The New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany announces
its Fall 2016 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).
Fall 2016 Visiting Writers Series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html
Fall 2016 Classic Film Series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html
The
Writers Institute Fall 2016 schedule begins with an exciting new program
collaboration "The Creative Life: A Conversation Series at
UAlbany." Created and produced by the Writers Institute, University
Art Museum, and UAlbany's Performing Arts Center, in collaboration with WAMC
Public Radio, this new series features leading figures from a variety of
artistic disciplines in conversation about their creative inspirations, their
crafts, and their careers. Joyce Carol Oates, prolific author
of more than 160 books, will lead off the series on September 15 followed by Savion
Glover, tap dancing legend and Tony award-winning choreographer on
October 15.
A
second series, "The New Americans: Recent Immigrant Experiences in
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Film" examines the experiences of recent
immigrant groups in the United States. Guests will include Imbolo Mbue,
recipient of a million dollar advance, whose first novel Behold the
Dreamers (2016) is a riveting story about a young Cameroonian couple
making a new life in New York City just as the depression of the 2000s upends
the economy; Anne Fadiman, author of the bestselling nonfiction
book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997), which explores
the clash between Western medicine and the holistic healing traditions of a
Hmong refugee family from Laos; and director Mary Mazzio,
whose documentary film UNDERWATER DREAMS follows a group of high school
students, sons of undocumented Mexican immigrants, who enter a sophisticated
underwater robotics competition.
In addition to Joyce Carol Oates and Imbolo Mbue, the fall series includes
an exciting lineup of fiction writers: Garth Risk Hallberg,
author of the sweeping debut novel City on Fire, a national bestseller
and recipient of the largest advance for a first novel in U.S. publishing
history; Charles Baxter, who continues to show his mastery of
the short story form with his collection There's Something I Want You to Do;
James Lasdun, whose new novel is the psychological thriller The
Fall Guy; and Howard Frank Mosher, author of 10 acclaimed
novels set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.
The genre of poetry is represented by Stephen Burt, the
most influential poetry critic of his generation, who shares the breadth of his
knowledge of American poetry today in his new book The Poem is You: 60
Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them.
Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, the foremost expert on the biology of anxiety and
fear, presents an accessible exploration of the nature of these
emotions in his new book, Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat
Fear and Anxiety.
Our conflicted relationship with the natural world will be the topic of two
events sponsored in conjunction with the UAlbany Art Museum's exhibition Future
Perfect: Picturing the Anthropocene. Novelist Jennifer Haigh,
whose new novel Heat and Light (2016) explores the allure of fracking
for the residents of a ravaged coal town, and Jeff Goodell,
author of the nonfiction book How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and
the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate will present a joint reading
and discussion. As part of the Classic Film Series, screenwriter Kelly
Masterson will offer film commentary following the screening of the
cult film SNOWPIERCER, a science fiction thriller about the survivors of a
failed climate-change experiment that inadvertently initiates an ice age.
Additional highlights of the Classic Film Series include screenings of ZOOT
SUIT RIOTS, an episode in the PBS American Experience series with commentary by
Joseph Tovares, the film's writer and director; a newly
restored version of CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (1965), directed by and starring Orson
Welles; the 1924 French silent film L'INHUMAINE (THE INHUMAN WOMAN), with live
piano accompaniment by Mike Schiffer; SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, based on Kurt
Vonnegut's powerful anti-war novel; and a 30th Anniversary screening of
IRONWEED, adapted for the screen by William Kennedy from his Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel.
For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or
online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Writers Institute Announces Fall 2016 Season!
Thursday, February 5, 2015
A searing directorial debut-- Jason Osder
Jason Osder, who visits UAlbany on Friday, is profiled in Filmmaker magazine:
Osder’s searing directorial debut, Let the Fire Burn, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, is an archival footage marvel. With no narration and sparse title cards, it dives into the maelstrom that was the Philadelphia Police Department’s tragic raid on the black separatist group MOVE’s West Philadelphia compound in 1985, during which the home, where 13 men, women and children lived, was shot upon 10,000 times, doused with unspeakable amounts of water and then finally firebombed. Almost everyone inside died, and nearly 70 other homes in the surrounding working-class black community were destroyed.
More in Filmmaker magazine: http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/jason-osder/#.VNO-ll8o7s0
More about Osder's visit tomorrow: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/osder_jason15.html
Let the Fire Burn reviewed in the L. A. Times
L. A. Times critic Kenneth Turan reviews Let the Fire Burn (2013), by Jason Osder who visits UAlbany for a screening and Q&A tomorrow, Friday 2/6 at 7PM in Page Hall.
