Ann Beattie, who visits this coming Tuesday, shares some of her all-time favorite short stories in a New York Times "By the Book" interview:
Among them: “Twilight of the Superheroes” and “Your Duck Is My Duck,” by Deborah Eisenberg; “Way Down Deep in the Jungle,” by Thom Jones; “Oxygen,” by Ron Carlson; “Nettles” and “The Albanian Virgin,” by Alice Munro; “The Fat Girl,” by Andre Dubus; “We Didn’t,” by Stuart Dybek; “Tits-Up in a Ditch,” by Annie Proulx; “Bruns,” by Norman Rush; “Escapes,” by Joy Williams; “Yours,” by Mary Robison; “The Dog of the Marriage,” by Amy Hempel; “The Fireman’s Wife,” by Richard Bausch; “The Womanizer,” by Richard Ford; “Helping,” by Robert Stone; “No Place for You, My Love,” by Eudora Welty; “Are These Actual Miles,” by Raymond Carver; “People Like That Are The Only People Here,” by Lorrie Moore; “Last Night,” by James Salter; “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” by Russell Banks; “Hunters in the Snow,” by Tobias Wolff; Rebecca Lee’s collection, “Bobcat.”
More in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/books/review/ann-beattie-by-the-book.html?ref=books&_r=1
More about Ann Beattie's 2 events with Peg Boyers this Tuesday, 9/29: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/beattie_boyers15.html
Friday, September 25, 2015
Her All-Time Favorite Short Stories-- Ann Beattie
David Denby's Superlative Review of Detropia in the New Yorker
David Denby reviews Detropia, which will be screened on Friday, 9/25, followed by commentary
and Q&A with director Rachel Grady.
"Detropia, a lyrical film about the destruction of a great American city, is the most moving documentary I’ve seen in years. The city is Detroit, and the film, made by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (who is a native), is both an ardent love letter to past vitality and a grateful salute to those who remain in place—the survivors, utterly without illusions, who refuse to leave. “Detropia” has its share of forlorn images: office buildings with empty eye sockets for windows; idle, rotting factories, with fantastic networks of chutes, pipes, and stacks; a lone lit tavern on a dark block. Yet the filmmakers are so attuned to color and to shape that I was amazed by the handsomeness of what I was seeing. I’m not being perverse: this is a beautiful film."
More in The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/10/good-fights-3
More about the event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/grady_rachel15.html
Friday, September 4, 2015
Tom Junod opens the Visiting Writers Series
More about his events: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/junod_tom15.html
Here are some of Junod's articles in the Longform Archive: http://longform.org/writers/tom-junod Read More......
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
2015 NYS Summer Writers Institute Reading Series
The Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore in Saratoga will run from July 29 through July 24.
All readings are at 8PM in Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall, Skidmore College, 815 N. Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.
For more information: 518-580-5000, info@skidmore.edu
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Celebrating Motherhood as a Choice-- Katha Pollitt
Connie Schultz of the Washington Post reviews Katha Pollitt's new book on abortion: Pro. Pollitt visits the Institute on Jan. 29th.
To state what should be obvious, Pollitt, like most other women who support abortion rights, celebrates motherhood as a choice. The poet and columnist for the Nation is also one of the most eloquent champions for women’s reproductive freedom, and her latest book is a manifesto.
More in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-pro-reclaiming-abortion-rights-by-katha-pollitt/2014/11/21/ba6498f0-52fb-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html
More about Pollitt's upcoming visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/pollitt_katha15.html Read More......
Monday, January 12, 2015
New Spring Series!
You are invited to attend our Spring 2015 series of free
events.
The Classic Film Series will feature young prize-winning director Tanya Hamilton (Night Catches Us), theater and film producer Ron Simons (winner of Tony Awards for for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder; Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike; and the 2012 Porgy & Bess), prize-winning documentary filmmaker Jason Osder (Let the Fire Burn), and William Wellman, Jr., son and biographer of legendary Hollywood director William A. Wellman, whose career spanned four decades, from the Silent Era to the 1950s.
