Becca Zeglovitch, Next Chapter Society Council Chair
We’ve been busy here at Next Chapter Society this fall! We once again partnered with a local designer and local printer Friendly Arctic to create adorable limited edition t-shirts to support the library. Wesley Hall’s design was an immediate hit, and we completely sold out at Southern Festival of Books! We raised over $7,700 to support the critical work of the Nashville Public Library Foundation, which advances literacy, life skills, and connection for all at Nashville Public Library.
We couldn’t have accomplished this without the amazing outpouring of support that we saw for Wesley’s design and for the library from all of you. Thank you for purchasing shirts and amplifying our campaign! We are thrilled to bring library lovers together every year for these special releases.
Over the weekend of November 6 and 7, the foundation hosted novelist and poet Ocean Vuong as this year’s Literary Award honoree. Events included the First Edition Reception at Parnassus Books on Friday night, the Public Lecture at Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet School on Saturday morning, and the Literary Award Gala on Saturday night.
If you’ve been around a while, you’ll know that this year marked the triumphant return of the Gala to the Main Library downtown following its reopening a few months ago. I was fortunate enough to be able to volunteer at both the First Edition Reception and the Public Lecture this year, meaning that I got to hear Ocean speak twice. He was remarkably well spoken (no surprise there), wise, gentle, and funny! In the same conversation, he told a hilarious story about ordering from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue for his mother when he was 8 years old because she didn’t speak English, and spoke about letting curiosity guide you as an artist and remaining open to all the possibilities of creativity.
Everyone I talked to after both events agreed that they could have listened to him speak for much longer. It was an absolute treat to hear from him! If you couldn’t make it to his lecture, don’t worry. You can watch the livestream recording here. I’d highly recommend it!
Even though all of the excitement of t-shirts and Literary Award Weekend is behind us now, we are onto our next task of selecting our 2027 book club picks and look forward to announcing them shortly! Stay tuned to see what we’ll be reading and discussing next year. With Thanksgiving approaching, we’re feeling awfully thankful for all of you. Happy holidays!
