All events are free to attend unless otherwise stated! Please give us a call if you have any questions or concerns, or if you would like to order one of the featured books for pick-up. For regular updates on Bards Alley events and book clubs, subscribe to our weekly newsletter at the bottom of this page!
Will Hackman: Radically Reframing Climate Change
Tuesday, August 25, 6:30pm - 7:30pm
@ Mary Riley Styles Public Library, 120 N. Virginia Ave., Falls Church, VA
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Join Will Hackman at Mary Riley Styles Public Library as he discusses his book Radically Reframing Climate Change: A Guide to Savings Ourselves, which reframes the climate crisis as a humanity crisis, and provides a path forward for engagement and voter mobilization. Hackman will be in conversation with Kurt Lawrence, Environmental Planner in the City of Falls Church and Staff Liaison for the Environmental Sustainability Council.
Hackman identifies three main obstacles to solving climate change: polarization, paralysis, and ineffective messaging, suggesting that climate rallying cries to "Save the Planet" no longer work in a hyper-partisan world. While arguing that we must change how we think and talk about climate change, he empowers readers to turn their anxiety or apathy into passion, and anger into action at the personal, community, and government levels. Bards Alley will be on-site selling copies of the book, and a book signing will follow the talk. Please register with the library to secure your seat! About RADICALLY REFRAMING CLIMATE CHANGE: Will Hackman is a Millennial, and he is pissed. Two wars, two global economic catastrophes, and a pandemic combined with a ballooning cost-of-living crisis and crushing student loan debt can do that to a person. But there’s one thing that compounds these challenges that is unequaled in human history: the ticking time bomb of fossil fuel emissions. Millennials and Gen-Zers will be left to deal with the worst of the climate change fallout well after those responsible have passed away. And we have never been more divided. In Radically Reframing Climate Change, Hackman identifies three main obstacles to solving climate change. He empowers readers to turn their anxiety or apathy into passion, and anger into action at the personal, community, and government levels. The climate rallying cries to “Save the Planet” no longer work in our hyper-partisan world, nor do images of polar bears on melting glaciers. The problem isn’t scientific, fact-based, or even technological. It’s political, emotional, and ideological. Hackman provides a path forward for engagement and voter mobilization that combats apathy, dread, and resentment, and builds greater issue identification. About the author: Will Hackman has more than fifteen years’ experience working in US political campaigns, public policy process, strategic communications, coalition building, climate activism, and global environmental conservation advocacy. Will is a frequent climate policy expert voice online and in the media and has been interviewed on several climate change-related podcasts and filmed a TEDx in 2022. His writing has appeared in The Hill and Washington Post. He lives in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Front Royal, Virginia with his wife Paula, tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains and the north entrance to Shenandoah National Park. |
Nicholas Reynolds & Katie S. Sanders:
Ortiz's War
Thursday, September 3, 6:00pm - 7:00pm
@ Bards Alley
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Bards Alley is hosting historian Nicholas Reynolds and journalist Katie S. Sanders to discuss their brand new release Ortiz's War: The Allies' Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France. This nonfiction release tells the story of Peter J. Ortiz and his life of courage, resistance, and self-sacrifice during WWII.
