The New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany announces its Spring 2014 schedule of visiting writer appearances and film series screenings. Events take place on the UAlbany uptown and downtown campuses and are free and open to the public (unless otherwise noted).
Spring 2014 Visiting Writers Series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html
Spring 2014 Classic Film Series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html
"The Spring 2014 Visiting Writers Series features old friends and new faces, always a good mix for literary events," said Institute Director Donald Faulkner. Highlighting the spring season are appearances by literary icon E. L. Doctorow, author of the new novel Andrew's Brain, which Booklist described as "an exquisitely disturbing, morally complex, tragic, yet darkly funny novel of the collective American unconscious;" poet and human rights activist Carolyn Forché, co-editor of the new anthology Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, featuring poems "composed at an extreme of human endurance;" a performance of American Place Theatre's adaptation of Richard Wright's classic autobiographical work Black Boy; Robert H. Patton, the grandson of legendary World War II General George S. Patton, and author of Hell Before Breakfast, a history of American War journalism; and Austin Bunn, who co-wrote the screenplay for the hit film KILL YOUR DARLINGS.
In addition to Doctorow, visiting fiction writers will include National Book Award winner (Three Junes) Julia Glass; novelist Walter Mosley, best known for his detective fiction, who will be reading with mystery writer and UAlbany's criminal justice scholar Frankie Y. Bailey; Dinaw Mengestu and Akhil Sharma, two distinguished young writers whose new work explores African and Asian immigrant experiences; and three authors with new short story collections-Albany Law School professor James D. Redwood; Italian novelist and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Francesca Marciano; and 2013 Man Booker International Prize winner Lydia Davis.
Nonfiction authors include investigative journalist Nick Turse, whose New York Times bestseller Kill Anything that Moves documents U. S. war crimes in Vietnam; and Walter Kirn, author of the new true crime nonfiction book Blood Will Out, about serial con artist Clark Rockefeller.
Playwright Christopher Durang, winner of the 2013 Tony Award for his comic Broadway hit Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will deliver the 18th Annual Burian Lecture on his career as a playwright. The Institute and UAlbany's English Department will also cosponsor a special celebration of the work of poet, translator, and former UAlbany professor Pierre Joris.
The Spring 2014 Classic Film Series features several film screenings that tie in with guests of the Visiting Writers Series, as well as appearances by three filmmakers. In addition to screening KILL YOUR DARLINGS followed by commentary by co-screenwriter Austin Bunn, the Institute will also be screening SWEET DREAMS, a documentary about a group of Rwandan women who form the first all-female drumming troupe and open the country's first ice cream parlor, with the film's director, Rob Fruchtman, providing commentary; and the Italian film MIELE (HONEY), with commentary by the film's screenwriter Francesca Marciano, who will also be visiting the Institute to read from her new story collection. Additional screenings of films with visiting writer tie-ins will include RAGTIME, based on E. L. Doctorow's award-winning novel, and UP IN THE AIR, based on the novel by Walter Kirn.
Rounding out the Classic Film Series will be screenings of the Vietnamese film CYCLO [XICH LO]; a Valentine's Day treat, the musical LOVELY TO LOOK AT; THE GRAPES OF WRATH, sponsored in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Food, Crime, and Justice Film Series; a St. Patrick's Day offering, THE QUIET MAN, starring John Wayne as a retired prizefighter; the Satyajit Ray film MAHANGAR [THE BIG CITY]; and the silent film THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK, with live piano accompaniment by Mike Schiffer.
The complete listing of the Visiting Writers Series and Classic Film Series schedules follows.
VISITING WRITER SERIES
January 30 (Thursday): Carolyn Forché, poet and human rights activist
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Carolyn Forché has written poetry about her firsthand experiences of political strife and violent conflict around the globe. Most recently, she is the co-editor with Duncan Wu of a new anthology, Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500 – 2001 (2014), featuring 300 poems "composed at an extreme of human endurance." The book is a companion to Forché's landmark 1993 anthology, Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness. Forché received the 2013 Academy of American Poets Fellowship for "distinguished poetic achievement."
February 4 (Tuesday): Walter Mosley, novelist, and Frankie Y. Bailey, mystery writer and criminal justice scholar
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Walter Mosley, bestselling author of more than 40 books, and "one of this nation's finest writers" (Boston Globe), is America's leading author of detective fiction in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Mosley is best-known for a series of mystery novels set in Los Angeles featuring African American private investigator Easy Rawlins. Mosley's twelfth Rawlins mystery, his first in six years, is Little Green (2013).
