Adult Programs

Nat Glover was born in 1943, in segregated Jacksonville, Florida. At seventeen, he unknowingly headed into an angry white mob and the Ku Klux Klan attacking young black protestors staging a sit-in at a downtown whites-only lunch counter. Known as “Ax Handle Saturday,” this harrowing encounter with racism would commit him to a lifetime of fighting for justice. He joined the Jacksonville Police Department in 1966 where he was promoted to detective, rose to sergeant, and was appointed the city’s first hostage negotiator. In 1995, Duval County voters elected him the first Black sheriff in Florida since Reconstruction. Hear more about his incredible work and his new memoir, Striving for Justice: A Black Sheriff.

Released in 1926, The Flying Ace was a classic silent film that featured an all-African-American cast, with principal photography shot right here in Jacksonville. Made in the South during a period that arguably represented the height of "Jim Crow," it was one of many films by white filmmaker Richard E. Norman that challenged the stereotypes about Black people found in the overwhelming majority of the films of that era. In 2021, The Flying Ace was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

If you plan to come out of National Novel Writing Month with a ready-to-publish manuscript (or you just want to plan your next steps), join us at Writer's Lab in December for a hands-on how-to session with Mike Messier. He will instruct you, step-by-step, on how to write and publish fiction and nonfiction on Kindle Vella & Amazon KDP. If you bring your finished manuscript, you could even leave with a published book!

Fall is finally showing up in Jacksonville! Are you prepping for all those extra hours of darkness by building your to-be-read list? It'll be dark by 6 p.m. before you know it! You might also consider joining a Library Book Club! You'll get to talk about what you loved, what surprised you, and what you'd recommend for anyone looking for something similar. Of course, our librarians can recommend read-alikes too!

Book clubs are one of the best ways to discover what other people are reading (and what they think about the books everyone else is reading).

So you've finished writing a draft of a novel (or perhaps you're nearing the finish line). What comes next? Join writer Hurley Winkler to learn about novel revision tactics. You'll walk away with a stronger revision plan for your book-length project as well as renewed energy and inspiration.

"I have lived in this country for a long time and [until now] I could not vote. I didn't have a voice," Milu Benko said. "As a high school teacher, I would always encourage my students to vote and register to vote. But I myself couldn't do that. One summer, I took my daughter to the Southeast Library and saw a flyer for classes for citizenship... I decided it was time." Now, Milu has a voice and with FREE help preparing for the U.S. Naturalization Test and Interview, you can too!

A prolific local history author, Tim Gilmore, has written extensively about Jacksonville. The writer and creator of www.jaxpsychogeo.com, he has told more than 700 stories of strange and historic locations in and around Jacksonville, Florida. He is also the founder of JaxbyJax. A literary arts festival, now in its 10th year, JaxbyJax was built on the theme of “Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville.” Few have written about Jacksonville more. He joins us this November to talk about his latest book, The Culture Wars of Warren Folks.

Before writing, Cat Sebastian was a lawyer and a teacher and did a variety of other jobs. But she liked those jobs much less than she enjoys writing happy endings for queer people. Her latest book, We Could Be So Good has been described as "Casey McQuinston meets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo." And if you like that, she's got over a dozen other queer historical romance novels and glowing reviews from bestselling authors like Julia Quinn, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Bridgerton series. The best part? You can also meet her live and in person, right here in Jacksonville!

Join us for Resisting Hate, Repairing the World -- a panel discussion and open dialogue that focuses on the impact acts of hate have on the individuals and communities being targeted, whether Jewish, Black, LGBTQ+, or others, and how we, as a larger community, can work together to provide mutual support. This program was made in partnership with LJD Jewish Family & Community Services (JFCS) and will be moderated by Hope McMath, Curator of the JFCS's Frisch Family Holocaust Memorial Gallery.

There's no question that characters drive a story. In this writing workshop, author Karen Chow will guide writers to develop interesting characters, create active goals for them, and get into their heads, so readers will want to know more. Bring your writing tools because we will be writing!