In the Times Union: Leonard A. Slade Jr., a professor of Africana Studies at the University at Albany, has been honored with a national poetry prize named for him.
The Southern Conference on African American Studies has named its annual poetry prize the Leonard A. Slade Jr. Poetry Prize. It recognizes his literary contributions to The Griot, a journal published by the Houston-based organization since 1979.
The prize will be awarded to the person whom judges decide has published the best poem or poems in the journal that year.
"I'm very humbled," said Slade, who has contributed poetry to The Griot for more than 25 years. He came to UAlbany in 1988 after 22 years on the faculty of Kentucky State University.
More in Paul Grondahl's interview in the Times Union:
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/National-honor-for-UAlbany-professor-and-poet-6512661.php
Monday, September 21, 2015
Poetry Prize Named for UAlbany Professor Len Slade
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
UAlbany Grad Stephen Guirgis Wins Pulitzer
Stephen Adly Guirgis, who graduated from the University at Albany in 1990 with a major in Theatre, is the 2015 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his new play "Between Riverside and Crazy."
The Pulitzer jury called the work, "a nuanced, beautifully written play about a retired police officer faced with eviction that uses dark comedy to confront questions of life and death."
Guirgis visited the New York State Writers Institute on April 12, 2010.
More about his visit here:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/guirgis_stephen10.html
An interview with Guirgis posted on the Institute's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFR2iMDmcFE
Guirgis studied theatre with NYS Writers Institute Fellow and UAlbany Professor W. Langdon Brown and with the late Jarka Burian of the Theatre Department who-- together with his wife Grayce Burian-- established and endowed the Institute's annual Burian Lecture on the art of the theatre.
More on the Burian Lecture here: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/burian_lectures.html
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award
A call for applications....
Friday, May 30, 2014
Josh Bartlett wins Garber Prize
Congratulations to Writers Institute Grad Assistant Josh Bartlett for winning the Spring 2014 Eugene K. Garber Prize for Short Fiction for his story, "French Twist."
Photo: Josh with Alex Trebek during his appearance on Jeopardy! in 2012 (the show aired on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 22nd).
The prize is endowed by Professor Emeritus Gene Garber of the UAlbany English Department: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/garber_eugene_k.html Read More......
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Short Essay Contest, Deadline April 15th
You are invited to enter the first New York State “Poetry
Unites” short essay contest.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize
STOCKHOLM (AP) - Alice Munro, a Canadian master of the short story revered as a thorough but forgiving chronicler of the human spirit, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday.
Munro is the first Canadian writer to receive the prestigious $1.2 million award from the Swedish Academy since Saul Bellow, who left for the U.S. as a boy and won in 1976.
Seen as a contemporary Chekhov for her warmth, insight and compassion, she has captured a wide range of lives and personalities without passing judgment on her characters. Unusually for Nobel winners, Munro's work consists almost entirely of short stories. "Lives of Girls and Women" is her only novel.
"I knew I was in the running, yes, but I never thought I would win," the 82-year-old said by telephone when contacted by The Canadian Press in Victoria, British Columbia.
Munro is beloved among her peers, from Lorrie Moore and George Saunders to Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Franzen. She is equally admired by critics. She won a National Book Critics Circle prize for "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage," and is a three-time winner of the Governor General's prize, Canada's highest literary honor.
More from the Associated Press: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268773/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=BFDTleAC
Thursday, September 26, 2013
How to Win a Pulitzer Prize
Gilbert King went from writing about Mr. Potato Head to crafting an award-winning story about racial injustice.
More in The Writer from Susan Kershner Resnick:
Last year, I sent out a request on Facebook asking experienced writers to share advice with my undergraduate writing students. A few snarky responses appeared first: Go to law school; get comfortable with a life of poverty. Then Gilbert King weighed in.
“Work. Read. Work. Think. Work. Write. Work. Connect. Work. Pitch. Same as always,” he wrote.