The event will be moderated by bookseller and institutional partnerships lead Diane Naughton. Books will be available for purchase during the event and a book signing will follow their discussion. ABOUT ORTIZ'S WAR: Peter J. Ortiz’s path to becoming the most battle-decorated member of America’s first spy agency—and one of the most decorated Marines of World War II—was unlike any other. Docking in the US the day after Pearl Harbor, Ortiz enlisted in the Marine Corps. Instead of being deployed to the Pacific like the majority of Marines, Ortiz was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—America’s World War II forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency—for special operations in North Africa and Europe. In 1944, Ortiz parachuted into France on two top-secret inter-Allied missions. Operating deep behind enemy lines, he traveled throughout Southeastern France, arming and training the Maquis, blowing up Nazi infrastructure, and aiding downed Allied airmen. Rotating his many covers, he infiltrated Nazi gatherings and funneled intelligence about German positions back to OSS London ahead of D-Day. By the time he escaped across the Pyrenees, he was among the Gestapo’s most wanted. Two months after the Normandy landings, Ortiz jumped back into the French Alps, this time with a team of Americans. When his six-man patrol was surrounded by more than one hundred Germans at the village of Centron, Ortiz faced a choice: fight the enemy or save the village from Nazi annihilation. |
Bill SchweigART: DIRTY 20
Saturday, September 19, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
@ Bards Alley
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Author Bill Schweigart will be in conversation with author and bookseller Alice Scott to discuss his new release Dirty 20, a darkly humorous litRPG crime novel described as The Sopranos meets Dungeons & Dragons where the son of a crime boss accidentally becomes a crowdfunding superstar and disrupts business on the streets with his RPG.
Copies the book will be available for purchase at the event and a book signing will follow the discussion. ABOUT DIRTY 20: Tommy Fugue never cared for the family business. But when his father—aka Big Al, aka King of the Denver Streets—assigns him the “summer job” of laundering money online, Tommy figures he can list some fake projects on FunFunder, pledge them with zombie accounts, and clean a dirty $20,000 in time for college in the fall. Unfortunately for Tommy, he’s more creative than he thought. Just as he’s about to give his father’s capos a progress report, he sees that a roleplaying game he mocked up using his mom’s old artwork has been funded to the tune of $650,000… and counting. The only thing scarier than an angry Big Al is a Big Al that smells cash and family bonding time. Voluntold by their mercurial boss to assist, various criminals and killers help playtest and produce Tommy’s 1,000 Blades of Tergivers RPG in the hopes they can truly turn a dirty twenty into legit millions. At first Tommy sees game sessions with brothel owners, hit women, and a street captain with OCD as yet another example of why he needs to get out from under his father. But when Tommy realizes that being game master might help him uncover what these criminals know about his mother’s disappearance, it’s Game On. Playing a game while making a game is tricky—especially when elements of the fantasy world keep blending into the players’ real lives. And when the streets declare the Family Fugue slipping, Big Al starts playing a new game, with rules only he knows. About the author: Bill Schweigart is the author of The Guilty One and “Women and Children First,” a story co-written with James Patterson in Three Days to Live. He is also the author of The Fatal Folklore Trilogy. He is a former Coast Guard officer who drew from his experiences at sea to write the nautical thriller, Slipping the Cable and the romantic comedy, Running Light. Bill currently lives in Arlington, VA with his family, who along with their monstrous Newfoundland and too many cats, provide him with all the adventure he can handle. |
Chuck Cascio & Jim Upperman:
Awakenings and Three Photos Wiser
Saturday, September 26, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
@ Bards Alley
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Local authors and James Madison HS alums Chuck Cascio and Jim Upperman will be speaking at Bards Alley on Saturday, September 26th at 7PM about their books, Awakenings (Cascio) and Three Photos Wiser (Upperman). A book signing will follow their talk, reading, and audience Q&A and books will be available for purchase at the event.
ABOUT THE BOOKS: Awakenings: Short Stories of Moments That Shape Us is a collection of ten stories filled with different characters who create awakenings--sometimes without knowing it--for one another, themselves, and for others. We all have those moments. It could be a word, a phrase, a look, an event, or just a thought that passes and then returns and then grows and then...we awaken! Many times, we do not realize the moments that made that impact until time has passed. And sometimes we do not see the moments in ourselves at all, yet we do see them in others. Perhaps we do not have to see inside ourselves in order to be awakened. Can fiction create awakenings? Only you, the reader, can decide. They learned that she had been orphaned at an early age in a place far away. But they needed to know more. Three Photos Wiser is a novel based on a real-life quest of a man and his family to uncover a truth. Discoveries brought elation and heartache in this saga that impacted lives on four continents. A story of love and resilience, family bonds are tested and assumptions challenged in this moving account of a search for meaning. |