Opportunities for Readers and Writers

Don't forget to be aware of kids playing outside this week, as spring sports gear up and schools are closed.

You Need To Know Helping Your Neighbors: Fresh Start Exercise, on Mountain Boulevard, is collecting personal items such as creams and soaps (hypoallergenic, please, if possible) to distribute to local seniors in local affordable housing deveopments at Easter. It's a great way to help someone out—just bring your donation (which can also be monetary) to Fresh Start Exercise and they will take care of the delivery.

You Need To Know Photographing Your Garden: You know your garden was great last year, but then the photos you took are so ... lifeless. Learn how to fully capture the beauty you've worked so hard for with a Garden Photography Workshop, offered by Brien Szabo of Nature Images 321, 9 a.m. at the Leonard J. Buck Garden in Far Hills. He'll show you how to use multiple-exposure images, filters and blur techniques to bring out the wild in your flowers and the snap in your dragons. Register online or contact 908-234-2677, ext. 21, for information.

You Need To Know About Putting Pen to Paper: Metaphorically speaking ... maybe. Stop by the Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Bridgewater at 7 p.m. for the next meeting of the NJ Writing Group. If you've been working on a manuscript, bring it along and get some helpful guidance. 

You Need To Know About The Help: Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help, that is. Join the Warren Township Library Book Club, which meets tonight at 7:15 p.m. in the library. Set in 1960s Mississippi, The Help looks at life in segregated America for African-American domestic staff workers.

You Need To Know Pool Exercises: The is offering sessions featuring exercises from the Arthritis Foundation Aquatics Program at 9:15 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The gentle exercises are designed to help joints inflamed by arthritis or other rheumatic diseases. Call the YMCA at 908-704-6346 to register or learn more about the program.