Visitors to the New York State Writers Institute whose books appear among the newly released "100 Notable Books of 2014" of the New York Times include:
Dinaw Mengestu, Rivka Galchen (who is in the office as we speak, but as a spouse), Lorrie Moore, Siri Hustvedt, Institute Fellow Lydia Davis, Joseph O'Neill (also here in the office at the moment), Louise Gluck, Akhil Sharma, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, Marilynne Robinson, Francine Prose, Colm Toibin, Susan Minot, James McPherson, Diane Ackerman, Gary Shteyngart and Elizabeth Kolbert.
Complete list here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2014.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Picture: Rivka Galchen.
Virgin Islands author Tiphanie Yanique, who visited us last week, explores the unknowns of her grandmother's Puerto Rican childhood on the Op Ed page of Wednesday's New York Times:
My grandmother was raised in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. She said the name, Vega Baja, meaning the “low plains,” with such romance that it was clear she longed for the place. In her stories she described a big house, and a farm where the children could eat the fruit from the trees and learned to milk a cow. Every Sunday after church they went to the beach. She taught herself to swim because the other children always played in the deep water and she hated being left behind.
More in the NY Times: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/the-other-side-of-the-living-sea/
More about her visit with fellow first-time novelist Jacinda Townsend: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/townsend_yanique14.html
Poet Ed Hirsch visits tomorrow (10/21) to have a conversation about poetry with fellow poets Kimiko Hahn and Marie Howe. Hirsch is interviewed by Elizabeth Floyd Mair of the Times Union about his new reference work on the art of poetry, A Poet's Glossary:
Q: You're a poet. What was it like for you to work for 15 years or so on this project of explaining in a concise yet thorough way such a huge array of poetic traditions?
A: It was a great pleasure, an offshoot of my vocation. I found working on "A Poet's Glossary" utterly absorbing. Of course, I also worked on other things during those 15 years — I had poems to write, a job to go to — but I always seemed to return to the glossary with renewed curiosity. I see the world of poets as a kind of extended family. I was always wondering what other members of the family were doing at different times in different parts of the world. Sometimes I was outraged, sometimes delighted. But I was always interested in what they were up to.
More in the Times Union: http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Chapter-and-verse-5827472.php
More about the event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/poets_hirschhahnhowe14.html
In case you missed it, Paul Grondahl writes about our wonderful event on Wednesday 10/1 with John Lahr in the Times Union:
Biographer John Lahr Dishes on Tennessee Williams at the Writers Institute
Tennessee Williams once drew a pie chart depicting how he divided his time: 90 percent working, 9 percent fighting against lunacy and 1 percent socializing with friends.
The former New Yorker chief drama critic, John Lahr, dissects the workaholic and celebrated playwright in a monumental new biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh," a 784-page volume published on Sept. 22 by W.W. Norton.
It has received enthusiastic reviews. The Wall Street Journal called it "by far the best book ever written about America's greatest playwright" and literary insiders have already placed it on a list for National Book Award consideration.
More in the TU: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Biographer-John-Lahr-dishes-on-Tennessee-Williams-5797788.php
John Lahr, who visits the Writers Institute this Wednesday, Oct. 1st, receives high praise from some notable admirers for his new biography, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (2014).
More about Lahr's upcoming visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/lahr_john14.html
‘Splendid beyond words. It would be hard to imagine a more satisfying biography.’Bill Bryson
‘Could this be the best theater book I’ve ever read? It just might be. Tennessee Williams had two great pieces of luck. Elia Kazan to direct his work and now John Lahr to make thrilling sense of his life’John Guare, author of Six Degrees of Separation, House of Blue Leaves, Atlantic City
This is a masterpiece about a genius. Only John Lahr, with his perceptions about the theater, about writers, about poetry and about people could have written this book. What a marvelous read, with brilliantly detailed research.’Helen Mirren
‘John Lahr’s magnificent biography…gathers material from a vast array of sources, including Williams’s diaries, poems, letters and the recollections of countless friends and colleagues,to trace how the personal and the creative lives interweave throughout the whole span of Williams’s oeuvre. The result is at once sensitive and magisterial, and it fulfils the ultimate test for a literary biography by convincing you that the works cannot be understood without it. Once you have read it, it becomes part of their meaning.’John Carey, lead review, Sunday London Times
‘This is by far the best book ever written about America’s greatest playwright. John Lahr, the longtime drama critic for the New Yorker, knows his way around Broadway better than anyone. He is a witty and elegant stylist, a scrupulous researcher, a passionate yet canny advocate… Hebrings us as close to Williams as we are ever likely to get.’J.D. McClatchy,Wall Street Journal
Here's Dennis Yusko's article in the Times Union on this past weekend's wonderful event with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the Ballroom of the UAlbany Campus Center:
Speaking at a book-signing in the University of Albany's Campus Center Ballroom, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand received hardy applause Saturday when she pledged to keep fighting to have military lawyers — not superiors — hear allegations of sexual abuse among service members. The author of "Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World" told nearly 300 people who bought her book that some victims of sexual assault in the military don't report the crimes because they do not trust military brass to properly investigate and punish suspects.
