The New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany announces
its Fall 2016 schedule of visiting writer appearances and film series
screenings. Events take place on the UAlbany uptown and downtown campuses and
are free and open to the public (unless otherwise noted).
Fall 2016 Visiting Writers Series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html
Fall 2016 Classic Film Series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html
The
Writers Institute Fall 2016 schedule begins with an exciting new program
collaboration "The Creative Life: A Conversation Series at
UAlbany." Created and produced by the Writers Institute, University
Art Museum, and UAlbany's Performing Arts Center, in collaboration with WAMC
Public Radio, this new series features leading figures from a variety of
artistic disciplines in conversation about their creative inspirations, their
crafts, and their careers. Joyce Carol Oates, prolific author
of more than 160 books, will lead off the series on September 15 followed by Savion
Glover, tap dancing legend and Tony award-winning choreographer on
October 15.
A
second series, "The New Americans: Recent Immigrant Experiences in
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Film" examines the experiences of recent
immigrant groups in the United States. Guests will include Imbolo Mbue,
recipient of a million dollar advance, whose first novel Behold the
Dreamers (2016) is a riveting story about a young Cameroonian couple
making a new life in New York City just as the depression of the 2000s upends
the economy; Anne Fadiman, author of the bestselling nonfiction
book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997), which explores
the clash between Western medicine and the holistic healing traditions of a
Hmong refugee family from Laos; and director Mary Mazzio,
whose documentary film UNDERWATER DREAMS follows a group of high school
students, sons of undocumented Mexican immigrants, who enter a sophisticated
underwater robotics competition.
In addition to Joyce Carol Oates and Imbolo Mbue, the fall series includes
an exciting lineup of fiction writers: Garth Risk Hallberg,
author of the sweeping debut novel City on Fire, a national bestseller
and recipient of the largest advance for a first novel in U.S. publishing
history; Charles Baxter, who continues to show his mastery of
the short story form with his collection There's Something I Want You to Do;
James Lasdun, whose new novel is the psychological thriller The
Fall Guy; and Howard Frank Mosher, author of 10 acclaimed
novels set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.
The genre of poetry is represented by Stephen Burt, the
most influential poetry critic of his generation, who shares the breadth of his
knowledge of American poetry today in his new book The Poem is You: 60
Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them.
Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, the foremost expert on the biology of anxiety and
fear, presents an accessible exploration of the nature of these
emotions in his new book, Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat
Fear and Anxiety.
Our conflicted relationship with the natural world will be the topic of two
events sponsored in conjunction with the UAlbany Art Museum's exhibition Future
Perfect: Picturing the Anthropocene. Novelist Jennifer Haigh,
whose new novel Heat and Light (2016) explores the allure of fracking
for the residents of a ravaged coal town, and Jeff Goodell,
author of the nonfiction book How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and
the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate will present a joint reading
and discussion. As part of the Classic Film Series, screenwriter Kelly
Masterson will offer film commentary following the screening of the
cult film SNOWPIERCER, a science fiction thriller about the survivors of a
failed climate-change experiment that inadvertently initiates an ice age.
Additional highlights of the Classic Film Series include screenings of ZOOT
SUIT RIOTS, an episode in the PBS American Experience series with commentary by
Joseph Tovares, the film's writer and director; a newly
restored version of CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (1965), directed by and starring Orson
Welles; the 1924 French silent film L'INHUMAINE (THE INHUMAN WOMAN), with live
piano accompaniment by Mike Schiffer; SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, based on Kurt
Vonnegut's powerful anti-war novel; and a 30th Anniversary screening of
IRONWEED, adapted for the screen by William Kennedy from his Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel.
For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or
online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Writers Institute Announces Fall 2016 Season!
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Special Event: Old Albany Through the Eyes of William Kennedy
All members of the general public are invited to the following special event:
225th ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM Old Albany through the Eyes of William Kennedy's Fictional Characters
Sunday, March 6 • 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Sunday, March 6 • 2:00pm - 3:30pmPulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Kennedy, who uses his hometown of Albany, New York, as the inspiration for his work, will present a slide show of historic Albany scenes that are featured prominently in the novels. He will discuss the ways in which his characters inhabit Albany's buildings and streets.
Free with museum admission
Sponsored by the Albany Institute of History & Art in conjunction with its 225th Anniversary and the New York State Writers Institute
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
NYS Writers Institute Announces Spring 2016 Schedule
The NYS Writers Institute announces a
spectacular calendar of free events for the Spring of 2016.
Headliners will include bestselling author and
mountaineer Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild, Into Thin Air); Pulitzer-winning
playwright and UAlbany alum Stephen Adly Guirgis (Between Riverside
and Crazy); pioneering Black female Hollywood director Darnell Martin
(Their Eyes Were Watching God); Pulitzer-winning New York Times business
reporter Charles Duhigg whose previous book The Power of Habit spent
120 weeks on the Times bestseller list; visionary computer scientist who
foresaw the Internet and who teaches computers to write poetry, David
Gelernter; New York Times health reporter Sheri Fink, author
of the major bestseller about Hurricane Katrina, Five Days at Memorial; 2013
Tony Winner for Best Director, Pam MacKinnon (the revival of Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Woolf?); major Irish fiction writer Colm Toibin,
author of Brooklyn, the basis of the Oscar-nominated film; local son and
Pulitzer winner Richard Russo with the new novel, Everybody’s
Fool, the sequel to his beloved classic Upstate New York novel, Nobody’s
Fool; and much, much more. Visit the links below for more details.
