36th Annual State of the Art Gallery Juried Photography Show Call For Entries
2025-06-06 17:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | State of the Art Gallery, 120 W State St #2, Ithaca, 14850, United Kingdom
A reception for the show will be held on Gallery Night (First Friday, June 6) from 5–8. Prize winners will be announced that day on our web site (soagithaca.org), via social media (https://www.facebook.com/stateoftheartgallery/), and at the gallery.
Prize winning art will be prominently featured on our website along with information about the winning artists and links to their websites and social media pages if they so desire.

CAP Artspace Exhibit- Queer Visions, Queer Voices
2025-06-06 17:00 - 20:00 | CAP ArtSpace, 110 N Tioga st, Ithaca, NY, 14850, United States
A group exhibit organized by the Ithaca Pride Alliance. “Queer Visions, Queer Voices” will feature art from eleven members of our community exploring a vibrant and diverse spectrum of queer experiences and identities. Through paintings, sculptures, photography, installations, and performance art, queer artists will be invited to express their unique perspectives and lived experiences and celebrate the beauty and complexity of queer identities. Artists include Yen Ospina, Juliet Graves, Julian Plum, Snowy Lajoie, Kristin Dutcher, Al Tejera, Blair Eckensen, Mack Rovenolt, Grey Hinkle, Mickie Quinn, and Brandon Becker Hoak. Join us for this powerful and moving exhibition, and experience the power of queer art to transform and inspire. CAP would like to thank our annual ArtSpace sponsor, Coughlin & Gerhart, Attorneys

Wearable Expressions Gala: A Showcase of IHS Student Fashion Design
2025-06-06 17:00 - 20:00 | Community School of Music and Arts, 330 East State Street, Ithaca
This wearable art exhibition is a celebration of creativity, craftsmanship, and personal expression through the lens of fashion. The pieces on display have been entirely conceptualized and constructed by students from Ithaca High School, grades 9 through 12. These works represent weeks of dedication, exploration, and skill-building, reflecting both individual voices and shared classroom experiences.
Students in the program arrive with varying levels of experience. Some bring prior knowledge of sewing or design, while others are new to the world of fashion. Together, they explore not only the fundamentals of design and construction but also the broader social and cultural impact of clothing. Class discussions address the environmental and ethical implications of fast fashion, the influence of technology on the industry, and how garments can reflect or challenge ideas around gender, body image, cultural appropriation, and economic status. Students are also encouraged to explore what it means to be truly original in their designs.
We hope you’ll join us for our opening reception at CSMA on June 6th at 5pm!

Ithaca Gallery Night - First Friday of Every Month
2025-06-06 17:00 - 20:00
ITHACA GALLERY NIGHT
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2026
5:00–8:00 PM
DOWNTOWN ITHACA
Ithaca Gallery Night is a walkable evening of art openings and cultural experiences throughout Downtown Ithaca. On the first Friday, galleries, studios, and creative spaces open their doors for the public to explore exhibitions, meet artists, and experience the city’s arts community in one cohesive night.
This event is part of First Friday Ithaca Gallery Night openings.
Please visit www.ithacagallerynight.com
to see all participating locations and current event details.
Follow along and share your experience using:
#ithacagallerynight1 #downtownithaca #visitithaca
Facebook Event Link

Pride! Storytime: Part of the Gay Agenda at TCPL
2025-06-07 11:00 - 11:30 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
Children of all ages and their caregivers are invited to celebrate reading and build their early literacy skills at Family Storytime. We meet each Saturday for stories, songs and hands-on fun.
Family Storytime on June 7th will be PRIDE Family Storytime! Come enjoy stories that celebrate the LGBTQ+ members of our community, a craft, music, and cookies from Via’s Cookies!

