April 11, 11am-12:15pm

Join local bestselling author Angela DiTerlizzi in a special storytime with her latest book "The Marvelous Now". This calming companion to the bestselling "The Magical Yet" and "The Curious Why" is a marvelous introduction for young readers to mindfulness and keeping your cool. Following the storytime there will be a family yoga session to practice some of these mindfulness concepts with local family yoga instructor Angelica Lopez. A book signing will follow, and Amherst Books will be on site with copies available for purchase.

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This free event is part of the Amherst Lit Walk, presented by the Massachusetts Center for the Book and the Amherst Business Improvement District. 

Learn more and see the full schedule

April 11, 6-7:30pm

Presented in partnership with the Amherst Business Improvement District, Writers Reading is a curated series featuring local authors. Join us for a line-up curated by Anna Maria Hong. Fellow authors Eula Biss, James Hannaham, and John Hennessy will join Hong in sharing selections from their work. 

This event is free to attend and open to all. Books will be available for purchase.

This installment of the Writers Reading series is part of the 2026 Amherst Literary Walk, presented by the Massachusetts Center for the Book and the Amherst Business Improvement District. Learn more and see the full schedule

Anna Maria Hong is the author of the poetry collections Age of Glass (Cleveland State University Poetry Center), winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, and Fablesque (Tupelo Press), winner of the Berkshire Prize, and the novella H & G (Sidebrow Books), winner of the A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Clarissa Dalloway Prize. Her poetry, fiction, and essays appear in many publications including The Nation, The Iowa Review, Harvard Review, Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, and The Best American Poetry. A recipient of fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Amy Clampitt Poet Residency, the Hawthornden Foundation, Fundación Valparaíso, and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, she is an Associate Professor at Mount Holyoke College. 

Eula Biss is the author of four books: Having and Being Had (2020), On Immunity (2014), Notes from No Man’s Land (2009), and The Balloonists (2002). Her work has been translated into a dozen languages and has been recognized by a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New America Fellowship, and a 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library. She is currently at work on a collection of essays about how private property has shaped our world. For the past twenty years, Biss has taught writing in large lecture halls and small community bookstores, at public elementary schools and private universities. She developed a commitment to progressive education at Hampshire College and is currently the Joan Leiman Jacobson Non-Fiction Writer in Residence at Smith College. 

James Hannaham is a writer, a visual artist, or both. His novel Delicious Foods won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was a New York Times Notable Book. He has shown work at The Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, Kimberley-Klark Gallery, Open Source, and elsewhere. His most recent novel, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, won the Ferro-Grumley Award from the Publishing Triangle, a second Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was also a New York Times Notable Book. His shorter works have appeared in Brink, The Ocean State Review, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, and as poets.org’s poem-a-day. Honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous residencies, among them Yaddo, Macdowell, and Fundación Valparaíso. 

John Hennessy is the author of three collections, the recently published Exit Garden State (Lost Horse Press), Coney Island Pilgrims, and Bridge and Tunnel, and his poems appear in The Believer, multiple editions of Best American Poetry, The New Republic, Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, and The Yale Review. With Ostap Kin he is the translator of A New Orthography (Lost Horse Press), selected poems by Serhiy Zhadan, PEN Award for Poetry in Translation finalist and Derek Walcott Prize winner, and Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond (Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature), winner of the AATSEEL Prize for Best Scholarly Translation, and Honorable Mention for the American Association of Ukrainian Studies Translation Prize. Set Change, Yuri Andrukhovych’s selected poems (NYRB/Poets Series), was runner-up for the AAUS Translation Prize and earned an NEA grant. Hennessy teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and serves as poetry editor for The Common.

April 15, 6:30-8pm

Interested in volunteering with a nonprofit in our area? Want to share your skills or learn more about making an impact? Join us for a fast-paced event to match volunteers with nonprofits doing great work. Think of it as speed dating, but to make meaningful connections with fantastic nonprofit organizations!