Mark your calendars for the State Author and Poet inauguration
ceremony on February 11th at 8PM at Page Hall. The new State Author
will be Edmund White, one of America’s finest prose writers, and its
leading chronicler of Gay experience. The new State Poet will be Yusef
Komunyakaa, Pulitzer winner and one of America’s most influential and most
anthologized poets.
In honor of the Pulitzer Centennial (1916-2016),
the series will feature seven Pulitzer winners— if you include William
Kennedy who will present a special program on Old Albany in March.
For more on the Visiting Writers Series,
visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#.Vp5_S01wXs0
For more on the Classic Film Series,
visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html#.Vp5_W01wXs0
We
hope to see you soon!
For more information, visit us online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst
or call us at 518-442-5620.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Her All-Time Favorite Short Stories-- Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie, who visits this coming Tuesday, shares some of her all-time favorite short stories in a New York Times "By the Book" interview:
Among them: “Twilight of the Superheroes” and “Your Duck Is My Duck,” by Deborah Eisenberg; “Way Down Deep in the Jungle,” by Thom Jones; “Oxygen,” by Ron Carlson; “Nettles” and “The Albanian Virgin,” by Alice Munro; “The Fat Girl,” by Andre Dubus; “We Didn’t,” by Stuart Dybek; “Tits-Up in a Ditch,” by Annie Proulx; “Bruns,” by Norman Rush; “Escapes,” by Joy Williams; “Yours,” by Mary Robison; “The Dog of the Marriage,” by Amy Hempel; “The Fireman’s Wife,” by Richard Bausch; “The Womanizer,” by Richard Ford; “Helping,” by Robert Stone; “No Place for You, My Love,” by Eudora Welty; “Are These Actual Miles,” by Raymond Carver; “People Like That Are The Only People Here,” by Lorrie Moore; “Last Night,” by James Salter; “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” by Russell Banks; “Hunters in the Snow,” by Tobias Wolff; Rebecca Lee’s collection, “Bobcat.”
More in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/books/review/ann-beattie-by-the-book.html?ref=books&_r=1
More about Ann Beattie's 2 events with Peg Boyers this Tuesday, 9/29: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/beattie_boyers15.html
David Denby's Superlative Review of Detropia in the New Yorker
David Denby reviews Detropia, which will be screened on Friday, 9/25, followed by commentary
and Q&A with director Rachel Grady.
"Detropia, a lyrical film about the destruction of a great American city, is the most moving documentary I’ve seen in years. The city is Detroit, and the film, made by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (who is a native), is both an ardent love letter to past vitality and a grateful salute to those who remain in place—the survivors, utterly without illusions, who refuse to leave. “Detropia” has its share of forlorn images: office buildings with empty eye sockets for windows; idle, rotting factories, with fantastic networks of chutes, pipes, and stacks; a lone lit tavern on a dark block. Yet the filmmakers are so attuned to color and to shape that I was amazed by the handsomeness of what I was seeing. I’m not being perverse: this is a beautiful film."
More in The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/10/good-fights-3
More about the event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/grady_rachel15.html
Monday, September 21, 2015
Detroit's Spectacular Decline on Film, Director Q&A
Film director Rachel Grady to speak following screening of her award-winning film DETROPIA, September 25, 2015
Documentary about Detroit was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance
ALBANY, NY (09/10/2015)(readMedia)-- Rachel Grady, codirector of the award-winning film, DETROPIA (2012), a visually-stunning exploration of the disintegration of the city of Detroit that David Denby of the New Yorker called, "the most moving documentary I've seen in years," will speak following a screening of the film on Friday, September 25, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. [note early start time] in Page Hall on the University at Albany downtown campus, 135 Western Avenue, Albany. Free and open to the public, the event is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Crime, Justice, and Social Structure Film Series.More: http://readme.readmedia.com/Film-director-Rachel-Grady-to-speak-following-screening-of-her-award-winning-film-DETROPIA-September-25-2015/11828634 Read More......
What is it like to collaborate with Stephen King?
Bestselling horror novelist Peter Straub will interact with audiences via Skype this coming Thursday, September 20th.
Straub will share the stage (on a large screen) with two of his friends at the literary magazine Conjunctions -- editor and murder mystery author Bradford Morrow, and MacArthur Fellowship-winning poet Ann Lauterbach (who will appear live).
Elizabeth Floyd Mair of the Times Union profiled Straub this past Sunday:
Q: You have written two novels with Stephen King. How does that work? How do you actually write them together? Write alternating chapters? And how does it compare to writing novels on your own?
A: If you must have a collaborator in writing fiction, Stephen King is pretty much your ideal partner. I recommend him, like, highly. The dude is fast, strong, smart and, you know, sort of powerful and sort of humane at the same time, which cannot be said of many. And besides that, he's really funny. Flat-out funny, also grossout funny, a lot of the time.
More in the Times Union: http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-features/article/Horror-writing-his-happy-place-6511583.php
More about the upcoming event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/conjunctions15.html