Best regards and Happy New Year,
The New York State Writers Institute
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
50 Writers You Need to See Read Live
The hip and influential webzine Flavorwire posted a list yesterday of "50 Writers You Need to See Read Live." Not to sound smug or anything, but 20 of them have appeared at the New York State Writers Institute (although we have a very unfair advantage in that 2 of them are part of our "family").
One them of course is our own Bill Kennedy, NYSWI Founder and Executive Director. Another is Elisa Albert, who lives in Albany, and is married to NYSWI Writing Fellow Ed Schwarzschild.
The rest are regular NYS Summer Writers Institute visitor Paul Harding, as well as Gay Talese, Claire Messud, Colson Whitehead, Gary Shteyngart, Mary Gaitskill, Denis Johnson, Shalom Auslander, J. M. Coetzee, Marilynne Robinson, Sigrid Nunez, Sherman Alexie, Isabel Wilkerson, Charles Simic, Karen Russell, Chang-Rae Lee, James Salter, and Jonathan Ames.
Picture: Mary Gaitskill.
Full list here: http://flavorwire.com/487668/50-writers-you-need-to-see-read-live/view-all Read More......
Monday, November 17, 2014
Richard Norton Smith, C-SPAN's "in-house historian"
Richard Norton Smith, who visits us on Thursday, 11/20, talks to the TU's Paul Grondahl about what it was like to wrestle with writing a monumental biography of Nelson Rockefeller for 14 years:
"His long slog on Rockefeller was less a case of writer's block and more of information overload, as he kept uncovering fresh material and boxes of Rocky's previously sealed archives were made available to Smith. Stressed to the max about the ballooning biography, Smith suffered two heart attacks on Nov. 30, 2010. 'I can't remember four or five days. Luckily, a neighbor got concerned and came to my apartment,' he recalled. 'He got me to the hospital right away, and they discovered I'd had a heart attack and there was a blood clot in my heart. I had another heart attack the next day.'"
More in the Times Union: http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/A-Rocky-story-5891118.php
More about the upcoming events with Smith: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/smith_richard_norton14.html Read More......
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
The House Tour
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
"I, the Worst of All," Opens Classic Film Series
"Engrossing, enriching, and elegant!" - Boston GlobeSeptember 19 (Friday)
Film screening — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Based on a biography by Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, this film tells the story of the embattled 17th century nun, Sor Juana, who would come to be regarded as the mother of Mexican literature.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Free Events in Saratoga This Summer
 |
| Jamaica Kincaid |
Jamaica Kincaid! Joyce Carol Oates! William Kennedy! Robert Pinsky! Marilynne Robinson! Russell Banks! And many more….
You are invited to attend the NYS Summer Writers Institute’s
free public readings at Skidmore in Saratoga this summer, every weekday from
June 30th to July 25th, cosponsored by Skidmore College and the New York State Writers
Institute.
SUMMER PUBLIC READING LIST 2014
All Readings are at 8:00 p.m. in Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall
815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Free and open to the public
JUNE 30
Fiction reading by Elizabeth Benedict and poetry reading by Campbell McGrath.
JULY 1
Fiction reading by Francine Prose and non-fiction reading by Nicholas Delbanco.
JULY 2
Poetry reading by Frank Bidart and fiction reading by Jim Shepard.
JULY 3
Fiction reading by Russell Banks and poetry reading by Chase Twichell.
JULY 4
Fiction reading by Howard Norman and poetry reading by Jane Shore.
JULY 7
Poetry reading by Rosanna Warren and fiction reading by Cristina Garcia.
JULY 8
Non-Fiction reading by Phillip Lopate and fiction reading by Victoria Redel.
JULY 9
Poetry reading by James Longenbach and fiction reading by Joanna Scott.
JULY 10
Poetry reading by Louise Gluck and fiction reading by Caryl Phillips.
JULY 11
Fiction reading by Joyce Carol Oates.
JULY 14
Poetry reading by Carolyn Forche and fiction reading by Amy Hempel.
JULY 15
Fiction reading by Marilynne Robinson and poetry reading by Peg Boyers.
JULY 16
Fiction reading by Danzy Senna and nonfiction reading by Honor Moore.
JULY 17
Fiction reading by William Kennedy.
