The Booker Prize Shortlist!

Two of the six finalists for the Booker Prize are past visitors to the New York State Writers Institute, Ruth Ozeki and Colm Toibin.

The finalists are announced here:  http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/man-booker-shortlist-2013

More on Ruth Ozeki's 2004 visit to Albany:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/ozeki_ruth.html

More on Colm Toibin's 2001 visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/toibincolm.html

Toibin came in part to research The Master, his novel about the life of literary giant Henry James who grew up partly in Albany. He visited Lincoln Park, where James's grandparents owned a mill house that straddled a now-buried stream.

Also on the list is Jhumpa Lahiri, who (we promise) will visit us one of these days. Her uncle, Kajal Lahiri, is Distinguished Professor of Economics, and Health Policy, Management & Behavior at the University at Albany.

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Playing Dress Up at Edith Wharton's "The Mount"

A number of writers and actors dressed up as members of Edith Wharton's inner circle at her Lenox estate, The Mount, for a fashion photo shoot by legendary photographer Annie Liebovitz. The pictures will appear in the September issue of Vogue.

Among the writers were Junot Diaz (who will visit us in October 2012) as Walter Berry; Jonathan Safran Foer as architect Ogden Codman, Jr.; and Jeffery Eugenides as Henry James. The issue also features an essay by past Institute visitor Colm Toibin about Edith Wharton and her complicated love triangle with Morton Fullerton and Henry James.

Photo: supermodel Natalia Vodianova as Edith Wharton.

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