Frankie Y. Bailey, UAlbany Criminal Justice professor and novelist, is the author most recently of The Red Queen Dies (2013), the first novel in a "near-future" police procedural series set in Albany. She is also the author of five books in the Silver Dagger mystery series, featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart.
February 12 (Wednesday): American Place Theatre performance of Black Boy
Performance - 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Pre-performance discussion at 7 p.m.
Tickets: general public $15 in advance, $20 day of; students/seniors/UA faculty & staff $10 in advance, $15 day of
Box Office: (518) 442-3997; tickets@albany.edu
The "Literature to Life" program of American Place Theatre presents a verbatim one-man adaptation of the first half of Richard Wright's classic autobiographical work, Black Boy. The performance, in which the actor plays more than a dozen characters, dramatizes Wright's journey from childhood innocence to adulthood in the Jim Crow South.
Presented by the Performing Arts Center in conjunction with the Writers Institute, with support provided by the Diversity Transformation Fund, administered through the Office of Diversity and Inclusion; and the Holiday Inn Express.
February 18 (Tuesday): James D. Redwood, short story writer
Reading - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
James D. Redwood, Professor of Law at Albany Law School, is the author of a first collection of stories, Love Beneath the Napalm (2014), inaugural winner of the Notre Dame Review Book Prize. The stories are based on Redwood's experiences as an English teacher and social worker in 1970s Vietnam.
February 19 (Wednesday): Nick Turse, investigative journalist and military historian
Reading and discussion - 4:15 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Nick Turse, award-winning journalist specializing in national security and military issues, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (2013), an account of U.S. war crimes against Vietnamese civilians based on previously classified documents. His investigations of U.S. war crimes have earned him the Ridenhour Prize.
Cosponsored by Women Against War, and UAlbany's Journalism Program in conjunction with its 40th Anniversary
February 27 (Thursday): E. L. Doctorow, fiction writer
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
E. L. Doctorow, recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2013 Gold Medal, and the National Book Foundation's 2013 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, is "a writer of dazzling gifts and boundless, imaginative energy.... our great chronicler of American mythology" (Joyce Carol Oates). His novels include World's Fair (1985), winner of the National Book Award, and four other finalists for the same prize--The Book of Daniel (1971), Loon Lake (1980), Billy Bathgate (1989) and The March (2005). His newest novel is Andrew's Brain (2014), one man's reflections on his eventful life, loves, and tragedies, and a probing inquiry into the reliability of memory.
March 5 (Wednesday): A Celebration of Poet and Translator Pierre Joris
Panel discussion on the works of Pierre Joris - 2:00 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Moderated by Donald Faulkner, with poets and scholars Robert Kelly, Peter Cockelbergh, Belle Gironda, and Don Byrd
Conversation with Pierre Joris - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Moderated by Tomás Urayoán Noel
Reading by Pierre Joris - 8:00 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Pierre Joris, poet, translator, and scholar taught at UAlbany from 1992 to 2013. Joris's work bridges North American, European, and North African literary traditions and cultures. He is the author of more than 25 books and chapbooks of poetry, including Breccia: Selected Poems 1972-1986 (1987), Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999 (2001), and Barzakh: Selected Poems 2000-2012 (forthcoming 2014). Other notable works include three volumes of the avant-garde anthology series, Poems for the Millennium. He received the 2005 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
Cosponsored by the Writers Institute and UAlbany's English Department, with additional support from University Auxiliary Services, the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Fence, and Barzakh.
March 10 (Monday): The 18th Annual Burian Lecture presented by Christopher Durang, playwright
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
The Burian Lecture - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Christopher Durang is the author of the comic Broadway hit, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, winner of the 2013 Tony Award, New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Winner of three Obie Awards for playwriting, Durang was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his 2005 play, Miss Witherspoon.
Cosponsored by UAlbany's Theatre Department and funded by the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment
March 13 (Thursday): Dinaw Mengestu, fiction writer and journalist
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Campus Center Room 375
Dinaw Mengestu received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012, and was named one of the New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" writers in 2010. Born in Ethiopia, and raised in Illinois, Mengestu is the author of the novels The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2007), which received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His newest novel is All Our Names (2014), about an African university student who attempts to escape his revolutionary past and invent a new identity for himself in America.