Gillibrand, 47, said removing military leaders from decision-making roles was crucial for objective investigations. She said she is committed to ensuring victims weren't blamed.
"That second betrayal is the thing they cannot overcome," the senator said.
Gillibrand spent more than an hour at the book signing and reading, which was sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza. She answered questions from Marion Roach Smith, author of "The Memoir Project, A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text on Writing & Life." Seated and separated by a coffee table, the women discussed some of the major themes from "Off the Sidelines": female empowerment, politics, family.
More in the TU: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Gillibrand-Military-sex-abuse-bill-will-pass-5785655.php
Alison Lurie, who visits us on Thursday, September 18, is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist who applies her wit and insight to the meaning of ordinary architecture in her new book, The Language of Houses (2014).
The book is reviewed by Kathleen Hirsch in the Boston Globe:
Lurie serves as able guide on an opening overview of basic architectural themes: style, scale, materials. Concepts such as formal and informal, open and shut, darkness and light, as well as the influences of foreign and regional idioms, become the building blocks on which she proceeds into her discussion of dwellings. We learn that the simple, unadorned, home intended to convey “green” values, often uses “old bricks and boards that in fact cost more than new ones,” while a suburban McMansion’s pricey entrance is coupled with cheap siding and exposed ductwork out back. She chronicles the evolution of the Colonial meeting house into Gothic worship sites that are mini-theaters with their raised altars, lavish pipe organs, and stage lighting. Gender differences abound: In homes and offices, men prefer what she calls “prospects”; women, “refuge.”
More in the Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2014/08/30/book-review-the-language-houses-alison-lurie/yySBJHfY7IjpAFCT60gU0L/story.html
More about Lurie and upcoming events: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#lurie
The Language of Houses by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and reigning NYS Author Alison Lurie (who visits us on Thurs. 9/18) is reviewed in the Wall St. Journal:
Le Corbusier may have decreed that the house should be "a machine for living," but Alison Lurie knows architecture carries a far greater moral charge than such minimalist efficiency implies. In "The Language of Houses," she takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the social and psychological significance of private and public structures: schools, churches, government buildings, museums, prisons, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and of course homes. She makes a powerful argument that how we choose to order the space we live and work in reveals far more about us, our place in the world and our preoccupations than we know. Architectural design is both a mirror and molder of human experience.... The Language of
Houses is a mine of adroit observation, uncovering apparently humdrum
details to reveal their unexpected, and occasionally poignant, human meaning.
More in the Wall St. Journal: http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-language-of-houses-by-alison-lurie-1409345436
More about Lurie's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/lurie_alison14.html
More on the upcoming Visiting Writers Series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html
"Engrossing, enriching, and elegant!" - Boston Globe
The Guardian celebrates the 30th birthday of the science fiction novel Neuromancer by William Gibson, scifi author and technology prophet (according to many). Gibson visits RPI under the cosponsorship of the New York State Writers Institute, on Sunday, November 9th.
More about Gibson's upcoming event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#Gibson
From the Guardian:
On its release, Neuromancer won the "big three" for science fiction: the Nebula, Philip K Dick and Hugo awards. It sold more than 6m copies and launched an entire aesthetic: cyberpunk. In predicting this future, Gibson can be said to have helped shape our conception of the internet. Other novelists are held in higher esteem by literary critics, but few can claim to have had such a wide-ranging influence. The Wachowskis made The Matrix by mashing Gibson's vision together with that of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander is a facsimile of Molly Millions, the femme fatale in Neuromancer. Every social network, online game or hacking scandal takes us a step closer to the universe Gibson imagined in 1984.
More in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/28/william-gibson-neuromancer-cyberpunk-books
Full schedule of upcoming events: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#lurie
"This morning I stumbled upon the poetry of Marie Howe, and once again I'm humbled by the power of words on a page, and a writer's ability to bestow meaning to feelings that would otherwise remain forever trapped inside me. In a recent podcast interview, the poet Marie Howe was speaking of the power of words to reveal the human condition, and how the older she gets, the more of herself she unmasks through her writing. She later said, 'to be able to move through your life transparently would be a relief.'"
