Tag Archives: CALS

CALS announces new name, new focus for Literary Festival

Posted on by

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) is announcing a new name for the Arkansas Literary Festival: Six Bridges Book Festival. Named for the iconic six bridges that cross the Arkansas River, the festival will have a new focus, bridging communities and bringing people together. The library will actively solicit input from a variety of demographic groups with the goal of offering a more widely appealing festival.

“We want to involve many people from our community in the selection of presenters and activities, so they know their reading interests and the stories that fascinate them are central to the festival and they are an integral part of shaping the content of the Six Bridges Book Festival each year,” said Nate Coulter, CALS executive director.

“The Six Bridges Book Festival is a diverse, energetic celebration of all kinds of stories and topics, both literary and mainstream, and we feel the new name reflects the festival’s nature more accurately. Our goal is to draw a wider audience by removing any barriers of perception that this event is only for highbrow tastes.”

Previously known for 16 years as the Arkansas Literary Festival, the four-day event in April celebrates reading, literacy, stories, and wordsmithing. Scores of nationally known authors converge on the city to offer panels on a wide variety of topics, from cooking demonstrations to award-winning comedy.

A slate of programming for children and teens includes hands-on crafts and music, animal visits, poetry contests, and more. Authors also venture out into the community for efforts such as Writers in the Schools (WITS), bringing the joy of writing to hundreds of students in the Little Rock area. Concerts, films, readings, and author parties enhance the festive atmosphere across venues in downtown Little Rock, where events are held in museums, restaurants, the Clinton Presidential Library, and the CALS Ron Robinson Theater as well as in many library buildings.

Brad Mooy, the coordinator of the festival, looks forward to making the variety of the festival’s offerings and presenters more widely known to the community. “The diversity of presenters has greatly expanded over the years,” said Mooy. “We want to let people know that everyone is represented here, with topics and interactive activities that appeal to all age levels, cultural backgrounds, and reading tastes.”

Since the festival’s inception, the event has always been an important showcase for writers known nationally and internationally as well as locally based talent. Presenters from past festivals include 5-time James Beard Award winner Dorie Greenspan, Sebastian Junger, Catherine Coulter, Congressman John Lewis, Issa Rae, and critically acclaimed Arkansas authors such as Kevin Brockmeier and Trenton Lee Stewart.

The 17th annual festival now known as the Six Bridges Book Festival will take place April 23-26, 2020. The festival will feature author Tim O’Brien (The Things They Carried) as part of the NEA Big Read: CALS.

For more information about the Six Bridges Book Festival, please contact Brad Mooy at bmooy@cals.org or (501) 918-3098, or see the website at sixbridgesbookfestival.org.

Sounds in the Stacks tonight at CALS Fletcher Branch Library

Posted on by

No photo description available.

Live music in the library tonight at the CALS Fletcher Branch from 6:30pm to 7:30pm.

Featured artist: Ship of Fools. Admission is free; registration not required.

Just show up ready to have a good time and bring along friends and family!

The John Gould Fletcher branch of CALS is located at 823 N. Buchanan Street.

HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND is tonight’s $2 Terror Tuesdays film on CALS Ron Robinson Theater screen

Posted on by

The Spider's Web Poster$2 Terror Tuesdays continue tonight (6/25) at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater with 1960’s HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND

Horrors of Spider Island is a 1960 West German horror film directed by Fritz Böttger from his screenplay, and produced by Gaston Hakim and Wolf C. Hartwig. T

he film stars Alexander D’Arcy as a talent agent who invites several girls to a club in Singapore. Their plane ride ends abruptly when they crash-land into the ocean. D’Arcy and the women make their way to an island where they find a larger spider web, and chaos ensues!

The film (also known as The Spider’s Web, and in German as Ein Toter hing im Netz – which translates to A Dead Man Hung in the Net) was first released in the United States in 1962, as an Adults-Only movie titled “It’s Hot in Paradise.” Three years later, trimmed of its nude scenes, it was re-released in the U.S. as a horror/sci-fi monster film, “Horrors of Spider Island”.

The showing starts at 7pm.  Cost is $2.

Explore “The Power of Story” today at CALS Main Library in session led by Hilary Trudell of The Yarn

Posted on by

No photo description available.

Hilary Trudell, founder and executive producer of The Yarn Storytelling, will present a storytelling workshop at the Central Arkansas Library System’s main library.

Participants will learn the art of storytelling and have the option of signing up to do storytelling programs at other library branches if they wish to do so.

Join CALS on Saturday, June 22 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in the Harper Lee room on the 5th floor of the Main Library.

Parking is free and light refreshments will be provided!

