Unspeakably in love with books

"As a child I was unspeakably in love with books. My dad had built two massive shelves that ran the width of our knotty pine-paneled living room. These were laden with the many high quality volumes of great works sent regularly to my mother by a man who either was or fancied himself to be her suitor — an untold story unto itself. I was too young to appreciate either the distinction between the two or the peculiarity of my father having built the shelves for the books the supposed suitor sent."
Read the full column in the Times Union:  http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-opinion/article/Jo-Page-Reading-is-nothing-short-of-a-10987387.php

Come hear Jo Page speak about her new memoir, Preaching in My Yes Dress: Confessions of a Reluctant Pastor," this coming Tuesday, March 28. She'll share the stage with her teacher, UAlbany Professor Emeritus and novelist, 
March 28 (Tuesday):  Eugene Mirabelli, novelist, and Jo Page, memoir writer and journalist
Reading — 4:15 p.m., University Hall Room 110, Collins Circle, Uptown Campus
Jo Page, essayist, newspaper columnist, and ordained Lutheran minister, is the author of the new memoir, Preaching in My Yes Dress: Confessions of a Reluctant Pastor (2016), a candid, moving, and humorous account of her spiritual journey. Bestselling novelist Margot Livesey said the book is “all the things you hope a good memoir will be: profound, witty, deeply serious, wonderfully original, and utterly absorbing.” For 20 years the author of the "Reckonings" column for Metroland, Albany’s former newsweekly, Page now writes a column for the Albany Times Union. Read more
Eugene Mirabelli, Professor Emeritus of English at UAlbany, received the prestigious Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Gold Medal for his 2012 novel, Renato the Painter: An Account of His Youth & His 70th Year in His Own Words, the story of an artist who lives life with gusto and practices his art in defiance of critical and public neglect. Author and NPR reviewer Andrei Codrescu described the book as “…a fresco of Sicilian-American-New England life….” Mirabelli’s new book is the sequel, Renato After Alba: His Rage Against Life, Love & Loss in His Own Words (2016), an account of Renato’s experience of widowerhood at the age of 83. Publishers Weekly said, “The reader feels such affection for Renato… you can forgive him anything.” Read more

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Shaka Senghor's visit to UAlbany on Feb. 1st is featured in The Alt.

As much as Senghor’s story is the personal journey of one man seeking redemption and hope, it is also much larger than one single man. “Mr. Senghor’s story provides us with insight into the challenges faced by many young African American men in urban communities and American prisons,” said Frankie Bailey, UAlbany criminal justice professor and chairperson of the event committee. “His emergence as a leader in the criminal justice reform movement illustrates the capacity of those same men for redemption and growth. His message is about becoming a force for positive change.”


More: http://thealt.com/…/07/writing-wrongs-shaka-senghor-ualbany/

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2/1 Shaka Senghor, author imprisoned 19 years for murder

2017 Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Keynote Speaker
February 1 (Wednesday):  Shaka Senghor, author imprisoned 19 years for murder, and prison reform activist
Lecture: “Your Worst Deeds Do Not Define You” — 7:00 p.m., Campus Center Ballroom
Reception prior to the event, 5:30-6:45, Patroon Room, Campus Center, open to public

Shaka Senghor, inspirational speaker and leading voice in criminal justice reform, is the author of the memoir Writing My Wrongs (2016), a New York Times bestseller that candidly recounts his life growing up in an abusive household in Detroit during the height of the 1980s crack epidemic, his 19-year incarceration for murder at the age of 19, and the tools he used to confront his past and construct his future. Filmmaker J. J. Abrams praised the book describing it as “A profound story of neglect, violence, discovery, redemption and inspiration….Prepare to have your preconceptions shattered.”

 

Note:  A free reception with a variety of food and beverage options will be offered in advance of UAlbany's MLK Jr. Celebration and Lecture.

Senghor’s talk is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Student Association and University Auxiliary Services in collaboration with the New York State Writers Institute

 

For more information about the event visit the following news release,  http://www.albany.edu/news/75851.php or contact Media Relations at (518) 956-8150

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The Paris Review: James Lasdun, Lydia Davis

Two NYS Writers Institute Writing Fellows are featured prominently in the Spring 2015 issue of The Paris Review.