"Let the Fire Burn" is a brooding, disturbing documentary about an inferno that becomes an enigma. It earns its considerable impact by telling an unnerving story and leaving it, in ways both daring and effective, fundamentally unresolved.
The events detailed here are some of the most unsettling in modern American urban history. On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia police, stymied in a standoff that stemmed from a bitter conflict with a radical group called MOVE that had sputtered on and off for more than a decade, dropped an incendiary device on the row house that was the group's headquarters.
More in the L. A. Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/17/entertainment/la-et-mn-let-fire-burn-review
More about our event with Jason Osder: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/osder_jason15.html
Friday, March 29, 2013
Central Park Five Screening in Albany
Sarah Burns, daughter of major documentary filmmaker Ken Burns) and her husband David McMahon will present a Q&A following a screening of their new film, Central Park Five, winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award.
Sarah Burns and David McMahon codirected and cowrote the film with Ken Burns. Based on Sarah's book of the same name, the film documents a miscarriage of justice of epic proportions-- the wrongful conviction of five Harlem teenagers in the rape and beating of a white jogger in Central Park in 1989.
The event is cosponsored by UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice, PBS television station WMHT, and the New York State Writers Institute.
More about the event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html#central
More about the film on the PBS website: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/centralparkfive/
Picture: Sarah Burns Read More......
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Rwandan Actress to Visit US for first time
Friday, August 10, 2012
James Franco's film of "As I Lay Dying"
From the LA Times:
"Are you feeling like a William Faulkner character? Head to Mississippi, where open call casting sessions for the film adaptation of "As I Lay Dying" begin this week. Don't be surprised if you think you see James Franco; the Oscar-nominated actor adapted the novel for the screen, and will be directing." More. Read More......
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
John Sayles on "The Black Stallion"
He credits the novel, which he read at the age of 10, with making him aware of how to structure plot.
Sayles visited the Writers Institute on February 27, 2012. Read More......
Friday, February 24, 2012
John Sayles: A Tornado of Voices
John Sayles, who visits Monday, is interviewed by Alec Michod of The Rumpus about his new historical novel, A Moment in the Sun.
The Rumpus: Your new novel, A Moment in the Sun, is written in—I wouldn’t say English, exactly, because you’ve taken and twisted the language to make it your own. It reads like a tornado of voices.
John Sayles: Every character has their own language, voices and styles. There’s a chapter from the point of view of a correspondent, and it’s written like the correspondence of that time. I read a bunch of those guys, Richard Harding Davis, and picked up on their locutions, which aren’t locutions we use anymore. More.
Picture: American writer Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916)
Thursday, February 23, 2012
John Sayles: Filmmaker for the Environment
John Sayles, who visits UAlbany this coming Monday, Feb. 27, is this year's recipient of Duke University's LEAF Award for Lifetime Environmental Achievement.
"Nicholas School Dean Bill Chameides said the LEAF Award does not necessarily go to artists whose work is explicitly environmental, but goes to those who explore environmental themes on a profound level."
"'[Sayles examines] the theme of our connection to land, to the earth and to the difficulties we have in trying to balance the various needs and desires for the resources of that land,' Chameides said." More.
Picture: Water buffalo in Amigo, to be screened Friday, Feb. 24 in the Performing Arts Center uptown.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Raising Renee Premieres Tonight on HBO 2/22/2012
If you missed our screening of Raising Renee back in October 2011 (and the talkback with Oscar-nominated filmmakers Steve Ascher and Jeanne Jordan), you can still catch the premiere on HBO 2 tonight at 8PM.
The story of acclaimed artist Beverly McIver and her promise to take her sister Renee (who is mentally disabled) when their mother dies — a promise that comes due just as Beverly's career is taking off.
"In a notable fusion of subject and film, the same themes that fuel the artist’s distinguished body of work—race, class, family, disability—propel this cinematic portrait. Both are a testament to the transformative power of art. " -- Full Frame
More.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The Dawn of Rock and Roll
Check out the trailer for Honeydripper, starring Danny Glover and directed by John Sayles, to be screened 2/17 at the Performing Arts Center on the Uptown Campus.
John Sayles will visit the Writers Institute on 2/27.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
If You Read Only One Book....
NPR reviewer Lucia Silver said last May, " If you only read one book this summer, make it A Moment in the Sun."
The book's author is America's most influential independent filmmaker, John Sayles, who grew up in Schenectady, and who visits the Writers Institute on Monday, Feb. 27th. Two films by Sayles will also be screened as part of our Classic Film Series.
"Sayles has managed to create a work that is both cinematic and literary in its scope and style — a blend so entrancing that you could polish off its 955 pages in one long weekend...."
More.