Continue: http://www.writermag.com/2013/09/09/win-pulitzer-prize/
Gilbert King visits Albany today: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/king_gilbert13.html
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Gil King, Finalist for 2013 Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Gilbert King, who visits us tomorrow to discuss his 2013 Pulitzer-winning book, Devil in the Grove, which was just named a runner-up for the 2013 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
More about King's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#king
About the prize: The Dayton Literary Peace Prize, inaugurated in 2006, is
the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the
written word to promote peace. The Dayton Literary Peace Prize invites
nominations in adult fiction and nonfiction books published within the past year
that have led readers to a better understanding of other cultures, peoples,
religions, and political points of view. Both awards carry a $10,000 cash prize.
More: http://www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org/
The 2013 winners include Adam Johnson (fiction) for The Orphan Master's Son, which he presented at the Writers Institute in 2012: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/johnson_adam12.html
Also among the finalists is Louise Erdrich, who visited us back in 1987.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Gilbert King, Pulitzer Winning Author, to Visit Next Week
Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove (2012),
a nonfiction account of an early case in the legal career of Thurgood Marshall,
America's first African-American Supreme Court Justice, will read from and
discuss his work on Thursday, September 26, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital
Hall, Performing Arts Center, on the University at Albany's uptown campus.
Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m., the author will present an informal seminar
in the same location. The events are free and open to the public, and are
sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute in conjunction with CELEBRATE
AND ADVANCE, a weeklong celebration culminating in the inauguration of
UAlbany's 19th President, Robert J. Jones, Ph.D.
Gilbert King, Niskayuna native, received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General
Nonfiction for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys,
and the Dawn of a New America (2012), a meticulously researched, elegantly
written account of the future Supreme Court Justice's role in defending four
black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Florida in 1949. Of the
four defendants, one was murdered by a white mob before he could stand trial,
and two were murdered by the local county sheriff after they had been
exonerated by the U. S. Supreme Court.
The Salon reviewer said, "King recreates an important yet
overlooked moment in American history with a chilling, atmospheric narrative
that reads more like a Southern Gothic novel than a work of history." The
book was also named a "Best Book of 2012" by the Boston Globe,
Christian Science Monitor, and Library Journal.
In writing Devil in the Grove, King obtained access to two
heretofore unpublished and unpublicized sources of information: the
confidential files of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the
unedited files of the FBI. In previous, more comprehensive biographies of Marshall,
the Groveland case had been treated as little more than a footnote to a
distinguished legal career. King's research, however, brings back to life the
shock and drama of a courtroom battle that established important legal
precedents on the road to ending Jim Crow laws in the South.
King's relative rise from obscurity has generated a fair amount of interest
in the writing community and on the internet. Especially remarked upon is the
fact that, after the announcement that he had won the Pulitzer Prize, the
surprised author informed a New York Times interviewer, "I'd just
gotten a notice from my publisher that the book had been 'remaindered.'"
Another ironic detail of King's biography is that he flunked English at
Niskayuna High School and had to attend summer school after his junior year,
according to an interview with Paul Grondahl of the Times Union.
A featured contributor to the Smithsonian magazine history blog,
King is also the author of The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder,
and the Search for Justice in the American South (2008), an account of the
wrongful conviction and death sentence of a 17-year-old black boy in Louisiana
in 1946. The Counterpunch magazine reviewer called it, "...almost
certainly the best book on capital punishment in America since Mailer's The
Executioner's Song."
King's appearance is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute in
conjunction with "Celebrate and Advance," a weeklong celebration at
UAlbany culminating in the inauguration of the new University president, Robert
J. Jones. For additional information on all inauguration week events go to: www.albany.edu/inauguration .
For additional information on Gilbert King's appearances, contact the
Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Poet Philip Levine wins $100k Prize
Former United States poet laureate Philip Levine has been awarded the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement. The award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, is given annually for “outstanding and proven mastery of the art of poetry.”
Here are some links:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/philip-levine-is-awarded-100000-poetry-prize/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24077281
Levine visited the Writers Institute in 1996: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/levine.html. A video about the visit aired in 1999 on "The Writer," a series coproduced by the Writers Institute and WMHT.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
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.