James Lasdun has a 70-page novella, Feathered Glory:
http://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6362/feathered-glory-james-lasdun

Lydia Davis is interviewed:
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6366/art-of-fiction-no-227-lydia-davis

Other featured authors who have appeared as part of the Institute's Visiting Writers Series include Major Jackson, Charles Simic and Stephen Dunn.

And, incidentally, the Capital Region's own Bernie Conners, former publisher of The Paris Review, has a new memoir, Cruising with Kate: A Parvenu in Xanadu (2015). Read Paul Grondahl's interview in the Times Union:  http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/Paul-Grondahl-Bernard-Conners-memoir-recalls-a-6156657.php

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Harry Rosenfeld's Memoir Wins Award

Times Union editor-at-large Harry Rosenfeld has won a 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award, or IPPY, for his book, "From Kristallnacht to Watergate: Memoirs of a Newspaperman."

It is the latest in a recent string of honors for Rosenfeld, 84, of Albany, the son of a Polish-born Jewish furrier. Rosenfeld grew up in Berlin and escaped Nazi Germany as a young boy along with his parents and older sister, and emigrated to America in 1939.

The book details Rosenfeld's formative years in the Bronx as a German refugee, his drive to learn English and landing his first job in newspapers as a teenaged shipping clerk at the New York Herald Tribune, where he eventually rose up the editing ranks.

Rosenfeld also describes in depth his role as Metro Editor of the Washington Post during its Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Watergate scandal led by the dogged work of Rosenfeld's reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

More from Paul Grondahl in the Times Union:   http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Newspaperman-s-memoir-wins-award-5504423.php

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Rescheduled: Grayce Burian Book Signing 4/1

Book Signing
Grayce Susan Burian, Actor, author and theatre professor 
April 1st (Tuesday)
Booking signing — 3:00 p.m., Science Library Room 340
UAlbany Uptown Campus

Grayce Susan Burian, actor, author, theatre professor, and key figure of the UAlbany and Capital Region theater arts communities, will sign copies of her new book, From Jerry to Jarka:  A Breezy Memoir of a Long, Peripatetic Marriage, about her 54-year marriage to Jarka Burian, the primary Western scholar of Czech theatre and long-time Theatre Professor at UAlbany. Among other things, the book recounts their many exciting sojourns in Czechoslovakia at various times over a period of several decades, their friendships with Vaclav Havel and other dissidents, and their first-hand experiences of political turmoil, invasion, unrest, revolution and social change.

Note: This event has been rescheduled from March 12^th because of weather.

For more information contact the Writers Institute at 442-5620.

More about Grayce Burian:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/burian_grayce14.html

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Christopher Durang and Grayce Burian last night

Here's a photo of 2013 Tony Award-winning playwright Christopher Durang and Grayce Burian at
the 18th Annual Burian Lecture last night.

Durang cracked up the audience with (among other things) a reading of excerpts from a new parody of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

The Burian Lecture is funded by Grayce Burian through the Jarka & Grayce Susan Burian Endowment.  (Thank you Grayce for another lovely evening!).

 

For more about the Burian Lecture: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/burian_lectures.html

 

Weather willing, on Wednesday (tomorrow), March 12, 2014,  Grayce Burian herself will sign copies of her new book, From Jerry to Jarka: A Breezy Memoir of a Long, Peripatetic Marriage, at 3:00 p.m. in Science Library Room 340, on the UAlbany Uptown Campus.

 

More about Grayce and her book signing here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/burian_grayce14.html

 

 

 

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Luis Gutierrez tells his favorite joke

Luis Gutierrez, Congressman, immigration rights crusader and UAlbany alum, is interviewed this
month on Politico.

Gutierrez visited the Writers Institute on October 18th to present his new memoir, Still Dreaming: My Journey from the Barrio  to Capitol Hill (2013).

Tell us your favorite joke.

How about a recent Letterman joke about the shutdown: “People are saying that Republicans got nothing out of the deal. Not true. They got eight years of Hillary.”

When is the last time you used profanity?