The Gay Agenda at TCPL Resource Fair
2025-06-07 12:00 - 16:30 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
Welcome to the first Gay Agenda event!
Join us and the following organizations in the Avenue of Friends at the Tompkins County Public Library for resources, information and opportunities from local queer-friendly businesses!
Organizations that will be there are:
Cornell Health
Southern Tier AIDS Program
TCPL LGBTQ+ Youth Group
Hair Color Art
Rainbow Support Alliance
Ithaca Pride Alliance
PFLAG Ithaca-Cortland
Resources from these organizations will be available:
Via’s Cookies
LawNY

Gender Affirming Closet: The Gay Agenda at TCPL
2025-06-07 12:30 - 16:00 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
The Gender Affirming Clothing Closet is a free pop-up event for queer and gender diverse bodies of all ages to empower authentic self expression and exploration. Folx can take as much or as little as they want.
Items will include (dependent on donations): NEW OR GENTLY USED clothing such as dresses, pants, skirts, blouses, button-ups, shorts, jackets, shoes, trans-affirming shape wear, binders as well as perfume/cologne and hygiene products.
The closet honors the importance of all bodies being supported, celebrated and affirmed while feeling a sense of belonging within the safety of community.
*This is not a clothing swap, you are welcome to bring items to donate to our future pop-up events the day of if desired!

SHOPPING LISTS FOR THE APOCALYPSE – HARVEY WALDMAN
2025-06-08 14:00 - 16:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Ithaca’s own Burns Family, Jeannie and Annie of the Burns Sisters, and Patrick, Co-Producer of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, will present and moderate a Q and A with Harvey Waldman, reading from his new book of poems, Shopping Lists for the Apocalypse; filled with lyric memories, travel notes, laughter and tears on a journey over the last 70 years, one from his childhood in the Bronx, through a life in Greenwich Village, the Catskills, California, London and Italy. Experiences of nature, family, friends, work, births, deaths, and elections in our times, recalled with pathos and humor. Employing metaphors from history, pop culture, physics, gardening and the Tarot, Waldman makes the case for hope and survival.
Harvey Waldman was born in the Bronx after the Second World War. He fled to Northern California as a teenager in the “Summer of Love”. Street theatre anti-war activist, dishwasher, farm worker, oil refinery boilermaker, taxi driver, barista, librarian, Santa Claus. Lead actor in 1976 feature film Off the Wall. A father in need of a more sustaining career, he spent over forty years in film and TV production, culminating as Producer of the mini series Mildred Pierce for HBO, Blindspot for NBC, and Manifest for Netflix. All while poetry lurked, awaiting its turn — passionate, unkempt cousin long ignored. He and his wife, film editor Camilla Toniolo have homes in New York and Northern Italy.

Riverwood Art Club
2025-06-09 16:00 - 18:00 | Riverwood, 116 E State St, ITHACA, N, 14850, United States
Bring a project with you or start one new with our supplies! Show off your most recent creations and make friends. All ages welcome. We will have various art supplies for all types of creatives. Bring your tablet, yarn, collage materials, clay, paints, or anything else. We’ll have some art supplies so no need to bring anything if you don’t have an ongoing project.

Supporting Your Siblings with Karina Hagelin: Part of The Gay Agenda at TCPL
2025-06-09 18:00 - 19:30 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
In this interactive workshop, participants will learn about community care to better support their LGBTQQIA+ siblings. You’ll learn about:
– What community care is
– Why community care is important
– What community care looks like in practice
– Incorporating sustainability into care to avoid burnout + boundary work
– How to practice several community care skills, including: community care plans, support menus, & check-ins
– How to ask for care & how to offer care
– Feelings that might come up throughout this process
About the Presenter
Karina Hagelin is a disabled nonbinary queer femme artist, educator, keynote speaker, librarian, & survivor. Their interests include radical vulnerability, friendship, gossip as a site of resistance, disability, community care, self-love, trauma healing + recovery, zines, & creativity.
Karina’s expansive body of work includes making zines about healing, self + community care, & disability; a podcast about C-PTSD & trauma recovery; workshops on trauma-informed librarianship, radical vulnerability, & community care; the Survivor Affirmation Deck; & a weekly-ish newsletter.

Queer Craft Club
2025-06-09 18:30 - 20:00 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
Join other LGBTQIAP+ adults to do arts and crafts, hang out, and have fun. We will provide a simple craft each month for participants to get creative with but feel free to bring whatever project you’re working on!
It’s Pride Week! This month we’re going to zhuzh up your Pride finery – bring something that deserves a little extra sparkle and we’ll provide materials and support to add embroidery, iron-on decals, patches, rhinestones, paint, and more.

