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This week at the Library, you can join us at:

Library OnDemand – Available anytime you like.

Your doorway into live and archived programs. Arts & Culture, Career & Finance, Community Matters, Writers and more!

One-on-One Genealogy Help – Tuesday, Nov. 8, 9 a.m. – noon

Visit the Johnson County Genealogical Society at www.jcgsks.org to schedule an appointment. A volunteer will contact you by email to set up an in-person or a Zoom session link for you prior to the scheduled date.

Young Adult Literary Council – Tuesday, Nov. 8, 5 – 6 p.m.

Teens are invited to join the Young Adult Literary Council at Lenexa City Center Library to share favorite books, pick up advanced reader copies of teen books to read and review, and participate in other fun activities such as author visits, game days, event planning and more. Meet new people and receive volunteer credit hours for your time with us.

Blood Pressure Clinic – Wednesday, Nov. 9, 10 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Drop in each month at Central Resource Library and a nurse from the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment will test your blood pressure.

Friends of the Library Pop-Up Book Sale – Saturday, Nov. 12, 11:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Shop gently used books and items from the Friends of the Library at the Friends Headquarters location!
20% Friends members discount all day!

And much more happening this week »

A collection of visually stunning portraits, on display at Central Resource Library until Dec. 21, highlights amazingly accomplished women. It is drawing rave reviews from patrons. 

For artist Patti Streeper, these compelling works are her way of honoring heroic and pioneering women who are often unsung or under-appreciated for their achievements, dedication and courage.  

“With this work, my goal is to spark curiosity and encourage the viewer to learn more about what comprises women’s work,” she says, “and to inspire conversation about the contributions of all women.” 

Johnson County Local Arts Librarian Bryan Voell says the Library is thrilled to host this show.  

“Patti Streeper’s portraits are timeless and eye-catching, provoking the kind of storytelling and curiosity that are the hallmarks of any public Library,” he said. “Both patrons and staff have remarked how much they enjoy this exhibition.” 

The public can hear more about this show when Streeper speaks at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 9 at Johnson County Community College’s Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Streeper grew up in Illinois and got a fine arts degree, concentrating on printmaking, at Southern Illinois University. 

After college she landed a job at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, where she stayed for nearly 35 years. It was a very fulfilling career, but always in management and business innovation, not as an artist. She married and raised two daughters, who are pursuing their own careers. 

Her position in corporate leadership was stressful, and Streeper’s husband, Tully Larkin, encouraged her to find a creative outlet. He persuaded her to reach out to Robert Quackenbush, an artist and mentor who owns Studio Q, an artists’ workspace. 

That launched a whole new chapter for Streeper, as she started painting, first with acrylic and then with oils. She painted for a few years while still working for Hallmark, then even more intentionally after she retired in 2016. 

She was fascinated by faces and the storytelling potential of portraiture. Faces introduced her to the stories of little-known women leaders throughout history. “It was this whole thread of the accomplishments of these women from all walks of life,” she said. 

At first she painted with no thought of showing her work. “There’s something wonderful and beautiful about doing something like that for yourself,” she said. “I was there to explore, to listen to my own heart.” 

But she was discovering incredible women of diverse ethnic backgrounds in science, the arts, education and social activism, who deserve public recognition.  

Through a personal connection, Streeper mounted her first show of 10 portraits at Westwood City Hall in 2021. That garnered other invitations, including at Lenexa City Hall and at the Woodneath Library in spring 2022. Johnson County Reference Librarian Helen Hokanson attended one of the shows and connected Streeper with Voell.  

The Library show includes pioneering Mexican-American botanist Ynez Mexia, who began her career at age 51; Zitkala-Sa, a Yankton Dakota musician who co-composed the first American Indian opera; prison scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore; and Harlem Renaissance sculptor Augusta Savage, among many others. 

Most wonderfully for Johnson County Library, this show features a portrait of Kay Robeson, one of the Library’s original founders, and a grand painting of a Johnson County Library bookmobile from 1956, with Robeson and four other Library founders, including first County Librarian Shirley Brother. 

The Library’s annual Writers Conference, Nov. 17-19 at Central Resource Library, was also inspired by Streeper’s work and incorporated the show into their activities. Writing prompts ask participants to respond to her portraits by researching the subject of one of her paintings, or offering up first impressions. 

Streeper said Johnson County Library has been a great venue to share her work and her passion. 

“In general, I think understanding human ability and human potential as a leader, that was always incredibly important to me,” she says. “Seeing and sharing the potential in these women is particularly important to me.” 

Clear, concise, accurate: these are words that guided Diana Richards in her 25-year career as an instructional designer and business trainer. Turns out, they are the same words that drive her as an editor and writer.

Those words and the practice they embody have helped Diana in her years as a Senior Tutor in the Writer Center at Johnson County Community College. Diana has also been a copy editor for an international magazine and says, “It doesn’t matter what you’re writing. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, a mystery or a romance, you will lose your message if it’s not built on a strong foundation of solid grammar and proper punctuation.”