Pretty much anytime comprehensive immigration reform is delayed or has a setback. So more often than I should.

More:  http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/answer-this-luis-gutierrez-100604.html

Luis Gutierrez's appearance at the University at Albany on the Writers Institute YouTube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtCyHdfMrVk

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Grayce Burian-- Love, Europe, Stage

Bill Buell contributes an article to the Schenectady Gazette discussing Grayce Burian's book about her 54 years of marriage to the late theatre scholar Jarka Burian.

"Writing it was a kind of healing, and I'm glad I did it and I'm glad I could do it," said Burian. "Just to have if for my family was important. Originally I had no intention of publishing it."

Grayce Burian is a retired theatre scholar herself, and a key figure in the Capital Region's theatre community. Through the Jarka & Grayce Susan Burian Endowment, she supports the annual Burian Lecture Series on the Theatre, cosponsored by the NYS Writers Institute and UAlbany Department of Theatre.

Picture: Grayce with filmmaker John Sayles at the Writers Institute, February 2012.

Full article here:
http://olivedev.dailygazette.net/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMailGifMSIE&Type=text/html&Path=SCH/2013/10/13&ID=Ar04000&Locale=&ChunkNum=0

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Luis Gutierrez Coming This Friday

Luis Gutierrez, Congressman and major figure in the immigration reform movement will visit the
Writers Institute on Friday, October 18, to present his new memoir, Still Dreaming (2013).

Elizabeth Floyd Mair published an interview with Gutierrez over the weekend in the Times Union.

Q: Your first successful election in Chicago as alderman helped begin to dismantle the Democratic machine that had controlled local politics for decades. We know something about political machines here in Albany, too. What are some of the key points in dismantling one?

A: Ending patronage, No. 1. And patronage comes in two types: There is the seating your unqualified buddy for a job, a buddy whose qualification is the work he does politically — not how talented he is as a carpenter or as an architect or as a city planner, but how talented he is at raising money and making sure that people vote for you. The other kind is pin-striped patronage, when it isn't the person with the lowest bid and the best product who gets the work, but the person with the closest relationship politically with those at City Hall.

More in the Times Union:  http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Tracing-a-political-journey-4885319.php

More about the Congressman's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/gutierrez_luis13.html

Picture: House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., gives his opening remarks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, during the committee's hearing on America's Immigration System: Opportunities for Legal Immigration and Enforcement of Laws against Illegal Immigration. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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Grayce Burian's New Memoir of Her Marriage

Grayce Burian, a friend of the Writers Institute and a pillar of the Capital Region theatre community, has published a new memoir of her marriage to the late Jarka Burian, UAlbany professor and the foremost scholar of the Czech theatre.

Among other things, the new book, From Jerry to Jarka: A Breezy Memoir of a Long, Peripatetic Marriage (Ohio State University Press), recounts the couple's numerous extended stays in Czechoslovakia (and later, the Czech Republic) over a period of several decades from the 1960s to the 2000s, as that country experienced dramatic political and cultural transformations.

More about the book: http://library.osu.edu/blogs/theatre-research-institute/2013/07/11/from-jerry-to-jarka-a-breezy-memoir-of-a-long-peripatetic-marriage-by-grayce-susan/

Grayce Burian endows the annual Burian Lecture on the art of the theatre at the New York State Writers Institute through the Jarka & Grayce Susan Burian Endowment. She also serves on Board of the UAlbany Emeritus Center.

More about the Burian Lecture series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/burian_lectures.html

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Literature as Self-Defense-- James Lasdun

 

James Lasdun, who speaks at a newly added Writers Institute event at UAlbany, Wed. 4/24, in the
Standish Room, Sci Lib, uptown, is interviewed in  The Millions about his new memoir of being stalked by a writing student.

Lasdun, a fellow at the Writers Institute, currently teaches two free, noncredit writing workshops for members of the community-at-large at the Institute.