Queer Cocktails For A Cause
2025-06-10 16:00 - 22:00 | Bar Argos, 408 E State St, Ithaca, 14850
Kick back and enjoy a cocktail on Tuesday, June 10th from 4-10pm. We will direct 100% of your hard work, and our bar proceeds, to the Transgender Law Center, Ithaca Pride Alliance and ACLU.

Ithaca Artists Market 2025
2025-06-11 12:00 - 19:30 | Ithaca Farmers Market, Steamboat Landing 545 3rd St, Ithaca, NY, 14850
Plan a visit to Tompkins County, NY, for the Community Arts Partnership’s 33rd annual Ithaca Artist Market!
This juried show and sale features over 80 local and regional artists showcasing fine and functional art (and some writers!) along with local arts groups, food, wine/beer/cider, music, a boat tour, and more, all on the beautiful Cayuga Lake inlet.
The Community Arts Partnership is Tompkins County’s arts council, and we have been serving local artists and audiences for over 32 years through our programs, grants, and services. One of our favorite events is the Ithaca Artist Market. Robin Schwartz, Program & Grant Director, says. “I am always blown away by the quality and variety of work by the exceptionally talented artists in our region. Visitors always have a wonderful time seeing it all, and hopefully will find fabulous art to buy and take home!”
The diversity of the art offerings is what makes this event so special! Visitors have the opportunity to meet the artists and explore their paintings, drawings, fine art ceramics, altered books, photographs, mosaics, art quilts, blown glass, fine jewelry, collage, etchings, relief printing, children’s book illustrations, wood-turned items, paper cut art, art lamps, sculpture, and more!
The location of the event is the beautiful Ithaca Farmers Market’s covered pavilion on the Cayuga Lake inlet. Learn about the location and get directions at IthacaMarket.com. The East Hill Jazz Group will set a lively mood throughout the event, along with 10-minute performances by local musicians. Over a dozen vendors will offer a wide variety of food and desserts, plus local wine, craft beer, and cider.
Discover Cayuga Lake will run a sunset boat cruise from the dock at 4:30pm. (Tickets are required for the boat and link to register will be on our website as we get closer to the event.) Admission is free, but please fill out our registration form. If you do, you will be entered into a GREAT RAFFLE with a chance to win over 15 prizes of art or discounts from participating writers! Find a list of participants, more details and a registration link at ArtsPartner.org.
We thank our Artist Market business sponsor, Thaler & Thaler P.C. and our media sponsors, The Route WITH radio and WSKG.

Queer Cinema 101 with Teagan Bradway: Part of The Gay Agenda at TCPL
2025-06-12 18:00 - 19:30 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
When was the “first” LGBTQ+ film?
How has censorship shaped the history of queer representation?
Why do LGBTQ+ audiences adore camp, horror, and other so-called “low brow” genres?
This interactive lecture will answer these and many more questions, giving attendees an accessible introduction to some of the major themes and figures of queer cinema. No prior knowledge is needed!
About Teagan Bradway
Teagan Bradway (she/they) is an Associate Professor of English at SUNY Cortland and a Society for the Humanities Fellow at Cornell University for 2025-26. In 2024, Bradway was a Hunt-Simes Visiting Junior Chair of Sexuality Studies with the Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney.
Bradway is the author of Queer Experimental Literature: The Affective Politics of Bad Reading (Palgrave, 2017; paperback 2019). Bradway is co-editor (with Elizabeth Freeman) of Queer Kinship: Race, Sex, Belonging, Form (Duke, 2022) and (with E.L. McCallum) of After Queer Studies: Literature, Theory, and Sexuality in the 21st Century (Cambridge, 2019), which won a CHOICE award.
Bradway’s articles and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in PMLA, GLQ, MLQ, Textual Practice, College Literature, ASAP/J, Stanford Arcade, Studies in the Fantastic, Mosaic, Biography, and The Nation as well as various collections on contemporary literature and queer theory.