This fast-paced event will feature brief, lively conversations with representatives from local nonprofits, including the Jones Library ESL Center, CDH's Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County, United Way of the Franklin & Hampshire Region, and Amherst Neighbors. Attendees will learn about various volunteer opportunities, including both in-person and virtual options. This volunteer matching event is not only a chance for individuals to find ways to contribute their time and skills, but also to support local organizations and strengthen our community.

Presented by the UMass Amherst Community Campaign (UMACC), UMass Downtown, and the United Way of the Franklin and Hampshire Region (UWFH).

Register

April 22, 5:30-7pm

Explore how both art‑making and music can support and boost your mental, physical, and social wellbeing. Enjoy live music that helps set a welcoming, creative atmosphere from 5:30-6pm, then join us in co-creating a community arts mural with Cathe Bruso, UMass Creative Arts Therapist, from 6-7pm.

Wellbeing Wednesdays are monthly programs exploring topics in health and wellness. Presented in partnership by UMass Downtown and UMass Recwell, Wellbeing Wednesdays @ UMass Downtown are free and open to all.

Sponsored by Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences and Public Interest Technology Initiative at UMass, Talking Tech aims to demystify the technology that drives our world.

April 23, 6-7pm - Nothing to Hide? Privacy in the Age of Oversharing

In the third installment of our Talking Tech series, UMass faculty Francine Berman and Laura Haas will tackle privacy in the digital age. How much privacy do you have and how can you protect it?

Speaker Bios

Francine Berman is Director of Public Interest Technology in the Manning College of Computer and Information Sciences at UMass, as well as a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Berman is a leader in the field of Public Interest Technology, focused on the responsible development, use and management of technology for social impact. Berman received the 2024 Pioneer in Tech award from the National Center for Women in Technology and is a regular panelist on WAMC’s Roundtable.

Laura Haas is Professor and former Dean of the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass. Haas was formerly an IBM Fellow, leading research and development in data management and data science..  She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and currently chairs the National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board.

Past Events

March 12, 6-7pm - "How Tech is Supercharging ICE"

Facial recognition, AI, and data analysis are powerful tools that are being used by ICE to target both immigrants and protestors. Join UMass faculty Francine Berman and Laura Haas for an exploration of how these technologies are enabling ICE and how we might contain them.

March 31, 6-7pm - How to Use Chatbots Safely

AI chatbots are becoming our new coworkers. Can we trust them? In the second installment of our Talking Tech series, join UMass faculty Francine Berman and Laura Haas for a discussion about what chatbots can do, what they can’t do, and where the limits should be.

First Tuesdays, 10am-4pm

Looking for job opportunities at UMass Amherst? Need help with your application or have questions about the hiring process? Are you a new employee with questions about onboarding? UMass Amherst Human Resources is here to help! 

The UMass HR team offers weekly community office hours at UMass Downtown to provide application assistance and interview guidance for prospective employees and CORI verifications and onboarding support for new hires. 

No appointment necessary. Just stop by during UMass HR's community office hours!

First Thursdays, 7-8pm

Get to know some MASSively talented up-and-coming UMass musicicans in this chill monthly concert series. Spring 2026 dates are February 5, March 5, April 9 (new date), and May 7. Check back monthly for artist line-ups. 

• February 5: Keira Doyle and Judd Kozuch

• March 5: Brielle, Raina, and Caramia

Presented in partnership with the UMass Songwriting and Production Club, the MASSive Desk Concert Series is free and open to all.

James oversees the university's multipurpose retail, event and meeting satellite space in downtown Amherst, which opened this week.

The conversations, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on April 24, May 6 and June 10 in the university’s new multipurpose retail, event and meeting space at 108 North Pleasant St. in downtown Amherst, are free and open to all.

Attendees at the event, scheduled for 5:30-7 p.m. at UMass Downtown, will learn about various volunteer opportunities and discover ways to contribute their time and skills to support local organizations and strengthen our community.