JULY 18
Poetry reading by Robert Pinsky.
JULY 21
Poetry reading by Mark Strand and fiction reading by Binnie Kirshenbaum.
JULY 22
Poetry reading by Charles Simic and fiction reading by Adam Braver.
JULY 23
Fiction reading by Rick Moody and poetry reading by Tom Healy.
JULY 24
Fiction reading by Jamaica Kincaid and poetry reading by Henri Cole.
JULY 25
Fiction reading by Paul Harding and poetry reading by Carl Dennis.
Office of the Dean of Special Programs
518-580-5593
NYS Summer Writers Institute
Office of the Dean of Special Programs
Skidmore College
815 North Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Kill Your Darlings in the New York Times
A. O. Scott reviews the 2013 film Kill Your Darlings, co-written by Austin Bunn, who visits Albany
tomorrow.
More about the visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/bunn_austin14.html
From the NY Times: Long before Allen Ginsberg became the benevolent, bearded Buddha of the counterculture — and one of the most beloved American poets — he was a skinny, anxious Columbia freshman who fell in with a group of literary rebels. John Krokidas’s debut feature, “Kill Your Darlings,” is intent on studying these not-yet-Beats in their fledgling state, as they write the first drafts of their own legends.
More in the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/movies/kill-your-darlings-stars-daniel-radcliffe.html?_r=0 Read More......
Monday, April 28, 2014
Robert Patton Tuesday, Grandson of General George Patton
Robert Patton, grandson of the legendary WWII General George S. Patton will present his new nonfiction book, Hell Before Breakfast: America's First War Correspondents Making History and Headlines, from the Battlefields of the Civil War to the Far Reaches of the Ottoman Empire (May 2014), tomorrow, Tuesday, April 29th.
More about the events: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/patton_Robert14.html
Booklist said: “A fascinating cast of characters…Patton details major conflagrations and social and technological changes amid the gore of war and the prose of reporters of another era.”
More about the book: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/128217/hell-before-breakfast-by-robert-h-patton#praise
Friday, April 4, 2014
A Play About August Strindberg's Daughter
Karin Smirnoff (pictured here) and her relationship with her overbearing father, August Strindberg (1849-1912), Swedish playwright and towering figure of world literature, are the subjects of a new play by theatre historian Eszter Szalczer. The play will be performed as a staged reading by seven accomplished local actors. Free and open to the public.
Dramatic Reading of the new play How It Really Happened with playwright Eszter Szalczer, followed by Q&A with playwright, director and cast
April 8 (Tuesday)
Dramatic Reading – 7:00 p.m. [Note early start time],
Science Library 340, Uptown Campus
Directed by W. Langdon Brown, with cast members Janet Hurley Kimlicko, Steve Madore, Gary Maggio, Patrick McKenna, Barbara Richards, Eileen Schuyler and Don Paul Shannon
Whose story is the true story? How can one grasp control of the narratives of one’s own life? Working on her new book, writer Karin Smirnoff (1880-1973) struggles to come to terms with her past in an attempt to challenge the notorious stories of her overbearing father, the world-renowned author and dramatist August Strindberg.
Eszter Szalczer is a dramaturg, theatre historian, and scholar of modern drama. Her recent book August Strindberg (2010) focuses on the Swedish playwright as one of the most radical innovators of the modern stage. It was when working on her previous book, Writing Daughters: August Strindberg's Other Voices (Norvik Press 2008) that Eszter became interested in exploring the creative processes of writing, the role of memory, the fine line between fiction and non-fiction, and how the same story could be told differently from several different perspectives.
For more information contact the Writers Institute at 442-5620, or visit us online at www.albany.edu/writers-inst, or on our blog at nyswiblog.blogspot.com.
Also, please sign up for regular updates from our blog: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=WritersInstituteBlog&loc=en_US
Read More......
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Reading others’ works energizes Julia Glass
"I love it when I start a book that is so good that all I want to do is get back to my own writing, in a competitive way. Really good reading accelerates and feeds the writing for me...."