A SONG FOR OLAF: A MEMOIR OF SIBLING LOVE AT THE DAWN OF THE HIV-AIDS PANDEMIC
2025-06-13 16:00 - 18:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Join Jennifer Boulanger, in conversation with Elisabeth Nonas, for a book-talk that highlights the historical and cultural touchstones that weave through this personal narrative.
About the Book: It’s the summer of 1969. And ink on the headlines about the Stonewall Uprising is barely dry when the entire country is mesmerized by a musical revolution rocking Woodstock. Smack dab in the middle of it all is teenage Olaf, about to leave home for his first year at college in upstate New York.
Gay, gorgeous and musically gifted, Olaf is the only son of a close-knit Italian-American family. Ready or not, he will soon find himself surfing major waves of change empowered by the Gay Rights Movement of the 70s. Unbeknownst to him and his younger sister, whom he lovingly called Holine, he’s about to confront the deadly perils of entrenched homophobia and an emerging HIV-AIDS epidemic.
In this expansive memoir steeped in historicity, author Jennifer Boulanger gifts readers with a moving story about truth and lies, societal upheaval and families in crises, as seen through the lens of a loving sister and insightful chronicler.
About the Author: Jennifer Boulanger is an activist, educator, and freelance journalist, Professor and Dean Emeritus from a NYS community college. An originator of the Safe Space initiative for local LGBTQ community college students, she holds a Master of Science degree in literacy from SUNY Cortland and a doctorate in Adult Education from Teachers College at Columbia University. She is an advocate for local refugee resettlement and serves as Vice President of Whitney’s Legacy, a foundation dedicated to supporting and empowering women.

Community Reading of the U.S. Constitution
2025-06-14 09:30 - 11:00 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
Join the Tompkins County Historical Commission, Interim Tompkins County Historian Carol Kammen, the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, and Tompkins County Public Library for a community reading of the U.S. Constitution.
This non-partisan event is a chance to reflect on the rule of law at a time of great crisis. Those in attendance will have the opportunity to sign up to read a portion of the Constitution and its Amendments. Volunteers on site will be available to take pictures of readers upon request. Please share pictures on social media using #ConstitutionAtTCPL.
Free pocket Constitutions will also be available for those in attendance.
Because of limited space, and because this is a non-partisan event, we request that any signs be left off-site.

Activate: LGBTQ+ Youth Summit at Ithaca Pride
2025-06-14 14:00 - 16:00 | Greater Ithaca Activities Center
Are you ready for a one-of-a-kind LGBTQ+ summit right here in Ithaca?
Come to Activate, a summit focused on empowering young LGBTQ+ people with the skills and support they need to become successful advocates.
It will feature a panel discussion of regional LGBTQ+ leaders and youth, an advocacy workshop where attendees can learn advocacy skills from tabling organizations, and exciting special guest speakers including NY State Senator Lea Webb and NY State Assemblymember Anna Kelles!
This is an event for the whole community of all ages and identities–students, teachers, business people, politicians, families, nonprofit leaders, and more.
This is our chance to come together for LGBTQ+ youth in Ithaca, Tompkins County, and all of New York State and learn valuable skills that will help us become better advocates in our communities and beyond!
Student and youth participation is highly encouraged, so please share this with teachers, professors, students, and community centers!
The event is organized by Queer Youth Assemble and partnering with Human Rights Campaign Western-Central New York, FairNY Pride, and PFLAG Ithaca-Cortland.
Activate will take place on Saturday, June 14, 2025 from 2 PM-4 PM at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center Gymnasium, 301 W Court Street, Ithaca.
Activate is an LGBTQ+ rights summit focused on empowering youth with the tools to become LGBTQ+ advocates. It will feature special guest speakers, a discussion panel, and an advocacy workshop.