A Broadway Cabaret tonight on CALS Ron Robinson Theater stage performed by The Muses

Posted on by

The Muses’ Broadway Cabaret in concert is presented tonight at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater.

The performance starts at 7pm.

This “best of” Broadway concert is an impressive display of professional musical artistry, spectacular dancing, and extraordinary showmanship! The Muses Professional Performance Troupe of highly skilled, nationally touring professional vocalists, instrumentalists, and resident artists, will present beloved tunes from popular Broadway shows, including: “Cabaret”, “Kiss Me Kate”, “Hello, Dolly!” “My Fair Lady’, “South Pacific”, “Company”, “Wicked”, and “Rent”.

Driven by a live big band sound, these musical theater classics, are performed in colorful and engaging combinations of solos, duets, and ensembles, along with lovely and energetic dance performances sprinkled throughout the show.

Professionally executed, high quality artistic programming, are the distinguishing features of all Muses’ productions. Professional and undeniably first rate, the Muses Broadway Cabaret, Seasons of Love concert, embodies the charm, passion, wit, and powerful storytelling found on the Broadway stage, right here in central Arkansas! Don’t miss this highly entertaining summer highlight!

Sponsored by Arkansas Arts Center, First Security Bank, UA Little Rock Downtown, Central Arkansas Library System, Merritt Dyke & Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Tonight’s $2 Terror Tuesday feature at CALS Ron Robinson – THE BRAIN THAT WOULD NOT DIE

Posted on by

The Brain That Wouldn't Die Poster$2 Terror Tuesdays continue tonight (6/18) at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater with 1962’s THE BRAIN THAT WOULD NOT DIE.

The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is a 1962 American science fiction horror film directed by Joseph Green and written by Green and Rex Carlton and focuses upon a mad doctor who develops a means to keep human body parts alive. He keeps his fiancé’s severed head alive for days, and also keeps a lumbering, misshapened brute (one of his earlier failed experiments) imprisoned in a closet.

The film starred Jason Evers (billed as Herb Evers), Virginia Leith, Anthony La Penna, Adele Lamont, Paula Morris, Bruce Brighton, and Lola Mason.

The showing starts at 7pm.  Cost is $2.

Tonight on CALS Ron Robinson Theater stage – Phil Plait lecture – Strange New Worlds: Is Earth Special?

Posted on by

Phil Plait lecturing

The Central Arkansas Library System and Central Arkansas Astronomical Society present an evening with Phil “Bad Astronomer” Plait.  The program is at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater at 7pm.

Our search for exoplanets, planets outside our own solar system, has so far yielded thousands of strange new worlds but, none of them appear to be anything like our blue-green Earth. Is our world truly special? Or, maybe, the question should be: how Earth-like does a planet need to be in order to be like Earth?

Come join us for an evening with Phil “Bad Astronomer” Plait, author of the Bad Astronomy blog and the books, Bad Astronomy and Death From The Skies.

This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and will be filled on a first come, first served basis.

For as long as he can remember, Dr. Phil Plait has been in love with science.

“When I was maybe four or five years old, my dad brought home a cheapo department store telescope. He aimed it at Saturn that night. One look, and that was it. I was hooked,” he says.

After earning his doctorate in astronomy at the University of Virginia, he worked on the Hubble Space Telescope as a NASA contractor at the Goddard Space Flight Center. He began a career in public outreach and education with the Bad Astronomy website and blog, debunking bad science and popular misconceptions. The book Bad Astronomywas released in 2002, followed in 2008 by Death From The Skies! He can most recently be seen in Crash Course Astronomy, a 46-part educational web series he wrote and hosted that has over 20 million views. He hosted the TV show Phil Plait’s Bad Universe on the Discovery Channel in 2010 and was the head science writer for Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix, due out in 2017. Dr. Plait’s blog has been hosted by Discover Magazine and Slate, and is now on Syfy Wire.

Dr. Plait has given talks about science and pseudoscience across the US and internationally. He uses images, audio, and video clips in entertaining and informative multimedia presentations packed with humor and backed by solid science.

He has spoken at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, the Space Telescope Science Institute (home of Hubble), the Hayden Planetarium in NYC and many other world-class museums and planetaria, conferences, astronomy clubs, colleges and universities, and community groups. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Pax TV, Tech TV, Syfy, Radio BBC, Air America, NPR, and many other television and internet venues. His writing has appeared in Discover, Sky and Telescope, Astronomy, Night Sky, Space.com, and more.

This event brought to you by the Central Arkansas Astronomical Society and the Central Arkansas Library System and made possible by funding provided by the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium.