Previous Special Events

Anthony Swofford's new memoir, Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails, chronicles how in the years after the success of his book Jarhead, he went on a binge of self-destructive excess. He lost almost everything and everyone that mattered to him.

The result of uncontrolled plowing on the Great Plains, the Dust Bowl of the 1930s turned prairies into deserts and unleashed a pattern of massive and deadly dust storms. Children contracted “dust pneumonia,” businesses collapsed, and thousands lost their land and were forced on the road.

A screening of excerpts from Ken Burns' The Dust Bowl will be followed by a panel discussion headlined by the documentary’s writer and co-producer Dayton Duncan.

Co-sponsored by KCPT and the University of Kansas Libraries.

Children and parents are invited to be part of monthly interactive story times presented by the Coterie Theatre. Coterie Theatre artists read from favorite children's books while audience members enjoy an opportunity to "jump into the story" and then participate in an improvised story of their own making.

For prize-winning geographer James Shortridge, Kansas City is more than the sum of cultural icons like barbecue, jazz, and sports teams. In his new book he explores more than a century of change and how Kansas City came to look and function the way it does.

He explores suburbanization, changing modes of transportation and personalities such as Tom Pendergast, J.C. Nichols, and Kay Waldo Barnes, whose policies shaped the metropolitan area.

Shortridge is professor of geography at the University of Kansas.

Friday Night Family Fun welcomes two regional storytellers for an evening of animated stories and folk music.

Rosie Cutrer has been telling stories professionally for the past 17 years at various venues. Cutrer gears her storytelling to both adults and children and often accompanies herself on the banjo.

Marilyn Kinsella spent 16 years as the storyteller for the Edwardsville Public Library in Edwardsville, Illinois. She currently travels around the St. Louis and southern Illinois region as a freelance storyteller.

Historian Terry Beckenbaugh maintains that the Civil War was inevitable given the failure of the nation’s political leadership to resolve fundamental questions over the nature of the American republic and the meaning of constitutional liberty.

Beckenbaugh examines the leaders of the North and the South, the issues and ideologies that drove debate, and the effect politics had on the war.

Beckenbaugh is an assistant professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

This modern-dress version starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert DeNiro, and Chris Cooper is the centerpiece of a Read It / Watch It discussion group.

Leading the discussion is the Library’s Kaite Stover, a “book doctor” on KCUR-FM’s Up to Date show. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to read the source novel before attending the film screening.

This event is co-sponsored by Kansas City Repertory Theatre, the Unicorn Theatre, and the Kansas City Actors Theatre.

Benjamin Franklin was an inventor, author, politician, postmaster, and civic activist.

But noted economist and Franklin biographer Mark Skousen reminds us that Franklin was also a businessman and an entrepreneur whose autobiography is often considered to be the first “rags to riches” account in American history.

Everyone can – and probably should – write their life story to pass on to their family and friends. In this two-hour workshop led by writer Charley Kempthorne, participants will learn to write and share their histories.

The workshop – which Kempthorne strives to make fun as well as educational – features sections on story structure, writing, and publishing your memoir.

Kempthorne holds an MFA in narrative writing from the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has given hundreds of writing workshops.

Twenty Films Essential to Cinema Literacy

Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this new series. Former Kansas City Star film critic Robert W. Butler (now a member of the Library’s Public Affairs staff) provides opening and closing remarks.