March 25 (Tuesday): Walter Kirn, journalist, and fiction and nonfiction writer
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Walter Kirn is the author of the new nonfiction book Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade (2014), about the author's 10-year "friendship" with Clark Rockefeller, the serial con artist and murderer, who is currently serving a life sentence. Kirn is the National Correspondent for the New Republic, where he covers "politics and culture and their convergence." His books include the memoir, My Mother's Bible (2013) and the novels, Up in the Air (2001), and Thumbsucker (1999) that were made into major films. (see Classic Film Series March 7 listing for screening of UP IN THE AIR)
April 3 (Thursday): Julia Glass, novelist
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Campus Center Room 375
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Downtown Albany
Julia Glass published her first novel, Three Junes (2002), at the age of 46. The book earned extraordinary praise from reviewers and received the National Book Award for Fiction. Her new novel, And the Dark Sacred Night (2014), set in the Vermont woods and on Cape Cod, tells the story of a middle-aged man who seeks to discover the identity of the father he never knew.
Cosponsored by the Friends of the New York State Library
April 11 (Friday): Francesca Marciano, novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter
Reading - 4:15 p.m., University Hall Room 110
Francesca Marciano is an acclaimed Italian novelist and short story writer who writes her fiction in English, and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter who writes her scripts in Italian. Her newest book is the story collection, The Other Language (2014), which Jhumpa Lahiri called "an astonishing collection.... a vision of geography as it grounds us, as it shatters us, as it transforms the soul." Her novels include The End of Manners (2008), and Casa Rossa (2002). (see Classic Film Series April 11 listing for the screening of MIELE [HONEY], written by Francesca Marciano)
April 16 (Wednesday): Lydia Davis, short story author and translator
Reading and McKinney Writing Contest Award Ceremony - 8:00 p.m., Biotech Auditorium, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies Building, Rensselaer (RPI), Troy
Lydia Davis, winner of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize, will read from her newest story collection, Can't and Won't (2014). Masterpieces in miniature, the stories feature complaint letters, reflections on dreams, and small dilemmas. Davis has been called "one of the quiet giants of American fiction" (Los Angeles Times Book Review), and "one of the best writers in America" (Oprah's O Magazine). Her previous collections include The Collected Stories (2009), Varieties of Disturbance (2007), and Samuel Johnson is Indignant (2001).
Cosponsored in conjunction with Rensselaer's 72nd Annual McKinney Writing Contest and Reading and Vollmer W. Fries Lecture. For map and directions see: http://rpi.edu/tour/directions.html
April 22 (Tuesday): Akhil Sharma, Indian-American fiction writer
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Akhil Sharma, "a supernova in the galaxy of young, talented Indian writers" (Publishers Weekly), received the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Whiting Writers' Award for his first novel, An Obedient Father (2000). His much-anticipated second novel is Family Life (2014), the story of Indian-American immigrants who are forced to cope after one of the family's two sons suffers a dreadful accident.
April 29 (Tuesday): Robert H. Patton, novelist and historian
Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Reading - 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Robert H. Patton, novelist, historian, and grandson of legendary World War II General George S. Patton (1885-1945), is the author most recently of Hell Before Breakfast (2014), a history of American war journalism between 1860 and 1910, from the Civil War and Spanish American War to conflicts in Europe and Asia. He is also the author of the bestselling memoir, The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family (1994), which Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post named one of the best books of the year.
CLASSIC FILM SERIES
January 31 (Friday): CYCLO [XICH LO]
Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Tran Anh Hung (Vietnam, 1995, 123 minutes, color, in Vietnamese with English subtitles)
The first Vietnamese film to be nominated for an Oscar, and the winner of two top prizes at the Venice Film Festival, CYCLO tells the tale of a bicycle-taxi driver in Ho Chi Minh City who becomes entangled in a world of drugs and crime.
February 7 (Friday): RAGTIME
Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Milos Forman (United States, 1981, 155 minutes, color)
RAGTIME is based on E. L. Doctorow's best-selling novel of sprawling plot lines, and fictional characters and historical figures whose lives intersect in New York City during the early 1900s. The film version focuses on the story of Coalhouse Walker, Jr., a black piano player who seeks justice for an incident involving a group of racists. The film was nominated for eight Oscars and seven Golden Globe awards. (see Visiting Writers Series February 27 listing for an appearance by E. L. Doctorow)
February 14 (Friday): LOVELY TO LOOK AT
Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy and Vincente Minnelli; choreographer Hermes Pan (United States, 1952, 103 minutes, color)
A lush 1950s Technicolor remake of the 1935 Astaire and Rogers musical ROBERTA, this romantic comedy is among the most visually dazzling films of its era.