From The Millions: http://www.themillions.com/2013/02/literature-as-self-defense-an-interview-with-james-lasdun.html

"James Lasdun’s new book, Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked, is a memoir about an experience that is in fact still ongoing. In 2003, he taught a course in creative writing at a college in New York. His most gifted student was an Iranian-born woman in her early 30s, who was writing a novel based on her family’s experiences living in Iran under the shah. In 2005, the woman – whom he calls “Nasreen” – emailed Lasdun to announce that she had finished a draft of her book; although he was too busy to read it at the time, he was confident enough in her talent to recommend her to his agent. They emailed back and forth, and an online friendship began to develop. Nasreen’s correspondence began to intensify, however – to become stranger and more aggressively seductive – and so Lasdun, a happily married man, ceased to respond. The book is an exploration of the effects of this relationship turning sour, as Nasreen continued to hound him online, her emails becoming increasingly hate-filled and anti-Semitic. A major aspect of her psychological guerrilla warfare involved direct attacks on his reputation, accusing him online (in Wikipedia entries, Amazon reviews, in comment sections of his articles) of sexual harassment and plagiarism. Give Me Everything You Have is a harrowing account of what it’s like to have someone expend a great deal of time and energy on the project of damaging your life for no immediately obvious reason. It’s also a beautifully written and digressively essayistic exploration of anti-Semitism, travel, literature, and the mysteriously ramifying effects people have on each other."

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The Eerie Similarities of Life and Novel

NYS Writers Institute Fellow James Lasdun is the subject of a New Yorker blog piece about the eerie similarities between his new memoir of being stalked, Give Me Everything You Have (2013) and his earlier novel, The Horned Man (2002).

“The fact that I had written a novel, The Horned Man, in which a college instructor believes he is being framed for a series of sex crimes, gave the situation a piquancy that didn’t escape me,” Lasdun writes, “though I was in no condition to enjoy it.”

We, however, are in a condition to “enjoy” such ironies, if only because we have the luxury of observing them from a safe distance. Well, relatively safe. It is a peculiarly arresting aspect of this exquisitely written memoir that much of its horror derives from how easily we can see ourselves (or anyone) falling prey to just the kind of harassment he suffers.

More in the New Yorker:  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/04/what-has-he-done-on-james-lasduns-memoir.html

Lasdun currently leads two free community workshops for the Institute, one on fiction and one on memoir:

http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/workshop.html

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Husband Interviews Wife in Daily Beast

Anthony Swofford, author of the bestselling Marine Corps memoir Jarhead, interviews his wife Christa Parravani in today's Daily Beast.  Parravani visits UAlbany and the New York State Museum downtown today.

Tony: You just said that she feared being “too much” and she’s a big figure in Her. If in your twin dynamic she was too much, were you too little? You make it clear that there were obviously competing psychologies going on from birth. Tell me more about that.
Christa: We never allowed ourselves to be the same. Identical twins are like that, always trying to carve out individuality. It was as if the world wasn’t a big enough place for us to be similar, and that forced us into trying to be opposite. We were fiercely competitive. It was simple at first when we were children. Cara liked vanilla ice cream, so I liked chocolate. I liked pink, so she liked blue. It really was that severe. Cara loved to sing, so I couldn’t sing—

Tony: She had a good point. I’ve heard you in the shower.
Christa: Ha. Ha.

More of the interview:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/07/without-her-twin-christa-parravani-s-debut-memoir.html

More about Christa's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/parravani_christa13.html

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Books about duos, pairs, twins

Christa Parravani's favorite books about "duos" (pairs, twins, twosomes, etc.)....

"After living life as one half of a pair, photographer Christa Parravani nearly buckled under the crushing loneliness of being twinless. Her long-suffering twi...n sister, Cara, died of a heroin overdose at age 28—she had been violently raped and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder for several years. Christa's debut memoir, Her, captures the transcendent closeness of the twin relationship as well as her own anguish and descent into depression upon facing the world alone. Combining Cara's diary entries with her own chronicle, Her is a survivor's testament of grief and sisterhood. Brooklynite Parravani shares her favorite books about the intense bond of duos."

Christa Parravani visits UAlbany today to present her new memoir about her deceased twin (just named Amazon.com's "Debut of the Month," March 2013).

