Livingston Buy Local

Stafford Animal Shelter is pleased to work with local schools and youth groups to promote humane animal care and awareness. Young people are often our best – and certainly future – amabasadors and philanthropists. To celebrate Stafford Animal Shelter’s ”Furry Valentine” event where all adult cat adoption fees are $14 thoughout February, students at Arrowhead and Pine Creek Schools have selected favorite ‘Furry Feline Valentines’ to honor with hand made cards extolling their virtues as the purrfect valentine. Won’t you honor their work by considering adopting one of these Furry Valentines (http://staffordanimalshelter NULL.org/available-pets/) yourself?

Keep it Local! Here are two of the many ways you can support our local businesses while supporting the Northside Park and Soccer Fields Project at the same time!

Norris author and Raven Publishing owner Janet Muirhead Hill will read from her Miranda and Starlight series of books for young adults at Elk River Books, 115 E. Callender St., on Saturday, February 25 at 2 p.m. The six-book series tells the story of a spirited young woman and her equally plucky horse, as Miranda navigates first the disintegration of her family, then the trials of adolescence.
Miranda and Starlight was named a Notable Book by Writers Notes magazine, and is used in classrooms to help kids learn good decision-making skills. Hill has written a stand-alone novel, Danny’s Dragon, about a young boy’s grief after losing his father to the Iraq War, and two books of a planned trilogy, Kyleah’s Tree and the recently released Kendall’s Storm, about twins who were separated at age 4 by their parents’ divorce.
The reading is free and open to the public.

Elk River Books is pleased to host poets Ilona Popper and Cody Standish in the first of an ongoing series of events intended to highlight the work of local writers.

Ilona Popper, of Gardiner, is the author of the poetry book Break (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 2002). Her poems have appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Beltway online magazine, The Antietam Review, and other journals and anthologies. Ilona has performed her poetry in theaters, bookstores, and on the radio show “The Poet and the Poem.”

Livingston’s Cody Standish started writing poetry at a young age, after a series of family tragedies. “I lived a lot of life as a little kid,” she says. Her first poem was published at age 8, and she’s been composing ever since, citing her favorites as Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Sexton and Robert Service among others. She grew up in Livingston, and spent time hitchhiking the country in lieu of a more formal education.

Standish and Popper will read from their work and discuss their craft at Elk River Books on Wednesday, February 8, at 7 p.m. A reception and signing will follow the event, which is free and open to the public.