. From the triple-decker building where they make their home, Coughlin invites you to step back in time and relive a simpler era filled with warmth and humor. This nostalgic collection of stories will leave you with a renewed appreciation for the beauty of ordinary moments.

Tom Toohey is a modern day Irish storyteller who has traveled to Ireland 20 times and collected hundreds of stories. Every week more facts become available on the internet about our ancestors. These facts are like the skeletons of our predecessors. Family stories about these antecedents can add flesh to their bones and give life to their existence. In many families only one or two remember these stories. When they pass away the stories are lost. This presentation offers a method for collecting and recording family stories for future generations. It has music, animation and humor and is entertaining as well as informative.

“ENTANGLED” is an award winning, feature-length film about how climate change has accelerated a collision between one of the world’s most endangered species, North America’s most valuable fishery, and a federal agency mandated to protect both.  The film, by the makers of Lobster War and Sacred Cod, won a Jackson Award, Best Feature film at the International Wildlife Film Festival, Best Conservation Film and the John de Graff Environmental Filmmaking Award. In 2022, it was nominated for a national Emmy award. David Abel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covers environmental issues for the Boston Globe.  He is also a professor of the practice at Boston University. Abel, who began learning to make films as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University, plans to complete a new film in 2023, “In the Whale.” Jim Lichoulas from Mill 5 will offer us an introduction to documentary film making from a presenter’s point of view.

What is included in "New England's Top Ten Foods" lists, and who made the list? Join Meg Muckenhoupt, author of “The Truth about Baked Beans” for a talk about the history of New England's food, immigration, tourism, and how ideas about identity have shaped our menus from 1825 to today.  Meg Muckenhoupt writes about history and the environment. She is the author of “The Truth About Baked Beans” (NYU Press, 2020) and “Cabbage: A Global History” (Reaktion Books, 2018). She has appeared on NPR’s Radio Boston and WCVB’s Chronicle, and her work has been featured in the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the New York Times and USA Today.  She lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.  Meg Muckenhoupt begins with a simple question: When did Bostonians start making Boston Baked Beans?  Storekeepers in Faneuil Hall and Duck Tour guides may tell you that the Pilgrims learned a recipe for beans with maple syrup and bear fat from Native Americans, but in fact, the recipe for Boston Baked Beans is the result of a conscious effort in the late nineteenth century to create New England foods.

John Kozik’s obsession with collecting and researching Ouija began when he inherited his grandmother’s board in the late 1990’s. He was surprised to discover that Ouija was simply one specific brand of Talking Board, and that they date much further back than the Ouija of Parker Brothers fame. Through years of dedication John is now one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject. In 2013 he became a founding member of the Talking Board Historical Society, a group that researches and preserves the history of Talking Boards. Fast forward to 2019 - John opened the doors of The Salem Witch Board Museum to the public. It is the only museum dedicated to the history and lore of the Talking Board, boasting the largest collection of boards, obscure memorabilia, and ephemera under one roof. Whether you believe it’s the tool of the Devil or just an innocent kid’s game, a visit to the museum will allow you to learn more about this fascinating and iconic piece of Americana.

On the cusp of being a teenager, Charlie Gargiulo lived through the destruction of his Little Canada community of Lowell in the 1960”s.  His memoir tells that experience through his eyes as he lived it. A legendary community organizer, he later founded the Coalition for a Better Acre, a nationally recognized community development group to prevent other forced displacement efforts from happening to others and to ensure people would have decent housing and a fair chance to earn a living and make a happy life for themselves. Michael Patrick MacDonald, famed author of: All Souls: A Family Story from Southie” said of the memoir, “Charlie Gargiulo has unearthed for us a time capsule of treasures…buried deep by the heartless blows of Urban Renewal’s wrecking ball…”

Andrew Krivak is the author of four novels: The Bear (2020), a fable about the last two people on Earth, and the novels of the Dardan Trilogy: The Sojourn (2011) a National Book Award Finalist and winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction; The Signal Flame (2017); and his newest, Like the Appearance of Horses (2023). Krivak will read from Like the Appearance of Horses and discuss how and why he wanted to weave one family’s experience of war into three separate novels. In honor of being in Lowell, Massachusetts for the Moses Parker Greeley Lecture series, he will also discuss where his life-long love of Jack Kerouac’s work has taken him as a novelist.

Steampunk is more than an aesthetic; it’s a framework for creating, thinking, and living that draws from the past to envision an alternative future. In this presentation, join artist and Modvic cofounder Bruce Rosenbaum for a deep exploration of understanding and making Steampunk art.

After tracing the roots of the Steampunk genre back to its origins, Rosenbaum looks at its underlying principles and concepts that extend beyond the realm of art—from adaptive reuse and resilience to collaborative and creative problem solving. This lecture offers not only a better understanding of the unique blend of history, art, and technology that lay the foundations for Steampunk design, but also a framework for collaborating and solving problems more creatively.

Rosenbaum’s sculpture of time-traveler Issac Singer Humachine will be on display in the NEQM galleries.