See her book picks at GoodReads.com-- http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/847.Christa_Parravani

More about her visit today: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/parravani_christa13.html

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Christa Parravani's Photography

Acclaimed first-time author Christa Parravani (who visits UAlbany tomorrow to present her new memoir, Her, about the life and death of her identical twin, Cara) is also an accomplished photographer.

View her internationally exhibited series, "Kindred," featuring dual portraits of herself and Cara in surreal settings, on her website at http://www.christaparravani.com/kindred.htm.

Represented by the Michael Foley Gallery in New York City and the Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles, Parravani’s photography has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and Europe. Her widely-exhibited 2006 photography series, “Kindred,” shot prior to Cara’s death, featured both twins posing and interacting in a variety of dreamlike settings. The Center for Photography at Woodstock said of “Kindred,” “The landscapes become the medium for the telling of [the twins’] fractured relationship…. Here, identity is malleable and the past and the present merge to create an all encompassing reality. The photographs explore underlying themes of childhood, narcissism, sexual confusion, and family romance that identify a singular path, individuality, and separate lives…. Parravani is the author of the images and the subject at the same. She is both the viewer, the viewed, and inserts a large amount of control over the image while also losing control by making herself vulnerable.”

Parravani has taught photography at Dartmouth College, Columbia University, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Anthony Swofford (author of Jarhead and Hotels, Hospitals and Jails: A Memoir), and their daughter.

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"Very Traumatizing to Write This Book"

"It was emotionally draining and sometimes very traumatizing to write this book. Particularly since I didn't know how to write a book — this is my first book — I had to write things over and over again to get them right. And some of those things were the ones that were the hardest emotionally."

Read more of Ellizabeth Floyd Mair's interview with Christa Parravani (who visits on Thursday) in the Times Union:

http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Double-vision-4317715.php#ixzz2MhNYuEdP

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Christa Parravani in the Schenectady Gazette

"Her. That’s what Christa Parravani’s identical twin sister, Cara, used to call her. The two shared almost everything: looks, fears, interests, hopes. And when Cara died of a heroin overdose in 2006, at the age of 28, Christa’s world was ripped apart. Grief-stricken, she spiraled into a self-destructive depression. Like Cara, she abused drugs and attempted suicide. Unlike Cara, she survived. Parravani tells her harrowing story in her new memoir, “Her,” which goes on sale Tuesday and was named Amazon’s 'Featured Debut' for March."

"In Her, Parravani credits Guilderland High School and the guidance of caring teachers with helping her and Cara succeed and cultivating their interest in the arts."
For more highlights of Sara Foss's profile of Christa Parravani (who visits UAlbany on Thursday), visit http://www.dailygazette.net/standard/ShowStoryTemplate.asp?Path=SCH/2013/03/03&ID=Ar00901&Section=Local_News

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On loving and losing a twin...

Christa Parravani's new memoir of her deceased twin Cara was just named Amazon's "Featured Debut" for March 2013, as well as a "Best Book of the Month."

Also a noted photographer, the Guilderland High School graduate posed in a series of photos with Cara shortly before her death. One of them (featured here) graces the cover of the book.

Parravani visits the Institute this coming Thursday:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#christa

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Christa Parravani of Guilderland, Acclaimed Memoir

New author Christa Parravani, who graduated from Guilderland High School and spent parts of her childhood in Albany and Schenectady will present her first book, Her, a highly acclaimed memoir about the life and death of her twin sister, Cara Parravani, at UAlbany, Thursday, March 7.

Novelist Jayne Anne Phillips said, “Christa Parravani’s lyrical, no-nonsense Her ranks with the best American memoirs of the decade… an uncompromising love poem to the joys and dangers of shared identity, and an unforgettable treatise on addiction, trauma, survival, and triumph.” Author Nick Flynn called it, “reckless yet delicate, familiar yet otherworldly, precise yet with the soul of a fairytale, and deeply moving in surprising ways.” Novelist Julie Orringer said, “With a photographer’s sharp eye and a gifted writer’s penetrating insight, Parravani writes about being torn apart and then about piecing her life back together, brilliantly illuminating along the way what it means to be a sister, a daughter, a wife, an artist, and— ultimately, and triumphantly— herself.”

More about her visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/parravani_christa13.html

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