Lemon Andersen on the front page of the TU Preview section

 

Tony Award-winning hip hop poet Lemon Andersen, who visits UAlbany on Thursday, November 6th, will be the subject of several different events at the University over the course of the next three weeks.

Andersen is profiled on the front page of the Times Union "Preview" section by Connor Kelly:

Brooklyn wordsmith, artist and actor Lemon Andersen, 39, will be visiting the University at Albany next month, but the group he will resonate most with just might be high school students.

That's because Andersen, a high school dropout himself, believes in inspiring young people through his stories, just as stories he read while in prison inspired him. He hopes those in similar situations can escape the life of poverty and crime that he experienced firsthand.

The stories Andersen crafts, typically inspired by his experiences growing up and living in Brooklyn, take the form of performance-based spoken word poetry, with a focus on rhythm and storytelling.

"I don't do anything without teaching," said Andersen. "I'm teaching what I'm learning everywhere I go. For me, it's not a job, it's a lifestyle. I like being a rock star in the classroom; I like showing up with a strong curriculum — hopefully, it inspires alternatives.

More in the Times Union:   http://www.timesunion.com/entertainment/article/Unorthodox-educator-5840311.php

More about our events celebrating Lemon Andersen:  http://www.albany.edu/news/54982.php

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Lethem on Front Page of NY Times Book Review

Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem (who visits today) was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review last Sunday by Yiyun Li.

Longtime readers of Jonathan Lethem will not be surprised to learn that New York City is the setting of his new novel, “Dissident Gardens,” though center stage this time is not the author’s native Brooklyn or the Upper East Side but Queens — specifically, Sunnyside Gardens, the planned community complex built in the 1920s. Readers may, however, be either disappointed or relieved to find no superheroes, no aliens, not even a Tourette’s-afflicted self-appointed private detective. No genre-bending this time, the novel seems to say: spanning 80 years and three generations, it realistically portrays an enchanted — or disenchanted — garden of American revolutionaries.

More in the NYTBR:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/books/review/jonathan-lethems-dissident-gardens.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

More about Lethem's visit today:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/lethem_jonathan13.html

Full series:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#lethem

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The Bard of Brooklyn

TIME magazine proclaimed Jonathan Lethem "The Bard of Brooklyn" in a 2003 review of his acclaimed novel, The Fortress of Solitude.

"one of the richest, messiest, most ambitious, most interesting novels of the year."

Read more of Lev Grossman's review in TIME: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,483318,00.html

Lethem opens our Fall 2013 series Wednesday, 9/11:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/lethem_jonathan13.html

See the full series here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#lethem

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