Wellesley is fortunate enough to draw multiple authors and speakers to town each month who are knowledgable across a wide range of subjects, and who visit to connect with audiences and promote their work. Attending such an event is a great way to meet the current stars of the literary and lecture scene. Here are just a few events happening soon.
Wellesley Free Library Poetry Book Club
DATE/TIME: Friday, June 26, 3pm-4pm
LOCATION: Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington St.
Registration required
WFL’s Poetry Book Club is a welcoming space for anyone who enjoys reading, reflecting on, and discussing poetry. Each month, the club explores a selected collection or poet whose work invites conversation, connection, and deeper understanding. This month’s book is Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips. Copies of the book will be available at the Information Desk on the second floor.
Kerri Maher and her forthcoming novel, Summer of Love
DATE/TIME: Wednesday, July 8, 7pm
LOCATION: Wellesley Books, 82 Central St, Wellesley, MA
TICKETED EVENT: Register here.
SUMMER READ ALERT: Weston resident Kerri Maher has taught writing at Emerson College, and now works in behavioral health in Needham. She also hosts a regular “Writers Bowling Night” in Somerville. Summer of Love is her most personal book to date. It’s a powerful story of mothers and daughters, secrets and truth, sobriety, struggle, and resilience, set against the vibrant backdrop of the 1960s counterculture revolution.
Long-time Yankee Magazine editor Mel Allen
DATE/TIME: Tuesday, July 7, 7pm-8:30pm
LOCATION: Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington St.
REGISTRATION required
DESCRIPTION: Long-time Yankee editor Mel Allen will discuss his new book, Here in New England: Unforgettable Stories of People, Places, and Memories That Connect Us All“.
From the time Allen published his first story in Yankee in 1979 to the day he retired in 2025 as the fifth editor in the magazine’s storied 90-year history, his work has captured New England’s unique sense of place and the people who call it home.
What Swellesley’s editors are reading
Mrs. Swellesley is reading….
Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke, fiction
Tradwife and social media influencer wakes up in the 1850s, forced to endure the homesteading life she’d only curated online.
Those obsessed with—or who would like to see real-life Instagrammer “Ballerina Farm” (8 kids, Julliard School graduate, city folk turned ranchers)— get a similar “comeuppance” will enjoy this dark, satirical thriller. New York Times best seller.
Good summer read and/or book group choice.
Undammed, by Tara Lohan, non fiction
The subtitle tells you all you need to know about the Lohan’s slant: “Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Life”
Why we’re reading it: Because once the South Natick goes down this summer, what is to become of us all?
Spoiler alert: Lohan says all will be well.
Mr. Swellesley is reading…