February 28 (Friday): THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Film screening - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by John Ford; cinematographer Gregg Toland (United States, 1940, 129 minutes, b/w)
Based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an Oklahoma family forced off their land during the Dust Bowl, THE GRAPES OF WRATH was widely considered the greatest American movie of its time. Nominated for seven Oscars, it won for Best Director. UAlbany history professor Kendra Smith-Howard will moderate a discussion immediately following the screening.
Sponsored in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Food, Crime, and Justice Film Series
March 7 (Friday): UP IN THE AIR
Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Jason Reitman (United States, 2009, 109 minutes, color)
George Clooney portrays a corporate downsizing expert who travels around the globe restructuring companies and firing people in this acclaimed adaptation of the 2001 novel by Walter Kirn. The film received over 70 award nominations, winning Golden Globe awards for Best Screenplay and Best Actor for George Clooney, and the American Film Institute's Movie of the Year. (see Visiting Writers Series March 25 listing for an appearance by Walter Kirn).
March 14 (Friday): THE QUIET MAN
Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by John Ford (United States, 1952, 129 minutes, color)
Director John Ford called upon his friend and favorite actor, John Wayne, to play a former prizefighter who retires to the Irish village of his birth. Unexpectedly, he falls in love with a fiery red-head (Maureen O'Hara), but must negotiate his way around her disapproving brother (Victor McLaglen).
March 28 (Friday): MAHANAGAR [THE BIG CITY]
Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Satyajit Ray (India, 1963, 122 minutes, b/w, in Bengali with English subtitles, and English)
In Calcutta during the 1960s, a young housewife takes a job as a salesperson to help support her family. That decision puts her in conflict with her children, her in-laws, and eventually her husband. Famed Indian director Satyajit Ray won the Best Director Award at the 1964 Berlin International Film Festival for this celebrated landmark of world cinema.
April 4 (Friday): THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK
Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Josef von Sternberg (United States, 1928, 76 minutes, b/w, silent with live musical accompaniment by Mike Schiffer)
In this 1928 silent masterpiece directed by Josef von Sternberg, a steamboat stoker working on the New York City waterfront saves a woman who has jumped off a pier into the briny water below attempting to commit suicide. The selfless act changes his life forever.
April 11 (Friday): MIELE [HONEY]
Film screening of MIELE [HONEY] and discussion with screenwriter Francesca Marciano - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Valeria Golino (Italy, 2013, 96 minutes, color, in Italian with English subtitles)
An official selection at Cannes, HONEY is the story of Irene, an "assisted suicide activist" who performs illegal services to assist the terminally ill. She faces a painful dilemma when a healthy man requests her help in ending his life. The film's screenwriter, Francesca Marciano, will provide film commentary and answer questions immediately following the screening. Marciano's recent films as a co-screenwriter include A FIVE STAR LIFE (2013), Bernardo Bertolucci's ME AND YOU (2012), and the Oscar-nominated DON'T TELL (2005). (see Visiting Writers Series April 11 listing for an afternoon reading by Francesca Marciano)
April 25 (Friday): SWEET DREAMS
Film screening with commentary by producer/director Rob Fruchtman - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Rob and Lisa Fruchtman (Rwanda and United States, 2012, 84 minutes, color, in Kinyarwanda with English subtitles)
SWEET DREAMS is a documentary that follows the remarkable story of a group of Rwandan women who, in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, form the country's first all-female drumming troupe, and open the country's first ice cream parlor, with the help of the Brooklyn-based Blue Marble Ice Cream Company. Rob Fruchtman, the film's producer/director will provide commentary and answer questions immediately following the screening.
Sponsored in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Food, Crime, and Justice Film Series
Seminar: Rob Fruchtman will hold an informal seminar on documentary filmmaking at 4:15 p.m. on Friday in the Standish Room, Science Library, on the UAlbany uptown campus. Fruchtman won the Documentary Director award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival for his HBO feature film SISTER HELEN. He has also won three Emmys for his work with PBS.
May 2 (Friday): KILL YOUR DARLINGS
Film screening and discussion with screenwriter Austin Bunn - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by John Krokidas (United States, 2013, 104 minutes, color)
Austin Bunn co-wrote the screenplay for the hit film KILL YOUR DARLINGS (2013) with his college roommate John Krokidas, the film's director. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, the film stars Daniel Radcliffe as poet Allen Ginsberg and Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr in a story of murder and gay awakening set in New York City amid the nascent Beat poetry scene.
Seminar: Austin Bunn will hold an informal seminar on screenwriting at 4:15 p.m. in the Science Library, Room 340, on the UAlbany uptown campus.
For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.