More in the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanpaul-bedard/in-the-company-of-words-and-strangers_b_5762190.html
Reigning New York State Poet Marie Howe visits the Writers Institute on Tuesday, October 21st with fellow poets Edward Hirsch and Kimiko Hahn.
For a full schedule of events, visit our webpage: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/#.VA26El_D_s1
For more about NY State Poet Marie Howe: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_marie12.html
Acclaimed novelist Alison Lurie, who opens our Fall 2014 Visiting Writers Series, is interviewed in the August 17 issue of National Geographic:
Acclaimed Novelist Alison Lurie Thinks Buildings Say a Whole Lot About Us
Watch an interview with Joe Persico at the Writers Institute in 2004 on our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5gbTLDeLEo&feature=youtu.be
Best-selling nonfiction writer Joseph Persico authored 11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour: Armistice Day, 1918 (2004, Random House), which recounts the final bloody days and hours of the First World War. The book details how Allied commanders, in pursuit of military glory, sacrificed the lives of thousands of soldiers in senseless attacks on German positions, though fully aware that nation had already surrendered. Persico's books, some of them bestsellers, have included My Enemy, My Brother: Men and Days of Gettysburg (1977), Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents during World War II (1979), The Imperial Rockefeller: A Biography of Nelson A. Rockefeller (1982), Murrow: An American Original (1988), Casey: The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey from OSS to CIA (1990); Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial (1994), and Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (2001). Persico collaborated with General Colin Powell on My American Journey (1996), which follows Powell's life from his birth in Harlem through his distinguished career in the U.S. Military, including his rise to influence at the Pentagon, as well as his role in the Vietnamese, Panamanian and Iraqi conflicts. A graduate of UAlbany and Guilderland resident, Persico served on the commission that oversaw the design of the new National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, and penned the words that appear on the monument, "Here we mark the price of freedom."
Two community treasures lost: An appreciation
Joseph E. Persico, acclaimed historian and biographer, dies at 84
The Writers Institute mourns the passing of Ruby Dee, pioneering stage and screen actress, and civil rights activist.
Ruby Dee visited the Writers Institute in March 2005 where she delivered the 9th Annual Burian Lecture, funded by the Jarka and Grayce Susan Burian Endowment, and cosponsored by the Department of Theatre.
From the New York Times:
"Ruby Dee, one of the most enduring actresses of theater and film, whose public profile and activist passions made her, along with her husband, Ossie Davis, a leading advocate for civil rights both in show business and in the wider world, died on Wednesday at her home in New Rochelle, N.Y. She was 91."
More about her visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/dee_ruby.html
Some obituaries: http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/12/showbiz/obit-ruby-dee/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/arts/ruby-dee-actress-dies-at-91.html?_r=0
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/06/12/daughter-actress-ruby-dee-dead-at-91/10373935/
A call for applications....
The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is a one-time grant of $1,500 for an emerging writer of color.
An unpublished writer is preferred, although publication of one work of short fiction or academic work will not disqualify an applicant. This grant is intended to support the recipient in activities related to writing and career development. These activities include workshops, seminars, conferences, and retreats; online courses; and research activities required for completion of the work.
The grant is administered by Sisters in Crime, a 3,600-member organization of mystery authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers and librarians. Sisters in Crime was founded by Sara Paretsky and a group of women at the 1986 Bouchercon in Baltimore. In 2014 the group invites members to: “SinC Up With Great Crime Writing! Our mission is to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers.”
More: http://www.sistersincrime.org/associations/10614/files/14EleanorTaylorBland-GrantAnnouncement.pdf
Picture: Mystery writer Eleanor Taylor Bland (1944-2010).
From today's Times Union:
Opera troupe workshops adaptation of William Kennedy's 'Roscoe'
Hollis Seamon, this year's featured guest author at the New York State Summer Young Writers Institute for high school-aged writers, tied for the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award ("Ippy") Gold Medal for Short Fiction for her story collection, Corporeality.
More 2014 "Ippy" results here: http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1791
Students at the Young Writers Institute will read Seamon's 2013 young adult novel, Somebody Up There Hates You, about a 17-year-old battling cancer.
Booklist said, "Seamon’s first young-adult novel is a tender, insightful, and unsentimental look
at teens in extremis. It brings light to a very dark place, and in so doing,
does its readers a generous service."
More about Hollis Seamon: http://www.skidmore.edu/youngwriters/guest-author.php
More about the New York State Summer Young Writers Institute: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/nyssywi.html
From UAlbany's Facebook page:
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