Workshop: Finding the Right Voice: Writing for Young Readers
2025-06-18 18:00 - 19:00 | CAP ArtSpace, 110 N Tioga st, Ithaca, NY, 14850, United States
How do you create a narrator that truly speaks to young readers? In this interactive workshop with Emily Sun Li and Tommy McAree, we’ll explore how to craft authentic voices across picture books, middle grade, and young adult fiction. We’ll begin with a guided discussion on narrative voice, analyzing syntax, diction, and tone through standout examples from children’s literature. Drawing from The Magic Words by Cheryl Klein and Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul, we’ll examine techniques that shape a narrator’s voice and deepen reader connection. In small groups, participants will analyze real texts to identify language choices that define audience. Next, we’ll introduce a “character mining” strategy to help develop distinctive voices. Participants will then draft a short piece using guided prompts or a fun challenge involving randomly assigned narrator traits. We’ll wrap up with a group share and feedback session. By the end, participants will leave with fresh writing, analytical tools, and a clear methodology for crafting authentic, engaging narrative voices.

Laugh Loud, Laugh Proud Pride Comedy Night
2025-06-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Press Bay Alley & Court, 110-118 W. Green St., Ithaca, NY, 14850, United States
Join us for Laugh Loud, Laugh, Proud Comedy Night at Poured Candle Bar!
This LGBTQ+ comedy show will take place on Wednesday, June 18th from 7 to 9 PM. Featuring the hilarious Cindy Arena, Caleb, Goldberg, and Katarina Scarlet Valentine!
*10% of the ticket proceeds are donated to the Ithaca Pride Alliance organization.
*Doors open at 6:30 PM. Cash wine bar WITH N/A options and food available!
(Cards exclusively accepted)
112 W Green Street #6
Ithaca, NY 14850

Million Dollar Quartet
2025-06-19 - 2025-06-28 | Hangar Theatre, 801 Taughannock Blvd., Ithaca, 14850
On December 4, 1956 an extraordinary twist of fate brought rock ‘n’ roll greats Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley together at Sun Record in Memphis, Tennessee for the most legendary jam session ever. Million Dollar Quartet brings that night to life in a toe-tapping, musical re-telling filled with broken promises, betrayals, celebrations, and an incredible score of rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, R&B and country hits including “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Fever,” “Walk the Line,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Hound Dog,” and more.
“Express(es) the riotous joy, beauty and sadness of life in songs that shoot straight for the soul.” –The New York Times
Performance Schedule:
Thursday, June 19 7:30 pm (preview)
Friday, June 20 7:30 pm (opening night)
Saturday, June 21 2:30 pm & 7:30 pm
Sunday, June 22 2:30 pm
Tuesday, June 24 7:30 pm
Wednesday, June 25 7:30 pm
Thursday, June 26 7:30 pm
Friday, June 27 7:30 pm
Saturday, June 28 2:30 pm & 7:30 pm

Estate Planning Informational Meeting - With Serenna L McCloud
2025-06-19 14:00 - 16:00 | Southside Community Center, 305 S. Plain Street, Ithaca
Join attorney Serenna L. McCloud for a free, informative session on the essentials of estate planning. This session is perfect for anyone looking to better understand how to protect their assets and ensure their wishes are honored.
📝 What you’ll learn:
– What estate planning is and why it matters
– Overview of key legal documents: will, revocable trust, irrevocable trust, power of attorney, health care proxy, and living will
– Common costs and considerations in planning your estate
🎁 Bonus:
All attendees will be entered into a drawing to win a free basic estate planning package from the Law Office of Serenna L. McCloud.
👩‍⚖️ About the presenter:
Serenna L. McCloud is a native Ithacan and licensed attorney with experience in trusts & estates, real estate, and business law. She is admitted to practice in New York State and the Northern District of New York.
✅ Free to attend – registration required:

Special Olympics New York 2025 State Summer Games
2025-06-20 08:00 - 2025-06-21 20:30 | Ithaca College, 150 Lyceum Drive, Ithaca, 14850
Special Olympics New York is reaching out to invite you to join the volunteer team at our State Summer Games, June 20th-21st in Ithaca.
Listen to insights from last year’s Statewide Athlete Leadership Council. Discover the impact of Special Olympics NY and the crucial role volunteers play. (https://www.canva.com/design/DAGlddWZKe8/uRd_Dt6JuWu1G8HbSVvf5Q/watch?utm_content=DAGlddWZKe8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=hfa4c7f8925 )
From Opening Ceremonies Friday night to competition in seven sports Saturday, Summer Games is an event you’ll want to be a part of. All volunteers must be age 13 or older; those ages 13 to 15 must be accompanied by an adult.
Volunteer Areas of need:
• Basketball Skills, Saturday 6/21, 8:30am-2:30pm at Boynton Middle School–16 more volunteers needed
• Transportation Team, Saturday 6/21, 6:30am-9:00am at Ithaca College–4 more volunteers needed
• Swimming, Saturday 6/21, 8:15am-4:15pm at Ithaca College–5 more volunteers needed
• Athletics (Track & Field), Saturday 6/21, 8am-3:30pm at Ithaca High School–5 more volunteers needed
More shifts here: ( https://portals.specialolympics.org/event-details/?id=13030c0a-0201-f011-bae3-002248040703 )
Why volunteer? Support athletes from across the state. Earn service hours. Champion inclusion with your community!
Sign Up Steps
Note: Special Olympics New York launched a new volunteer software in December 2024. Returning volunteers, please sign up through this new software (if you haven’t already).
Estimated 5-7 minutes
Create an account or sign in: https://portals.specialolympics.org/
a. You’ll be asked to verify your email then to answer a few questions about yourself.
Click “Sign up for an Event”
Choose State Summer Games (looks like this)
Click on “Basketball Skills”, “Athletics” or any other shift you are interested in
Click Sign Up
Questions? Contact Sara Massa, smassa@nyso.org

LGBTQ+ OPEN MIC - LOVE POEMS
2025-06-20 17:00 - 19:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Join us at Buffalo Street Books for an open mic night and share queer love poems of any kind (including self-love!)
With a reading of “Winter Becomes Us” by Laura Ward, from Love is For All of Us.

Celebrating Queer Survivorship & Resiliency through Art
2025-06-21 12:45 - 15:00 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
Join the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County for an intergenerational (16 and up) event for LGBTQIA+ survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and/or child sexual abuse. Come to discuss and celebrate queer survivorship and activism through writing and art prompts. This afternoon of rest and craft will include guided grounding activities, writing exercises, candle-making, collage, and zines. Art supplies and snacks will be provided, though attendees are also welcome to bring their own materials (old candles to reuse, containers to fill for new candles, magazines, and writing/drawing supplies). Registration is required for this event.

Community Arts Partnership Networking Night
2025-06-27 17:30 - 19:30 | Greater Ithaca Activities Center
Come and hang out with fellow artists and creatives. We’ll do a few networking type conversation starters so you can meet new people!

Karaoke at the Brewery!
2025-06-27 20:00 - 22:00 | Liquid State Brewery, 620 W. Green St., Ithaca
Calling all superstars! Come sing your heart out with on-stage karaoke. Hosted by Lil’b and guaranteed to be a night of sweet serenading and applause.

A READING AND CONVERSATION WITH ELLEN STONE AND JESSICA FEMIANI
2025-06-28 16:00 - 17:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
About the Books:
Everybody Wants to Keep the Moon Inside Them is a collection of poems exploring what women hold, what they keep, and how they let go— of sorrow, loss and grief. Using the natural world as buffer, Ellen Stone writes poems exploring motherhood and mental illness, sexual assault, marriage and parenthood—as well as how loss filters down through family generations. The poems investigate daughters leaving home while trying to carry home within them. The moon is the mother in the book, waxing and waning, but always there, always coming back around.
The American Gun is a poem in ten parts delving into the modern phenomenon of mass shootings in the United States. It’s a narrative account of a young teacher in NYC wrestling with the reality of American gun culture. From the classroom to the subway platform, The American Gun is a meditation on tragedy and what it means to live in a country where domestic terrorism is a constant threat. Femiani’s poetry illuminates what the media cannot: the residuals of monumental loss, months and years after the fact, in the face of an unyielding “democracy” unable to protect the lives of its citizenry and its children.
About the Authors:
Ellen Stone grew up on the north branch of the Susquehanna River in the Appalachian Mountains of rural Pennsylvania. She taught in Kansas and Michigan public schools for 35 years while raising three daughters with her husband. Ellen advises a poetry club at Community High School, co-hosts a monthly poetry series, Skazat!, and is a founding editor of Public School Poetry in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is the author of Everybody Wants to Keep the Moon Inside Them (Mayapple Press, 2025), What Is in the Blood (Mayapple Press, 2020), and The Solid Living World which won the Michigan Writers’ Cooperative Press chapbook prize in 2013. Ellen’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Best of the Net.
Jessica Femiani is the granddaughter of immigrants. She received her PhD in English at Binghamton University (SUNY). Her poems and essays have been published in the Paterson Literary Review, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, The Italian American Review, #MeToo, Anch’io, and Mom Egg Review. She lives in Binghamton, New York, is an adjunct lecturer at SUNY Oneonta, where she teaches composition and creative writing.

