Join us in the Athenaeum Art Gallery for the celebratory book launch of 2050: Vermonters Take a Swipe at the Future, essays collected by Bill Mares, edited by Jane Smith, illustrated by Don Hooper. This collection of humorous, serious, and dystopian essays and stories features contributions from thirty-seven Vermonters! Readers will be Mark Breen, Jane Kitchel, Scudder Parker, Eric Duncan, Brett Stanciu, Ben Doyle. Green Mountain Books will be selling copies, and essay authors will be signing.

Vermonters—from students and octogenarians, businesspeople and academics, to poets and journalists—take a half-serious, half-humorous approach to imagining life in Vermont in twenty-five years. What they all have in common is a deep love of Vermont. 2050: Vermonters Take a Swipe at the Future is the final literary project of Bill Mares, who died in 2024.

“As this marvelous book makes clear…that sense of underlying community will bring us through.” —Bill McKibben, author and climate activist

A reception with refreshments will follow the reading. The event is free, ADA accessible, and open to the public.