Gail Collins in the Times Union

Gail Collins, who visits UAlbany tomorrow, is interviewed and profiled by Leigh Hornbeck in the Times Union:

Early in her newspaper career, Collins founded the Connecticut State News Bureau, in 1972. It was around then she made a choice to write about her subject "in a way that wouldn't make readers want to shoot themselves." The result was a mix of insightful, wry commentary that might zing, but never crushes, its subjects. She seems fully aware of the absurdity of political scandal at the same time she observes how what happens among our elected representatives will ultimately affect ordinary folk. She frequently calls out to the reader directly with a "people," the literary equivalent of a lapel grab.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Political-observer-4463679.php#ixzz2RsuHySXz

More on Gail's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/collins_gail13.html

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The Feminine Mystique at 50

 

Gail Collins (who visits Tuesday) wrote the Introduction to the 50th Anniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (pictured above), published February 2013.

Here's a bit of the introduction:  "Every writer yearns to create a book that will seize the moment — to perfectly encapsulate the problem of an era before other people even notice the problem exists. Of course, that almost never happens. Mostly we’re happy if we can manage to explain, in an interesting way, something people already know is going on. But Betty Friedan won the gold ring. When “The Feminine Mystique” emerged in 1963, it created a reaction so intense that Friedan could later write another book about the things women said to her about the first one (“It Changed My Life”). If there’s a list of the most important books of the 20th century, “The Feminine Mystique” is on it. It also made one conservative magazine’s exclusive roundup of the “10 most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries,” which if not flattering is at least a testimony to the wallop it packed."

More in the New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/magazine/the-feminine-mystique-at-50.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

More about Gail Collins' visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/collins_gail13.html

Picture: Betty Friedan (UPI).

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Gail Collins on Political Corruption in New York

Gail Collins, New York Times columnist who visits this Tuesday, 4/30, writes about political corruption in New York.

"The charges involve politicians acting in such an insanely stupid way, it shatters our longstanding confidence that taking money was the one thing they know how to do well."

More:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/06/opinion/collins-a-new-era-in-political-corruption.html?_r=0

More about her visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/collins_gail13.html

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