William Gibson, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, coming to Troy, NY

The Guardian celebrates the 30th birthday of the science fiction novel Neuromancer by William Gibson, scifi author and technology prophet (according to many). Gibson visits RPI under the cosponsorship of the New York State Writers Institute, on Sunday, November 9th.

More about Gibson's upcoming event:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#Gibson

From the Guardian:

On its release, Neuromancer won the "big three" for science fiction: the Nebula, Philip K Dick and Hugo awards. It sold more than 6m copies and launched an entire aesthetic: cyberpunk. In predicting this future, Gibson can be said to have helped shape our conception of the internet. Other novelists are held in higher esteem by literary critics, but few can claim to have had such a wide-ranging influence. The Wachowskis made The Matrix by mashing Gibson's vision together with that of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander is a facsimile of Molly Millions, the femme fatale in Neuromancer. Every social network, online game or hacking scandal takes us a step closer to the universe Gibson imagined in 1984.

More in the Guardian:   http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/28/william-gibson-neuromancer-cyberpunk-books

Full schedule of upcoming events:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#lurie

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Poems About Divorce-- Sharon Olds

 

Former New York State Poet under our sponsorship, and 2013 Pulitzer winner for poetry, Sharon Olds talks to The Guardian about Stag's Leap, her new collection of poems about her experience of going through a divorce.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/2013/jan/17/sharon-olds-life-art-video

The poems in the book, which also received the UK's T. S. Eliot prize, were written 15 years earlier. Olds delayed publishing them to protect the sensitivities of her children.

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A Theory of Humor

Providing a glimpse into the mysteries of the American mind for British readers, George Saunders wrote a column entitled "American Psyche" for the Guardian, 2004-8.

Here is a piece on humor from June 2008:

"Let's attempt to derive a theory of humour. Enabled by our theory, everyone could be funny, not just people who are actually funny. And since being funny is an asset - in business, in romance, when one has broken the law - it's hardly fair that "funny people" enjoy a monopoly.

"Let's begin with animals. Which animals are funny? Not an eagle. Unless the eagle is wearing a top hat. And walking stiffly through a supermarket, muttering grumpily to itself about how the world used to be a better place. The addition of a top hat makes any animal funnier. Put a top hat on an already funny animal (a pig, say), and the effect is hilarious, especially if the pig topples over for no reason and can't get up. And the eagle in the top hat stiffly steps over the fallen pig, muttering further reactionary platitudes. Then the pig puts out one of its stumpy pink legs, and down goes the eagle.

More in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jun/21/healthandwellbeing.americanpsyche

Saunders visits UAlbany today: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/saunders_george13.html

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Of Bats, Pythons and the Marburg Virus

Read an excerpt from Spillover, David Quammen's new book about emergent pandemics.

Quammen visits the Writers Institute tomorrow, Thursday.

"Astrid Joosten was a 41-year-old Dutch woman who, in June 2008, went to Uganda with her husband. At home in Noord-Brabant, she worked as a business analyst. Both she and her husband, Jaap Taal, a financial manager, enjoyed annual adventures, especially to Africa. The journey in 2008, booked through an adventure-travel outfitter, took them to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to mountain gorillas. While there, the operators offered an optional trip, to a place called the Maramagambo Forest, where the chief attraction was a peculiar site known as Python Cave. African rock pythons lived there, languid and content, grown large and fat on a diet of bats."

More in The Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/28/deadly-viruses-ebola-marburg-sars

More on Quammen's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/quammen_david12.html

Picture:  Egyptian fruit bats, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda

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Against the Sci-Fi Boys' Club

Fantasy author Damien Walter writes about why the male culture of science fiction needs to open its doors to women.

He highlights a number of female masters of the genre including Margaret Atwood (who visited the Writers Institute in November 2005), Alice Sheldon, Madeline Ashby and Tricia Sullivan.

"There's a logical fallacy in this club's claims that it welcomes women members, which is rather like the rhetoric of the well-schooled military officer. Of course they want women in the army. It's just, well, a soldier must be physically strong, naturally violent and preferably have a todger so you can pee standing up. Any woman who fulfils those criteria is more than welcome to take the king's shilling!"  More in The Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/07/hard-sf-women-writers

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Bill Kennedy in The Guardian

"Fiction has to come up from below," he says, frowning in the late afternoon light. "It has to be generated out of what is not necessarily the consequence of surface events. I talked to myself about this when I was trying to write my early short stories and even my first novel." He smiles. "It was a long conversation."

Emma Brockes of the British newspaper, The Guardian, came to Albany to interview William Kennedy. The article appeared February 24th.

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