Important Library & Community Resources
Although our buildings are closed, our friendly staff are available
by phone at the Easton and St. Michaels branches
Easton: 410-822-1626 | St. Michaels: 410-745-5877
Monday and Thursday: 10 a.m. – noon & 3 – 7 p.m.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday: 9 a.m. - noon & 2 – 5 p.m.
Talbot County Free Library | www.tcfl.org
Get Your Library Materials Through Books-to-Go

Although our buildings are temporarily closed to the public, our friendly staff are still available to help you with our Books-to-Go service. Through Books-to-Go, patrons can reserve materials through the online catalog. Patrons will be notified via email or phone when their items are ready to be picked up. Once notified that holds are available for pickup, patrons should call or email the library to make arrangements to pick up their materials. Chromebooks or WiFi hotspots are not available for checkout at this time.

More specific details on how Books-to-Go works can be found on the library’s website. Staff are available to answer the phone at both branches during limited hours Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9-noon and 2-5 p.m. and on Monday and Thursday from 10-noon and 3-7 p.m. Wi-Fi is available around the clock outside both the Easton and St. Michaels branches.
St. Michaels Coffee with a Cop
January 8, 8 a.m.

Join St. Michaels Police Chief Smith and fellow officers for coffee and discussion of public safety and other citizen concerns. This meeting and future ones will be held virtually using Zoom. So, grab a cup of coffee and join here by computer, tablet, or smart phone:
Meeting ID: 326 426 1778
Join meeting by telephone: +1 301 715 8592 US
Cabin Fever Film Festival

The Chesapeake Film Festival and the Talbot County Free Library are co-sponsoring the Cabin Fever Film Festival with a Zoom discussion of The Magic of Belle Isle on January 13 at 7 p.m. If you’re stuck at home due to the pandemic and you have the winter blahs, take a break and enjoy a rare cinematic gem whenever is convenient, then join the Zoom discussion afterwards. This film is free and can be found on YouTube here.

The Magic of Belle Isle and other films can also be accessed for free on Hoopla
for anyone who has a library card from any of the Eastern Shore libraries.
Click here for a guide on how to use Hoopla.
This Beautiful Fantastic
Set against the backdrop of a beautiful London garden, this contemporary fairy tale centers on the unlikely friendship between a reclusive young woman who dreams of writing children’s books and a cranky widower. Facing eviction over her neglected garden, Bella (Jessica Brown Findlay) meets her grumpy, loveless, next-door neighbor (Tom Wilkinson), who happens to be an amazing horticulturalist. Click here to join the Zoom discussion Wednesday, January 13 at 7 p.m.
The Zoom discussion will be led by the Chesapeake Film Festival Director Cid Collins Walker and Executive Director Nancy Tabor. Come prepared to have a fun and insightful time! For more information about the Cabin Fever Film Festival, contact Executive Director Nancy Tabor, at executivedirector@chesapeakefilmfestival.com.
ADULT PROGRAMMING
Isabel Wilkerson: Caste
January 15, 7 p.m.
A Howard County Library System Program
Register here:

Isabel Wilkerson discusses her critically acclaimed book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. In this brilliant book, Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Caste is being adapted into a Netflix film directed, written, and produced by Ava DuVernay. A gifted storyteller, Wilkerson captivates audiences with the universal human story of migration and reinvention, as well as the unseen hierarchies that have divided us as a nation, in order to find a way to transcend them. Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize for her work as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times in 1994, making her the first Black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African-American to win for individual reporting in the history of American journalism.
Easton Book Group to Discuss All The Pretty Horses
January 18, 6:30 p.m.

Join the Easton Book Group (open to all!) for a discussion of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses via Zoom. To register, email Susan Sherman at susancs@goeaston.net.
Mastering the Elevator Pitch and Interview
January 20, 7 p.m.
A Howard County Library System Program

Learn communication strategies to effectively market yourself in an interview or while networking. We discuss how to present achievements during an interview, what to expect, and how to answer behavioral questions. Making the best impression helps you get the job you want! Presented by Rachel Bachman, M.Ed. - Rachel has over six years of career counseling and coaching experience in higher education. She currently serves as a Career Specialist in the Career Center at UMBC. 
Zines! Publishing on the Edge
January 20, 7 p.m.

