It’s that time of year again! Norwood Public Library is hosting its annual Scary Story Contest! Area teens are invited to showcase their creativity in a local writing contest. This year we are trying something new. We’ll be dividing the entries into two age groups/levels:

Grades 7-8th
Grades 9-12th

Within these levels three winners will be chosen, one for each of the following categories:

Scariest Setting
Creepiest Characters
Best Ending

In total there will be SIX winners: THREE from grades 7-8th and THREE from grades 9-12th.

To enter, please see submission guidelines below:

Word limit: 2,000 maximum.
Format: Typed. PDF, Word, or Google Doc.

Submissions can be emailed to nowlib@ncls.org or print copies can be dropped off at the Norwood Public Library circulation desk or metal outdoor bookdrop. A panel of three judges will determine the winners. Please only submit original stories. No AI generated content.

DEADLINE: October 23th at 4pm.
For more information, please contact us at (315) 353-6692 or nowlib@ncls.org

Winners will have their works posted on the Norwood Public Library website and receive a $25 gift card to the St. Lawrence Bookstore, generously donated by the Friends of the Norwood Public Library. Winners will be announced on October 31th.

Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Time: 1:30 pm Eastern Time (EST)  |12:30 pm Central Time (CST) | 11:30 am Mountain Time (MST) | 10:30 am Pacific Time (PST)  

Dr. Watanabe shares some of the most fascinating dinosaur finds from the past year.  Then, he will open things up for an audience Q&A.  Dr. Watanabe is an Associate Professor of Anatomy at the New York Institute of Technology and a Research Associate in the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Register here: https://amnh.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oVyt6bGNTe6q76ImfKXQ8Q#/registration

Announcing the winners of the 2026 Teen Poetry Contest: “Found” by Jeremiah Deshane, “The Summer I Met Her” by Lily Fedonick, and “The Day My Childish Soul Starts to Die” by Izzy Vezina. The winners each receive a $25 gift card to The Norwood News Cafe sponsored by The Friends of Norwood Public Library. Enjoy these poems from our local teen talent!

Found

By Jeremiah DeShane

Once filled with question and sadness,

I am now full of happy madness.

Melanie taught me it’s ok to show individuality.

While Billie taught me it’s ok to show vulnerability.

Gaga told me to be loud and proud.

Now because of them all I feel found.

They all help me escape.

Even when my whole world starts to shake.

I fly to a place far away. 

Where my body slowly begins to sway.

The Summer I Met Her

By: Lily Fedonick

The wind was blowing in our hair,

The golden sun was climbing down the hills kissing our cheeks, the

Day was slipping through our fingers faster than sand.

But it was only the beginning of our blossoming friendship.

We sat there in that same space, sharing stories that shouldn’t have mattered, but you stayed, 

Your ears stayed and your words stayed, making your raw, careless words feel filling.

Your laughter lingered throughout the empty house without you having to step a foot inside.

I carry this resonance through the quiet without breaking it, letting it slowly seep into silence.

Even now, I notice it in small moments— in quiet rooms with laughters that linger too long,

In the soft drip against the sink, the faint July rain that sustains our roots. 

And it brings me back to that same space where everything felt simple and enough.

It’s the way certain songs still taste like road trips and cheap snacks, and how a look across the room says more than a thousand pages.

We survived the awkward winters and growing pains, we learned to navigate into who we were supposed to be

Up until we realized we had no idea who we were. We were messy sketches of ourselves waiting for the ink to dry,

Through the borrowed clothes and the bad decisions, you were the only constant.

We didn’t need to have the answers as long as we had the same capricious questions.

We grew up, but we didn’t grow apart; we just expanded the space we share. 

So let the years keep slipping through our fingers like sand, we built something that doesn’t wash away with the tide.

Now, our history is a map we carry, a language we only speak. We pick up exactly where we left off,

As if the sun never set on that first July afternoon. 

The Day My Childish Soul Starts To Die 

By Izzy Vezina

I had karate in the building

With my energy booming,

with all my strength and velocity, 

With all of my will for heed.

My chest started chattering with clogged pain.

Pain violently padded my pretty body

And shattered me into shameful suffering,

I fell to the ground, telling all who heard.

My staff opt me out,

Knowing something is wrong.

I sobbed out the pain

So splitting the spared half and the suffering half of my child’s soul.

The pain never faded,

And got bigger,

Digging out of me

Like tentacles out of my decaying childhood heart.

I got dragged to the hag car

Who took me to the path of the hospital.  I howl cry.

I was pulled into the room of doom.

I found my realization.

Reality is bending itself.

Everything is breaking apart.

The child heavens inside of me is dissolving.

My kids’ sanity is collapsing.

