July 10, 7pm

Presented in partnership with the Amherst Business Improvement District, Writers Reading is a curated series featuring local authors. In our first installment of the reading series, join us for a line-up curated by featured writer Nathan McClain. McClain and fellow authors Jen Jabaily-Blackburn, Matt Donovan, and Rebecca Hart Olander will share selections from their work. See author bios below. This event is free to attend and open to all.

Nathan McClain (he/him) is the author of two collections of poetry: Previously Owned (Four Way Books, 2022), longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and Scale (Four Way Books, 2017). He is a recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and is a Cave Canem fellow. He earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College. His poems and prose have appeared in Plume Poetry 10, The Hopkins Review, The Common, Poetry Northwest, and Zócalo Public Square, among others. He teaches at Hampshire College and serves as poetry editor of the Massachusetts Review.

Jen Jabaily-Blackburn is the author of the full-length collection Girl in a Bear Suit (Elixir Press, 2024) and the e-chapbook Disambiguation (Salamander/Suffolk University, 2024) She is the winner of the Louisa Solano Memorial Emerging Poet Award from Salamander, selected by Stephanie Burt. Recent work has appeared in or is coming soon from The Common, On the Seawall, and SIR among others. She’s at work on a series of mixed-media blackout poems, hem, drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Originally from the Boston area, she lives in Easthampton with her family and is the Program & Outreach coordinator for the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center.

Matt Donovan is the author of four books and two chapbooks, most recently We Are Not Where We Are (an erasure of Walden, co-authored with Jenny George, Bull City Press 2025) and The Dug-Up Gun Museum (a collection of poems about gun violence in America, BOA 2022). Donovan is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Rome Prize in Literature, and an NEA Fellowship in Literature, and he serves as Director of the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College.

Rebecca Hart Olander’s poetry and collaborative visual and written work has appeared in print, online, and in multiple anthologies. Her books include Dressing the Wounds (dancing girl press, 2019), Uncertain Acrobats (CavanKerry Press, 2021), a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award in Poetry and the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry, and Singing from the Deep End (CavanKerry Press, 2026). Rebecca has taught writing at Amherst and Smith colleges, Westfield State University, and Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop, and she works with poets in the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing. She is the editor/director of Perugia Press.

June 14, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30pm

Celebrate the jazz roots of Amherst with live sets from acclaimed saxophonist and UMass alum Chuck Langford. The program will repeat three times--at 2:30pm, 3:00pm, and 3:30pm. Join us!

A Tribute to the Jazz Roots of Amherst is presented as part of the 5th Annual Ancestral Bridges Juneteenth Legacy Celebration. Learn more and see the full line up of events here.

June 10, 6:30-7:30pm

In our third installment of the Politics & Policy lecture and discussion series, Dr. Jane Fountain, Distinguished Professor, co-founder of the National Center for Digital Government, and director of the School of Public Policy will present, "AI, Bias, and Public Policy: What to Know about Algorithms".

AI uses computational algorithms with potential to improve public policy and civic life. But some algorithms are based on biased data and encode those biases into decision making models. Biases of concern are related to ethnicity, gender, race, disabilities, age and related attributes. AI based models may reproduce biased decisions made in the past and residing in large databases which then influence procedures and processes that may intentionally or unintentionally disadvantage some people. Examples are drawn from facial recognition technologies, predictive policing and automated decision making in administrative systems. Explore some of the remedies proposed to enhance the prospects for fair, transparent and equitable systems.

This series is presented in partnership with the UMass School of Public Policy, the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences, and the Political Science Department.

May 8, 5:30-7:30pm

Looking for an opportunity to make a difference in your community and to have fun at the same time? Do you have skills you want to use, or skills you want learn? We want you! 

Join us for a fast-paced "speed dating" and networking event for nonprofits in need of volunteers and community members interested in volunteering. Light refreshments provided. See this event's lineup of nonprofits, learn more about the event, and register HERE.

Presented in partnership with the UMass Amherst Community Campaign and United Way of the Franklin & Hampshire Region.

May 6, 6:30-7:30pm

Dr. Charli Carpenter is a professor of Political Science specializing in international law and human security and director of Human Security Lab.

Series presented in partnership with the UMass School of Public Policy and the UMass Political Science Department.

April 24, 6:30-7:30pm

Dr. Ray La Raja is a professor of Political Science specializing in public policy and political reform and co-founder and co-director of the UMass Poll.

Series presented in partnership with the UMass School of Public Policy and the UMass Political Science Department.

April 9, 4:30pm

Join the Edwin C. Gentzler Translation Center at UMass Downtown for a special event with Victoria Offredi Poletto and Giovanna Bellesia Contuzzi. They will read from and discuss their translation of Adrián N. Bravi’s "My Language Is a Jealous Lover", which won the 2024 Mass Book Award for Translated Literature.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event through Amherst Books.

Sponsored by the Mass Book Awards Speakers Bureau and presented in collaboration with the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

April 3, 4–7 p.m.

Get ready to run! Join Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County at UMass Downtown for a Daffodil Run pre-race event to remember. Music, food, giveaways, 15% off all UMass gear, and more!

Purchase a $3 cowbell to ring during the race. The UMass Store will donate 10% of all April 3 sales at both UMass Downtown and the UMass Store on campus and 100% of all cowbell sale proceeds to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County.

March 14-16

Celebrate the grand opening of UMass Downtown, located at 108 N. Pleasant St. in the heart of downtown Amherst. Stop by UMass Amherst's new multipurpose retail, meeting, and micro-event space this weekend during our Grand Opening Sale. 15% off purchases and raffles on site all weekend. Check out the new space and save on some new and classic UMass favorites!

Friday, March 14, 10am-6pm
Saturday, March 15, 10am-4pm
Sunday, March 16, 10am-4pm