Friday, August 30, 2013
"A Great Day for the Irish," Seamus Heaney Visits Albany
Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and Nobel Laureate who passed away today, visited the Writers Institute in 1985, the second year of our existence.
The late Tom Smith proclaimed it "a great day for the Irish" and "a great night for poetry."
Here are links to audio files from that visit, with an introduction by UAlbany Irish literature professor (now emeritus) William Dumbleton.
http://luna.albany.edu/luna/servlet/view/search?QuickSearchA=QuickSearchA&q=Seamus+Heaney&sort=Archive_Collection%2CAuthor_Name%2CAuthor_Name_2%2CAuthor_Name_3&search=Search
Here's an obituary for Seamus Heaney in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/family-says-irish-poet-and-nobel-winner-seamus-heaney-dies-at-74/2013/08/30/a5f38506-1162-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_story.html
Explore the riches of our archive on the UAlbany Luna platform here;
http://luna.albany.edu/luna/servlet/UALBANYSCA~16~16
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Eric Kandel, Writer and Scientist, Leads Breakthrough Study on Memory
Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine who visited the Writers Institute in 2006, is the lead researcher of a new study on memory in the brain (with new implications for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease). The study is receiving widespread media coverage, and widespread attention in the neuroscience community.
The 84-year-old laureate came to the New York State Writers Institute to present his memoir, In Search of Memory, about his boyhood as a member of a Jewish family in Nazi Germany and his remarkable career at the leading edge of neuroscience.
More on the new study: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57600507/scientists-find-clue-to-reasons-for-age-related-memory-loss/
More on Kandel's visit to Albany: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/kandel_eric.html
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Booker Prize Long List Announced
Three of the thirteen people on the 2013 Booker Prize Long List, which was announced today, are past visitors of the New York State Writers Institute.
Ruth Ozeki (pictured here) who visited in 2004: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/ozeki_ruth.html
Colm Toibin, who visited in 2001: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/toibincolm.html
And Collum McCann, who visited in 2003: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mccann_colum.html
Full list here: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Poet Jorie Graham: Imagining the Unimaginable
Pulitzer-winning poet Jorie Graham, who presents a free reading tomorrow in Saratoga Springs, talks to an interviewer about the purpose of art:
"And what is art for then? What is dreaming for? What is the imagination supposed
to do with its capacity to 'imagine' the end? Is the imagination of the
unimaginable possible, and, perhaps, as I have come to believe, might it be one
of the most central roles the human gift of imagination is being called upon to
enact? Perhaps if we use it to summon the imagination of where we are
headed— what that will feel like— what it will feel like to look back at this
juncture— maybe we will wake up in time?"
Read more of Deidre Wengen's Phillyburbs.com interview on the Poets.org website: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20176
Full schedule of free readings: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/sumread.html
Friday, June 7, 2013
2 Nobel Prize-winners Discuss Origins of Life at UAlbany
Jack Szostak from Harvard University and Ada Yonath from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, will speak on June 12 at 8 p.m. in Lecture Center 18.
The lectures are open to the public!
Szostak is the co-editor of the book, The Origins of Life (2010).
The 18th Conversation is sponsored by the University’s departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which has funded the Conversation since 1981.
For more information, email Dr.Ramaswamy Sarma at rhs07@albany.edu. Read More......
Friday, May 24, 2013
The Short, Short Stories of Lydia Davis
The New York Times blog discusses the shortness of Lydia Davis's short stories following the announcement of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize:
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/the-short-story-of-lydia-daviss-man-booker-prize/
Lydia will teach another multiple-week Community Writers Workshop in Fall 2013 (free and open to the public on a competitive basis).
More about her here: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/davis_lydia13.html
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Sweet Picture of Lydia Davis in the Los Angeles Times
The LA Times has a nice picture of the NYS Writers Institute's Lydia Davis at the moment she
learned she had won the Man Booker International Prize.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-lydia-davis-wins-man-booker-international-prize-20130522,0,2279746.story
Read More......
President Jones Congratulates Lydia Davis on Her Booker International Prize
Our Own Lydia Davis Wins the Booker International Prize!
