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Public Programs

Date
Venue/Location
Program Title 
Program Description
Wednesday November 12th, 5:00pm-6:30pm
Forest Hills Library Auditorium
108-19 71st Ave, Forest Hills, NY 11375
College Essay Jumpstart! Finding Your Story
An effective college essay doesn’t list accomplishments but tells a personal story. Students will mine their memories for specific sensory details to add depth to their stories and create strong openings that hook readers. Inspired by the Queens Memory Podcast, students will also hear these openings read aloud by one another, experiencing how personal narratives come to life through the spoken word. This workshop is great for students looking to enhance their college essays or for those struggling to get started! Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons is a Queens writer and storytelling series producer helping high school students craft college essays that open a window into their unique character for admissions officers. She has led writing workshops through The Center for Fiction, House of SpeakEasy, and at various NYC high schools. Kelly Jean is also the editor of the No, YOU Tell It! Ten-Year Anthology and the Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers anthology.
 
Thursday, November 13th, 11:00am-2:00pm
Off-site:
Sac's Place
35-11 35th Avenue
Queens, NY 11106
Queens World First Amendment Film and Arts Festival: Queens Memory Listening Tour
*This is an off-site program hosted at Sac's Place 35-11 35th Avenue Queens, NY 11106.

The First Amendment protects our right to assemble. The Listening Tour asks what happens when we do.

Queens Memory is hosting a Queens World Table Lab™ to provide space to speak and, just as important, to listen

A Queens World Table Lab™ is a signature Queens World format that is part conversation, part creative experiment, and part community gathering. Around each table, attendees meet Table Catalysts™, including artists, community organizers, thought shapers and others who help get the conversation started. Together, we’ll explore questions about hope and resilience, imagine what public art could look like if money were no object, consider how stories and memories can survive for generations, and think about what we want people in the future to know about who we were and what mattered to us.

RSVP here: tinyurl.com/QueensMemory
Friday, November 14th, 1:00pm-4:00pm
Forest Hills Library Auditorium
108-19 71st Ave, Forest Hills, NY 11375
College Essay Jumpstart! Finding Your Story
An effective college essay doesn’t list accomplishments but tells a personal story. Students will mine their memories for specific sensory details to add depth to their stories and create strong openings that hook readers. Inspired by the Queens Memory Podcast, students will also hear these openings read aloud by one another, experiencing how personal narratives come to life through the spoken word. This workshop is great for students looking to enhance their college essays or for those struggling to get started! Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons is a Queens writer and storytelling series producer helping high school students craft college essays that open a window into their unique character for admissions officers. She has led writing workshops through The Center for Fiction, House of SpeakEasy, and at various NYC high schools. Kelly Jean is also the editor of the No, YOU Tell It! Ten-Year Anthology and the Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers anthology.
 
Thursday, November 19th, 5:00pm-8:00pm
Culture Lab LIC, 5-25 46th Ave, Long Island City, 11101
Celebrate Queens Memory’s Sweet 16: a Community Show & Tell
Celebrate 16 years of Queens stories with the Queens Memory Project!
 
Join us for a Sweet 16 birthday celebration bringing together colleagues, friends, neighbors, storytellers, and community partners who have helped make Queens Memory what it is today. Explore the gallery at Culture Lab LIC, enjoy snacks and drinks, and take part in a community show & tell. 
 
Guests are invited to step up to the mic and share a favorite Queens memory, encounter, photo, or object.

5pm — Gallery opens to the public
 
6 to 6:30 — Remembering 16 years of Queens Memory
 
6:30 to 8pm — Community story-share & show and tell throughout the evening

Register at https://events.humanitix.com/celebrate-queens-memory-sweet-16
Saturday, November, 21st, 11:00am-2:00pm
Central Library
89-11 Merrick Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11432
Queens Memory Presents: J. Expressions Book Lab with Sherese Francis
In collaboration with Queens Public Library's Indie Author Day, local writer and artist Sherese Francis will facilitate a drop-in book lab where attendees can sit, read books from the J. Expressions Collection, featuring publications by writers across southeast Queens, and make and design their own journals where they can write lines from the books.

Participants will also have a chance to meet with Queens Memory, Queens Public Library's community-led archiving program and oral history collection. The team will have materials to share and a listening station highlighting stories about southeast Queens from the library’s oral history collection and episodes from the Queens Memory Podcast.

This program is funded by the New York State Black Legislative Task Force.