NORTH ROSE 1940 – ALEXANDER SKUTT
2025-06-29 13:30 - 16:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
If Wayne County seceded from New York to became our 51st state, only three entire states would surpass it in apple production. In the early part of the 20th century, North Rose claimed the title of the busiest railroad shipping station for fruit in the country. Hundreds of farmers planted millions of apple trees just inland from Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes. The ability of a huge body of water to moderate winter temperatures created a micro-climate with the perfect temperatures for apple trees to flourish. Some local fruit farms also grew pears, peaches, and sour cherries.
Small commercial centers grew to provide these farmers, farm laborers, and their families with stores to buy food and other supplies, hardware, and appliances. They were also a natural location for schools, churches and community organizations. North Rose was such a commercial center. One of its principal functions was to provide a convenient market for farmers to sell the goods that they grew.
After the railroad passed through North Rose, fruit warehouses and other enterprises grew along the tracks and brought a population and business boom to the hamlet of North Rose.
North Rose 1940 is an unusually thorough history of the nearly 190 households in North Rose at the time of the 1940 Federal Census. The story of each family is told in complete and entertaining detail.
Alex Skutt lived in North Rose until he completed second grade. He spent long summers at the Skutt cottage on LeRoy Island. Skutt then moved to Ithaca, NY, where he still lives. Alex’s grandfather, Orin Skutt, and father, A. Gray Skutt, owned and operated O. A. Skutt Co., an international dealer in red kidney beans. Alex, a life-long entrepreneur, has owned three bookstores, several video stores, a game store, and a book publishing company, McBooks Press. Jane Flood Skutt was his mother, and Marilyn Skutt Roberts is his sister. McBooks Press was sold to Rowman & Littlefield on March 15, 2019. At that time, Skutt retired.

Circus Culture Acro and Aerial Camp (10-16yrs)
2025-06-30 08:30 - 15:00 | Circus Culture, 116 W Green St, Ithaca, NY, 14850, United States
Spend five days flipping, flying, basing, building and playing in this high-energy camp specifically for tweens and teens! Students will practice skills such as tumbling, partner acrobatics, and aerial fabric, lyra, hammock and trapeze. Those new to circus and those with circus experience are both welcome and will be met where they are! All campers receive a Circus Culture t-shirt! Camp hours are 9am-3pm with flexible drop off from 8:30-9am. Visit circusculture.org to register.

State of the Art Gallery: Frances Fawcett & Ethel Vrana
2025-07-03 12:00 - 17:00 | State of the Art Gallery, 120 W State St #2, Ithaca, 14850, United Kingdom
State of the Art proudly presents two exhibits this month. In the main gallery, Where I’m Coming From (a retrospective) showcases a broad spectrum of works by Frances L. Fawcett.
In the Salon Gallery, Ethel Vrana’s paintings are inspired by the resilience of plant life. She combines abstract forms with realistic impressions to capture their remarkable adaptability and beauty. The shows will run from July 3rd through July 27th, 2025. Opening reception Friday, July 4th, 5–8pm.
Regular hours Thursday-Sunday 12-5 pm. 120 W State St. Curbside parking and ADA accessibility. 607-277-1626. This program is made possible, in part, with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and NYS Legislature, administered by the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.
Check website for times and details. www.soagithaca.org
