Helen Czerski, the BBC's female face of science TV, talks about hyenas and their sense of smell, and what engineers can learn from them. Czerski visits Albany from London this coming Thursday. 
The New York State Writers Institute mourns the loss of E. L. Doctorow, novelist and editor. As an editor at The Dial Press, Doctorow acquired William Kennedy's first novel, The Ink Truck, in 1968.
Doctorow served as New York State Author under the Institute's sponsorship from 1989 to 1991.
Kennedy's 50 year friendship with Doctorow is detailed in a 2014 Times Union article by E. L. Doctorow at the time of his last visit to Albany in March 2014:
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/A-literary-friendship-spanning-five-decades-5289119.php
The New York Times obituary is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/books/el-doctorow-author-of-historical-fiction-dies-at-84.html?_r=0
Doctorow's State Author page: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/doctorow.html
YouTube footage from Doctorow's visit here in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLSc-ovXhTKHdJMhm8WSYAJ2-0McMME_0v&v=fOvEeCPj4yQ
See a 2001 episode of "The Writer" featuring the late crime fiction genius Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), based on his visit to the New York State Writers Institute in September 2001, two days before the catastrophe of 9/11.
"The Writer" series was a coproduction of the NYS Writers Institute and PBS television station WMHT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOPDVQNmOMs
Former Institute videographer Hugo Perez, director of "The Writer," introduces.
More on Leonard's visit to Albany: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/leonardelmore.html
Watch a 2-minute video featuring America's first movie star "America's Sweetheart," silent actress Mary Pickford (a Canadian actually), who rose to fame portraying little girls well into her thirties.
As the YouTube poster notes, over-sized sets were built to accentuate her already petite frame in order to make her look as childlike as possible.
At the age of 26, she portrays both child and woman in the 1919 feature, Daddy-Long-Legs, to be screened this Friday, March 30, 7:30PM at Page Hall, University at Albany downtown. Free as always.
Teju Cole talks about how his literary education really began when he grabbed books randomly off the shelf to read during his morning commute to a short internship as an exchange student in Boston.
The three books (The Old Man and the Sea, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and The Catcher in the Rye) that he read during this time left an impression not only on him but also on his new, award-winning novel, Open City.
See the YouTube video of Cole's archival interview at the Writers Institute, February 10, 2012.
Masha Gessen, Russian journalist who visits on March 8th, writes about a Russian filmmaker, Pavel Bardin (pictured here), who is creating a compilation of filmed statements by ordinary Russians for publication on YouTube. Article.
MOSCOW — Every night last week, writers, artists, actors, ad men, office managers and assorted others climbed the stairs to the fifth floor of a converted factory building in Moscow to make a statement. Pavel Bardin, a well-known young film director, had set up a camera in a conference room there. Everyone who came in — some by invitation, some having found out about the filming from friends or Facebook — wrote his or her name and vocation on a length of masking tape, and named his or her reason for planning to attend what would be a giant protest on Saturday, the 24th.
Each person followed a simple formula: make an I-statement consisting of just the subject and verb, then expand in a sentence or two. “I love.” “I know.” “I fear.” “I want.” “I can.”
As in, “I love my children…” “I know how to talk to people…” “I fear violence…” “I want to be proud of my country…” “I can imagine a different future…” More.