Everything joyful will soon be

Seized…                       Help me…

April is National Poetry month! We’re inviting our local teens to submit their poems to the Norwood Public Library. Winners will be published on the library website and receive a gift card to The Norwood News Cafe! Prizes are sponsored by The Friends of Norwood Public Library.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN by the Board of Trustees of the Norwood Public Library that a special meeting of the qualified voters of the Special Legislative District will be held at the Norwood Public Library, 1 Morton St, Norwood, New York, on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 between the hours of 12:00 PM and 8:00 PM, to elect three (3) persons to the Board of Trustees to serve a term commencing June 1, 2026 and ending May 31, 2029, to succeed Leonard Halpern, Kathleen Hartman, and Bridgett Osypiewski.

Any citizen of the Norwood Library District age 18 or older who would like to run for a trustee position on the library’s Board of Trustees must submit a petition with 25 valid signatures in order to be placed on the ballot. An eligible candidate is one who is in the Norwood-Norfolk School District and who resides in the Towns of Potsdam or Stockholm. The petition forms can be picked up at the Norwood Public Library and must be returned to the library on or before the filing deadline of April 20, 2026 at 4:00 PM.

Please contact the library at (315) 353-6692 for an absentee ballot if needed.

Norwood Public Library will be closed today, following our school district’s lead, due to anticipated inclement weather. The True Crime Book Club will meet next Tuesday at 7pm.

January 9th – February 20th

This year we are challenging you to find new ways to enjoy your library! Join our Winter Library Challenge by picking up a bookmark and a list of activities from the Norwood Public Library. Complete three activities for a chance to win a cute bookish mug and a gift card to The Norwood News Cafe. Each child who completes the challenge will win a free book. Prizes are sponsored by The Friends of Norwood Public Library.

Here’s the list of our Winter Library Challenge activities:

-read a book from the NEW display

-check out a board game

-attend a program

-check out the Wild Center Pass

-read a magazine

-visit The Friendly Bookstore

-watch a movie/show on Kanopy

-listen to an audiobook on Libby

-visit Froggy, the library guinea pig

-check out an early literacy kit

-read a book set during winter

-watch a movie based on a book

-read a book from our local author collection

-check out the robots

-use a recipe from a library cookbook

-take a universal class online

-read the first book in a series

-use Artistworks

-bring a friend to the library

Stop by and visit us soon! Enjoy a warm cup of coffee, tea, or cocoa while you find some great books to read.

Best Horrifying Debut

The Photo Album by Jaelynn Rombough

        I just moved to a new house. It gives me chills like a light breeze. The floor tiles creaked every step I took. The house reeked of must and old wood. When I walked into the new house I was frightened, there were blood stains everywhere. I went and told my parents about it and they seemed oblivious that there’s weird things happening almost like it’s normal. I mean I tried to debate and articulate my feelings about moving with my parents, but they just wouldn’t give in. 

           When I walked into my new room it seemed eerie. There was only a book shelf there. I had a suspicion that there was a secret room, from all the murder and mystery shows and movies  I watched. I felt the wood trying to see if there was a button, and analyzing the old little blood stains you could barely see . I tried pushing it and it only moved a little and after a couple minutes I finally got it out of the way. “OH MY GOSH”! There was a hatch, I gathered the nerve to open it. Inside there laid a photo album and a note. I picked up the note and read it. It said “If you are reading this, leave this house before it’s too late. My name is Carol May, I lived here from 1962-1975. My sister was killed in this house by my psycho step mom, and I just can’t stay here anymore. I’m running away before I’m next. I hear her coming . PLEASE GET OUT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!” That was the end.  At the end of the note there was a tear stain and a photo of a little girl signed in the name of Carol May. I felt deep sorrow for her, she was just an innocent girl. I opened the photo album and there were a ton of pictures of swollen and bruised arms and random body parts. Some of the photos even had blood. It looked like someone was documenting it. 

       I frantically looked for my phone then I called my mom. “Yes sweety?” “Mom, I think I’m going crazy.” “What do you mean, what’s going on?”Mom I think I’m seeing things“ “Mom?” “Are you there” ”Oh but sweetie im not you mom” “look behind you” My heart stopped beating, I started wailing for help as I gasped for air. There was blood everywhere. I fell to the ground, and there…. Just standing there was a woman mumbling to herself quietly. As the flavor of the air was pure panic. It was Carol May. I recognized her from the photo. She still had the same crystal blue eyes. I could hear her breathing in my ear, and she was holding a bloody knife. “You really think that I was that innocent.” “People just didn’t see I was going insane.” I realised her psycho mom didn’t kill her sister. The flavor of the air was pure panic. She did. I was just laying there on the floor dying as I took my last breath.  

                                                    

       Carral May/ 1962