Thursday, March 30
7-8 pm
Registration is required. You can register below or by contacting Donald, our Adult Program Coordinator, at adult@pawlinglibrary.org.
Author Midge Guerrera will be reading from their new book, Cars, Castles, Cows, and Chaos. Besides sharing selected shorts from the entertaining work, the Guerrera will reveal what life is like for a “Jersey Girl” in a small Southern Italian village.
Cars, Castles, Cows, and Chaos, published by Read Furiously, is a memoir-meets-tour-guide of errors and triumphs. The collection of short stories takes readers on a trip along the gorgeous (and complicated) roads of Italy, Told in Midge Guerrera’s signature candor and humor, readers will cheer as she uncovers her next adventure with unexpected and delightful results.
Guerrera, with her ever patient husband, Jack Huber, spends half the year on a farm in Italy and the other half in a high rise in Ewing, New Jersey.
According to Guerrera, “We decided it was time to take our third acts on the road. So, we sold our home in New Jersey, downsized and headed to Italy. There was no better place to reinvent myself then in the village that my aunt, uncles and grandparents immigrated from.”
And reinvent herself, she did. Guerrera had a career not only in the arts as a producer, director, actor and playwright but also in arts management and program building. She was instrumental in the creation of Performing Arts Programs in NJ’s Vocational Schools (garnering a Governor’s Award for Arts in Education), developed the New Jersey Center for the Performing Arts, an arts agency for Somerset County before there was a county agency, was the Director of the New Jersey School of the Arts, designed the arts administration major/minor for Westminster Choir College of Rider University and with her husband ran a successful management consulting business.
“When we got to Italy, said Guerrera, I was ok with La Dolce Vita for about a nanosecond. I needed a project. I started blogging and writing. My blog, www.nonnasmulberrytree.com, features the food, fun and foibles of being a part-time expat in Pontelandolfo, a tiny mountain town where everyone knows my name. My book Cars, Castles, Cows and Chaos, grew out of the blog.”
The road to change is paved with many adventures. As a New Jersey native, Midge Guerrera knows she can handle whatever is thrown her way. But the book, Cars, Castles, Cows and Chaos, set against the idyllic Italian countryside, has one giggling over never expected car trouble, terrifyingly winding roads, vespa gangs, and crowds of loud soccer fans.
According to Los Angeles Critic Tracey Paleo – blogging as Gia on the Move –“CARS, CASTLES, COWS AND CHAOS is a quick and delightful journey that warms the heart and tickles the funny bones and as Guerrera ultimately discovers on her own, “chasing windmills” is guaranteed to give you a delicious taste of the joy of life.”
Guerrera’s work has been published by Next Stage Press, YouthPlays, Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, New Jersey Performing Arts Center Learning Guides, Anchorage Press, and the American Alliance for Theatre in Education.
Pawling Recreation
Camino al Éxito ofrece una variedad de servicios a familias necesitadas para su integración y desarrollo en la comunidad. La misión principal de Camino al Éxito es brindar educación para adultos en inglés como segundo idioma, programas GED, tutoría para adolescentes y después de la escuela, orientación universitaria, asistencia con la solicitud de ciudadanía, seminarios de empoderamiento y talleres de participación comunitaria que incluyen educación para padres y programas para la primera infancia.
2 Lakeside Dr, Pawling NY 12564
