The Writers Institute Fall 2009 season will be a celebration of of the 25th Anniversary of the organization.
Here's one teaser item on the list:
Oct 15 Richard Russo and Lorrie Moore.
Each will be reading from newly published work. Lorrie Moore's novel A Gate at the Stairs is her first in more than a decade.
Richard Russo's new novel, That Old Cape Magic, continues his mediation on place, family, and marriage.
Both books are wicked good.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Fall Plans for the NYSWI 25th Anniversary
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Annette Gordon-Reed Wins the Pulitzer
Annette Gordon-Reed, who visited the New York State Writers Institute on March 4, 2009, has received the Pulitzer Prize in history for her newest book, The Hemingses of Monticello. In awarding the prize, the panel of judges called the book "a painstaking exploration of a sprawling multi-generation slave family that casts provocative new light on the relationship between Sally Hemings and her master, Thomas Jefferson." Visit our video archive for clips of Gordon-Reed's presentations in Albany.
Other Writers Institute visitors named as finalists for Pulitzer Prizes this year include poet Frank Bidart , who read last April from his prize-nominated volume, Watching the Spring Festival (2008), poet Ruth Stone, novelist Louise Erdrich, and UAlbany Music Professor Don Byron, who performed on saxophone and clarinet as an opener for our evening event with filmmaker Spike Lee. Recent visitor Dava Sobel served as a judge for the prize in General Nonfiction.
Read More......
Monday, April 13, 2009
PEN World Voices Event Cancelled
The PEN World Voices: Festival of International Literature, scheduled to take place on Tuesday, April 28, 2009, has been cancelled due to scheduling difficulties. More information about future programming possibilities with PEN will be posted in the near future.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Steven Bach (1940-2009)
We note with sadness the passing of film scholar Steven Bach who was a guest of the Writers Institute twice in the last two years.
Bach was both a leading film industry insider and film historian. As head of production for United Artists, he was centrally involved in the making of “Raging Bull,” “Apocalypse Now,” Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” and dozens of other films. He was the author of four “New York Times” Notable Books, including “Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl” (2007), “Dazzler: The Life and Times of Moss Hart” (2001), “Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend” (1992), and “Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists” (1985). The “Los Angeles Times Book Review” called “Leni,” “Brilliant. … A compulsively readable and scrupulously crafted work . …” Writing in the “New Yorker,” Judith Thurman said, “First-rate . . . [a] richly fleshed-out portraiture and social history.”Steven Bach taught Literature and Film at both Columbia University in New York and Bennington College in Vermont.
See our blog entry on Steven Bach's April 2007 visit and a video excerpt from his visit in October 2008 and also his visit of April 2007.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Irish Writers from the Video Archive
In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we offer you some video clips of Irish writers who have graced our stages, including John Montague talking of his friendship with Samuel Beckett, Kate McCafferty about her right to speak for others who are forgotten, recent New York gubernatorial candidate Malachy McCourt (pictured right) singing "Cockles and Mussels," and Frank McCourt about envying the ducks.
Other writers include Anne Enright, Roddy Doyle, Peter Sheridan, Paul Muldoon, Fintan O'Toole, Eamon Grennan, Colum McCann, Colm Toibin, Frank Delaney, Daniel Cassidy, Paul Durcan, and Oscar Wilde's only grandchild, Merlin Holland.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Horton Foote: A Remembrance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4tDSFfwcag
We are saddened by the passing of Horton Foote, whose uniquely American voice defined a lyricism in drama that is irreplaceable.
We remember the quiet, gentle power of his persona. During his visit to the Writers Institute in 2006 we presented a reading of his one act play, "Blind Date." We were so anxious to please a writer we admired that our initial rehearsal was clumsy and he soothed us in a calm, melodious voice, reminding us to relax and trust the material. Horton was all about trust. He trusted his roots, his muse, and all the lives around him that he transformed into stories that embraced the complete range of human value on the canvas of small- town American life. He asked the timeless philosophical questions: How do people carry on? Why are they so keen to survive? Why doesn’t life break the human spirit? What’s the difference between those who survive and those who don’t? His art was a quest to explore those questions and celebrate how we suffer catastrophic change and soldier on. His writing allowed us to observe our struggle at a distance, to appreciate it, laugh at it, and weep over it. We miss his voice especially as we attempt to cope with his absence.
It is rare for someone in the world of theatre and at his level of success to be universally acknowledged for personal grace, compassion, sincerity and generosity towards his fellow artists. He has never lost touch with his own apprenticeship and unfailingly showed his genuine interest in and support for those attempting to follow in his impossibly large footsteps. It was, quite simply, a privilege to be in his presence.
- Langdon Brown, Writers Institute Fellow and Director of Authors Theatre
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Annette Gordon-Reed Rescheduled for March 4th!
The events with 2008 National Book Award-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed have been moved forward to Wednesday, March 4, 2009 (previously scheduled for Feb. 24). Note that the locations for these events have changed as well (see below).
March 4 (Wednesday)
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library, Uptown Campus
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Ave., Downtown Campus
Annette Gordon-Reed has been called, “one of the most astute, insightful, and forthright historians of this generation” (Edmund Morgan, New York Review of Books). A Professor of History at Rutgers and Professor of Law at New York Law School, Gordon-Reed is the author of The Hemingses of Monticello, winner of the 2008 National Book Award. The book tells the stories of multiple generations of Thomas Jefferson’s secret slave family. Her earlier works include Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (1997). Writing in the New Yorker, historian and critic Jill Lepore called the earlier book, “[A] tour de force. . . . a devastating brief on standards of evidence in historical research.”
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