Join us online for a history and how-to with Yago Cura, Bilingual Outreach Librarian for Los Angeles Public Library. Register here!
Sharing Our Memories
2nd & 4th Mondays, 10:30 a.m. – noon
Begins February 8, 2021 (ongoing)

If you have been thinking about writing your memoirs but don't know how or where to get started, this Zoom class is for you! During sessions, each participant will share their 500-word essay assigned during the prior session. Writing takes place at home, and stories will be read and discussed during class time. This ongoing course meets the second and fourth Monday of the month, 10:30 a.m. - noon, beginning February 8. To register, call the library at 410-822-1626 by January 31. Upon registration you will receive a Zoom invitation and the first writing assignment which will be read and discussed during the first session on February 8.
Library Guy Interviews Donald Hall Prize
for Poetry Winner Joy Priest

The Library Guy, Bill Peak, has just recorded an interview for The Talbot Spy with Joy Priest, a young poet with a complicated past. Priest won the prestigious Donald Hall Prize for Poetry in 2019 with her very first book of poems, Horsepower. This year she won the equally prestigious Stanley Kunitz Poetry Prize for her poem A Personal History of Breathing

Priest’s poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry Northwest, Poets & Writers, ESPN, The Louisville Anthology, Best New Poets 2014, 2016, & 2019, and A Measure of Belonging: Writers of Color on the New American South, among other publications. She has received support from the Fine Arts Work Center, The Frost Place, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Hurston/Wright Foundation. Priest is currently a doctoral student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston.

Peak’s interview with the poet can be watched at: https://talbotspy.org/the-library-guy-donald-hall-award-winning-poet-joy-priest/
Join the Winter Reading Challenge January 1-31
For all Ages!

From January 1 – 31, Talbot County Free Library will participate in Beanstack’s Fourth Annual Winter Read Challenge: Books Like Us, sponsored by Simon & Schuster. Books Like Us is a celebration of diversity, harnessing the transformative power of seeing oneself reflected in a book. Thousands of libraries and schools across the nation will encourage their communities to read and participate in the Winter Reading Challenge.

The challenge is to read at least three hours during the month of January and keep track of your reading on the Beanstack site at tcfl.beanstack.org, or through the free mobile app which can be downloaded to your device. Challenge participants will be able to read any books they like during the challenge and will be provided with recommendations from Simon & Schuster’s featured authors along the way. The Winter Reading Challenge is for all ages, so everyone in the family can participate. The grand prize winner will receive a $50 gift card of their choice from either Flying Cloud Booksellers or Amazon.

Top-performing libraries and schools will earn rewards from Simon & Schuster, including book collections and virtual author visits. For more details on the Winter Reading Challenge, or to order books through our Books-to-Go Service, visit tcfl.org, email askus@tcfl.org, or call 410-822-1626.
CHILDREN'S PROGRAMMING
Story time
Tuesday, January 12, 19, 26, 5 – 10 a.m.
Thursday, January 14, 21, 28 – 10 a.m.
Stories, songs and rhymes for families with young children.

Teen Journaling via Zoom
Wednesday, January 20, 1 p.m.
Want to try journaling, but not sure how to start? Join Ms. Laura for talking and writing fun! Inspired by the book, Journal Sparks by Emily Neuburger. 
Register here.
ABCs of Black History Story Time with Rio Cortez
January 21, 7 p.m.
Carroll County Public Library Event
Join us for a special story time with author Rio Cortez. Letter by letter, The ABCs of Black History celebrates a story that spans continents and centuries, triumph and heartbreak, creativity and joy. Watch live on Facebook or YouTube: https://www.facebook.com/carrollcountypubliclibrary/
Dial-a-Story Available

Are you missing storytime? Call our Dial-A-Story number
(888-964-2686) to hear a children's book read by a librarian!
The stories are updated every week on Wednesday and will be read by librarians from across Maryland's Eastern Shore. Visit our library's website to check out all of the other programs you can enjoy from home.
No In-Person Tax Appointments at Library Branches
Mid-Shore AARP Tax-Aide Suspends in-Person Tax Preparation

The Mid-Shore branch of the AARP Tax-Aide program, which provides free Federal and State tax-preparation services to taxpayers in Kent, Queen Anne, Talbot, and Caroline Counties, announced that it is suspending in-person tax services for the 2020 tax season, which begins on February 1, 2021.

“We are greatly saddened to take this step,” said District Coordinator Jeff Haertlein of Easton. “We know how much taxpayers on the Mid-Shore have come to rely on our services; but the current state of the Covid-19 pandemic simply will not allow us to open our tax preparation sites safely for our clients and our volunteers.”

“We wanted to make this announcement early enough that taxpayers can find other means of preparing their taxes,” Haertlein said. “AARP is still committed to providing tax-preparation assistance, but that aid will have to be online and virtual.”

Haertlein explained that there will be two forms of assistance available through the AARP website, www.aarp.org. Both methods, Contactless and Self Preparation, will be free to the taxpayer and will be available beginning in early February 2021. It is suggested you check www.aarp.org for updates on the other forms of assistance at that time.

Contactless: Taxpayers interact with Tax-Aid’s IRS-certified tax counselors online or by phone and exchange documents electronically.

Self-preparation: Tax-Aide provides taxpayers with free access to software so they can prepare their own taxes. Taxpayers can also request help from an IRS- certified counselor to coach them through the process by phone or through computer screen-sharing.

As to the future, Haertlein said that “if conditions permit a return to in-person tax preparation this year, AARP Tax-Aide will announce how and where assistance will be available and we certainly hope to be back in full swing a year from now for the 2021 tax season.”
Start the New Year with a new job! Read more.