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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"The Most Remarkable New Movie"-- Tomorrow 3/1

"If there's a tougher sell than a Romanian movie by a hitherto unknown director, it's a Romanian movie by an unknown director that takes two and half hours to tell the tale of a 62-year-old pensioner's final trip to the hospital. Does it help to add that The Death of Mr. Lazarescu was the great discovery of the last Cannes Film Festival and, in several ways, the most remarkable new movie to open in New York this spring?"

Read more by J. Hoberman in the Village Voice, April 18, 2006:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-04-18/film/the-art-of-dying/full/

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"Knitting Saved My Life"-- Ann Hood

Ann Hood, author of the major bestseller, The Knitting Circle, will share the stage with UAlbany Professor Emeritus Eugene Mirabelli this afternoon and tonight.

Ann Hood speaking about The Knitting Circle: "A few years ago I was afraid I would never be able to write again.... During that time when I wasn't reading or writing, I learned how to knit. Knitting, I believe, saved my life. But it also introduced me to a new world of yarn and colors and textures and of people. Sitting in various knitting circles, I slowly learned that knitting had rescued other women too. Bad marriages, illness, addiction-knitting gave comfort and even hope through life's trials."

More:  http://www.annhood.us/books/knitting

More about the visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mirabelli_hood13.html

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Ann Hood's Makes the ABA "Great Reads" List

Ann Hood visits today to present her new novel (just published yesterday!). The book was also just listed on the March 2013 American Book Association's "Indie Next Great Reads" list, reviewed and recommended by independent booksellers across the nation.

Here's the review:

The Obituary Writer: A Novel, by Ann Hood (W.W. Norton & Company, $26.95, 9780393081428)
“Vivien, who suffered an incredible loss in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, helps others cope with their grief by making their lost loved ones come alive on the page. Claire, a young wife and mother in suburban Washington, D.C., who is caught up in the excitement of the 1960 Kennedy inauguration, wants ‘more’ but she’s not quite sure ‘more’ of what. Theirs are compelling lives of love and loss, romance and friendship, marriage and motherhood, promises made and unreasonable hopes kept alive, and the mystery that is their connection. Literary mystery, love story, and historical fiction — all beautifully told with expertly drawn characters make this one great novel!”

More about the visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mirabelli_hood13.html

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The Art of the Obituary

"Novelist, short story writer, and essayist Ann Hood loves obituaries. She says that they are a difficult form to write, since they must bring a character 'back to life' in a very compressed space."

Elizabeth Floyd Mair of the Times Union interviews Ann Hood about her new novel, The Obituary Writer (2013):  http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Telling-tales-of-two-lives-4298288.php

Ann Hood shares the stage with novelist Eugene Mirabelli tomorrow, Tuesday, 2/26:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mirabelli_hood13.html

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TU Review of George Saunders Event

"Your main job as a writer is to grab by the lapels and compel. I always tell students drop the facade, relax into the idea that the essential you is there and you have to let it come in."

Nana Adjei-Brenyah reviews George Saunders' presentation at UAlbany in the Times Union:
http://www.timesunion.com/entertainment/article/Author-Saunders-entertains-4300887.php

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On Losing a Child

No writer has confronted the reality of losing a child more bravely than Ann Hood, whose 2007 novel, The Knitting Circle, and 2008 memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, seek meaning and healing where both would seem unattainable-- in the death of her five year old daughter, Grace.

Hood, who visits the Writers Institute on 2/26, explores grief and loss and paths to emotional survival in all of her subsequent work, including her new novel, The Obituary Writer (2013).

Here is a 2011 article from Salon, "What I never told anyone about her death":  http://www.salon.com/2011/05/17/ann_hood_daughter_mortifying_disclosure/

More on her visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mirabelli_hood13.html

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