Meet FPL’s new Youth Services staff!

Falmouth Public Library welcomes two new staff members to the Children’s Room. Marissa Antosh is our new Children’s Librarian and Department Head and Deirdre Detjens is FPL’s new Children’s Program Assistant. 

Who are Ms. Marissa and Ms. Deirdre?

Ms. Marissa joins the Falmouth Public Library from her most recent position as Children’s Librarian in Duxbury. She has lived in Falmouth for the past 3 years and in Massachusetts since 2013. In Duxbury, her favorite programs were Read-to-a-Dog and anything related to making art. A few years ago, Ms. Marissa dressed up as a dinosaur for a special Dinosaur Tea Party at the Duxbury Senior Center and wrote and performed a rap about being a librarian (but not at the same time)!

Ms. Marissa has worked in libraries since 2008. She grew up in Connecticut and after graduating from college decided to pursue a career as a librarian. After visiting Falmouth for many years, she decided she wanted to live and work here, and now she does!

On her own time, Marissa likes to make all sorts of art. From knitting, spinning, and dyeing fabric with natural materials to bookbinding, sewing, and mending, she likes anything that, as she likes to say, is “tedious and old-fashioned.” Most recently, she entered a box in the Falmouth Art Center’s “Out of the Box” exhibit and sale. She has also submitted art to the Woods Hole Public Library Community Art Project twice. This past summer, her piece “The Roaring 2020s” featured a flapper-style dress embellished with KN95 masks and elastic as fringe to highlight the ways the 2020s are reflecting the 1920s in a variety of ways. 

Ms. Marissa also enjoys reading non-fiction and spending time with her family. She loves dogs and has a Yorkie named Ruby. Her parents have a Labradoodle named Maisie who is a CAP Certified Therapy Dog and she hopes to bring back FPL’s Read-to-a-Dog program and maybe Maisie will get to visit the library in the future! Ms. Marissa’s favorite middle grade book she read this year was Frankie & Bug by Gayle Forman.

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Ms. Deirdre is very excited to join the Falmouth Public Library’s Youth Services staff and has lived in Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Washington & Alaska. Ms. Deirdre’s last position was in the school library at a very diverse K-3 elementary school in the Mid-Cape area. In her school library, besides having books, bean bag chairs, puzzles, games & Legos, she fostered Diamondback Terrapin turtles. These turtles hatched from eggs laid at Sandy Neck Beach Park, West Barnstable. She fostered up to 3 hatchlings and her 3rd graders participated in a naming contest every year! 

When not at work, Ms. Deirdre likes to garden. She volunteers as a Cape Cod Master Gardener participating with the School Garden Committee, as well as at Hyannis West Elementary’s School Garden by helping to prepare classroom kits, teach classes, and maintain the garden area. 

For the past 7 summers, Ms. Deirdre guided kayak trips for RideAway Adventures and was a member of both MassAudubon’s Long Pasture and Cape Cod Maritime Museum’s Education Department.  Two books that Ms. Deirdre enjoyed this year were The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life by Margaret Roach (adult nonfiction) and Aaron Slater, Illustrator by Andrea Beaty (children’s picture book).

They are excited to meet you! 

Next time you are downtown, drop by the Children’s Room at the Main Library to say hello to Ms. Marissa and Ms. Deirdre.