So it’s no surprise that Diana will join us at this year’s Writers Conference to offer One-on-One Edits, which will focus on readability and transparency. These sessions, Diana says, are not for theoreticians or academics; they are for real writers in the real world. Emphasis will be on how to use punctuation and grammar to enhance your story, not impede it.

Diana is a past winner of our writing contest. Her story, “Cactus,” was selected in 2021 for the category The Fool’s Journey. You can read it here.

—written by Lisa Allen, adult services specialist

Today's Staff Pick comes to you from our librarian Alice, who gives four stars to Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese.

Witch trials are already a thing of the past in this historical novel set in Salem, Massachusetts during the lifetime of Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. Witch trials are over; but their memory lives on in Hawthorne’s nineteenth century, with tensions lingering amongst the old Salem families and Hawthorne himself bearing ancestral guilt over his own great-great-grandfather's role in sentencing accused women to death more than a century earlier.

But Hawthorne is not front and center here. He is upstaged by a new immigrant from Scotland, Isobel Gamble, who becomes his lover and eventual model for Hester Prynne, heroine of The Scarlet Letter. This is not Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story. It is Isobel’s story; and despite the fact that she possesses no roots in the town of Salem, Isobel's story dovetails interestingly with Salem history due to a condition called synesthesia which positions her and many of her Scots ancestors squarely within the domain of hereditary witches.

Readers may already be familiar with synesthesia, as many of us experience a blending of data from one sense with impressions rooted in another: associating letters and numbers with colors, for example, or “seeing” the shapes of scents and sounds. But even without this personal connection, readers interested in women’s history, New England history, the textile arts (as Isobel supports herself with fine embroidery), and/or historical witchcraft will be likely to enjoy this extensively researched and carefully plotted new release: perfect for reading any time of year, but especially during the time of Halloween! 

The Open Book is out today! 

What is the Open Book Newsletter? It provides updates on Library branches, upcoming events and programs, service highlights and how the Library is evolving to meet your needs.

Have you subscribed? 

In this issue you'll find information about author Brendan Kiely's program Reckoning with White Privilege, The Past is Prologue: Visual Biographies with artist Patti Streeper, a word from the Johnson County Library Foundation, and a story about our featured event, the Writers Conference!

Jessica Conoley has been on the faculty of our Writers Conference for years for a reason: attendees love her. They relate to her, respect her, and consistently tell us that her sessions are full of information, interesting, and engaging.

And that’s no surprise to anyone who’s spent any time with Jessica. She’s not only an accomplished writer and creative careers coach; she’s curious about others and genuinely interested in seeing people live their dream.

Jessica writes both fiction and non-fiction. Her fiction falls into the fantasy genre, where she creates dark and Ghibli-esque worlds with nods to her beloved 80s action films. Her non-fiction focuses on personal essays and career advice with a focus on mental wellbeing. Jessica also founded and leads The Creative’s Apprentice, where she provides step-by-step, easily implementable mindset and educational guidance so creatives can stop worrying about all of the “business stuff they’re supposed to do” and focus on the creative work they love to do.

Jessica was kind enough to participate in a little bit of Q&A so you can get to know her better before meeting her at the conference:

Why do you write? I write fiction to process the emotional/subconscious things I'm not ready to process in reality.  For example, the book I signed with my agent for is a fantasy prison escape novel.  A few years after I finished it I realized I was processing how I felt working in corporate America and my need to break free of a career path that was unhealthy for me. I think writing the book helped me find the bravery to leave that traditional 9-5 & start my own creative career. I write nonfiction to help other people. I have a knack for simplifying & de-scarying business and then teaching mentally healthy business practices to people. I find it very rewarding when my non-fiction writing empowers writers and other creatives.

Who do you read? Whose work sustains/inspires/challenges/soothes you?  I read a lot of SFF (science fiction/fantasy), Nnedi Okorafor, Naomi Novik, Katherine Addison, Becky Chambers. I also read a ton of business/behavioral science/marketing/energy type stuff. My go to books in the hardest year of my life were Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist & Caroline Myss's “Anatomy of the Spirit”.

How does being a business owner inform your own creative work? I see business as a creative medium in and of itself. My goal is to run a company where we find energy giving or energy neutral ways to grow our individual creative careers and help others. Anytime there's an energy draining task that we hate to do, (marketing is the white whale of course) my job is to explore and find a different way to do it that doesn't feel like a drag.

What excites you about what you're teaching at the Writers Conference? I love helping writers meet their writing career goals, but what surprised me was how many people were living their dream & still tormented with anxiety and stress.  It became my mission to help writers reach their career milestones AND enjoy living their dream in the process.  Historically, the mental health of writers hasn't been at the forefront of conference programming, but this year we had multiple organizations came to us super excited about the topic.  It gives me hope that we as an industry are ready to embrace a healthier mental way of going about our writing dreams.

What do you really want attendees to know about you? You can live your creative dreams and do it in a mentally healthy, sustainable way that can bring in money. It will take work, time, and investment in yourself. But you are worth it and you deserve to be happy and bring your writing to the world simultaneously.

You can keep up with Jessica by visiting her website (linked above) or on Instagram and Twitter at @thecreativesapp

—written by Lisa Allen, adult services specialist