Julia Glass, National Book Award Winner who visits us on Thursday April 3 is profiled this month in the Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2014/03/22/new-england-writers-work-julia-glass/3Al0XhLxpMM4ggBfXNtoIN/story.html
More about her upcoming visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/glass_julia14.html Read More......
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Front Page of NY Times Book Review: Dinaw Mengestu
Dinaw Mengestu, who visited us on March 13 to present his new novel All Our Names, landed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review this past Sunday.
Malcolm Jones writes: "The victories in this beautiful novel are hard fought and hard won, but won they are, and they are durable."
More in the NY Times Book Review: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/books/review/all-our-names-by-dinaw-mengestu.html?_r=0
More about Mengestu's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mengestu_dinaw14.html
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Rave Reviews for Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn
Here are some reviews for the rising bestseller Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn, who visits us this coming Tuesday, March 25th:
"A Top Ten Book of
Winter 2014" --USA Today
"In this smart,
real-life psychological thriller, the fake Rockefeller is a zombie Gatsby and
Kirn the post-apocalyptic Fitzgerald." --Nina Burleigh, The New
York Times Book Review
"One of the most
honest, compelling and strangest books about the relationship between a writer
and his subject ever penned by an American scribe…Each new revelation comes
subtly, and each adds to the pathetic and creepy portrait of Clark Rockefeller
as a vacuous manipulator…The ending of 'Blood Will Out' is at once deeply
ambiguous and deeply satisfying. By then, Kirn has looked into the eyes of a
cruel, empty man - and learned a lot about himself in the process." --Hector Tobar, Los Angeles
Times
"Engrossing… A
haunting, pained and terrifically engaging self-interrogation… That's what makes
great memoirs - which this one is - so interesting...." --Charles Finch, Chicago
Tribune
"Riveting and
disturbing, Blood Will Out is a mélange of memoir, stranger-than-fiction crime
reporting and cultural critique. The literary markers run the gamut from James
Ellroy's My Dark Places, and Fyodor Doestoevsky's Crime and Punishment to
Patricia Highsmith's Ripley trilogy and Strangers on a Train. Kirn's
self-lacerating meditations on class, art, vanity, ambition, betrayal and
delusion elevate the material beyond its pulpy core." --Larry Lebowitz, Miami
Herald
"Fascinating…The story
of Blood Will Out is one of cosmic ironies and jaw-dropping reversals….What
makes Blood Will Out so absorbing is its teller more than its subject. Kirn's
persona is captivating-funny, pissed off, highly literate, and self-searching.
He's also an elegant, classic writer….Add the highly readable, intricately told
Blood Will Out to the list of great books about the dizzying tensions of the
writing life and the maddening difficulty of getting at the truth." --Amity Gaige, Slate
More about the upcoming events: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/kirn_walter14.html
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Maurice Walsh, author of The Quiet Man
"Maurice Walsh was born in Ballydonoghue on 2 May 1879. He was the third child of ten and the first son born to John Walsh, a local farmer, and his wife Elizabeth Buckley who lived in a three-roomed thatched farmhouse. John Walsh’s main interests were books and horses and he himself did little about the farm, preferring to have a hired man. The most famous of these was Paddy Bawn Enright, whose name was to be immortalised by Maurice Walsh in his story The Quiet Man (though the name was not used in the movie version). John Walsh passed on to his son not only a love of books but also legends and folk tales and the theory of place that were later to be a feature of many of Maurice’s books."
More: http://www.kerrywritersmuseum.com/index.php/kerry-literary-centre-listowel-museum/maurice-walsh
More about the Classic Film Series:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html#man Read More......
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Carolyn Yalkut's New Play, "Everywoman"
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Day of show tickets: $8 general public , $6 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff
Read More......
Up in the Air Film Screening
We'll be screening Up in the Air starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, on Friday night 3/7, 7:30 pm at Page Hall. The film received more than 70 award nominations, including a Golden Globe for "Best Screenplay."
The screening is intended to whet your appetite for a 3/25 visit with author Walter Kirn, who wrote the novel on which it is based.
More about our film series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html#up
A rave review of the film from Pete Travers of Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/up-in-the-air-20091214
More about Walter Kirn's upcoming visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/kirn_walter14.html