"Acclaimed historian Patton (The Pattons) focuses on the war correspondent persona and the band of bold adventurers who earned their keep on the frontlines in this detailed salute. A first correspondent whose actions provided the template for all who followed, The Times of London's William H. Russell, respected battle, an appreciation that found him in the thick of the bloodiest clashes including the Battle of Bull Run, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian war, and the Russo-Turkish war. In a no-frills, straightforward narrative, Patton describes the backgrounds of the early pioneers, John Russell Young, George Smalley, Holt White, and Henry Villard, who embraced armed conflict and its horrors, while feeding their dramatic observations to The New York Herald and The New York Tribune. The American publications dueled with each other, such as when Smalley opposed sending untried reporters into the battlefield, instead preferring two experienced correspondents dispatched to each army's headquarters. Some excitement is generated with the sections of the wild and brilliant career of American painter-war correspondent Frank Millet, who bravely covered the 1877 war in the Ottoman Empire. Patton's tribute to these battlefield scribes revives an understanding of why these men mattered." --Publishers Weekly
Patton visits today: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/patton_Robert14.html
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Hell Before Breakfast in Publishers Weekly
Monday, April 28, 2014
5 Writing Tips from Dinaw Mengestu in PW
Dinaw Mengestu, who visited us on March 13, offers five writing tips in the latest issue of Publishers Weekly:
1. Be generous to your characters: kill them, save them, break their hearts and then heal them. Stuff them with life, emotions, histories, objects and people they love, and once you've done that, once they are bursting at the seams, strip them bare. Find out what they look like—how they stand, talk move, when they have nothing left. Now put them back together, fill them once more with life, except now leave enough room for the reader to squeeze their own heart and imagination inside.
More: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/62003-5-writing-tips-dinaw-mengestu.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly&utm_campaign=25e089a2d2-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0bb2959cbb-25e089a2d2-304584381
More about Mengestu's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mengestu_dinaw14.html
NYC Haikus in the NY Times
Marie Howe, NY State Poet under the auspices of the NYS Writers Institute, selected haikus about New York City in a National Poetry Month contest in the New York Times.
Here are two entries:
On the 6 to Spring
two cops help a tourist whose
map is upside down
Beware the puddle
of indeterminate depth
that swallows boots whole
More about Marie: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/howe_marie12.html Read More......
Bilingual Authors in the New York Times
Francesca Marciano, who visited us on April 11 is prominently featured in a New York Times article
on authors who choose to write in English instead of their native languages:
Some bilingual writers find it liberating to escape from their native language. “I think that I have fewer tools than if I were writing in Italian, but my voice is freer,” Ms. Marciano said.
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/books/writing-in-english-novelists-find-inventive-new-voices.html?_r=0
More on Francesca's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/marciano_francesca14.html
Robert Patton Tuesday, Grandson of General George Patton
Robert Patton, grandson of the legendary WWII General George S. Patton will present his new nonfiction book, Hell Before Breakfast: America's First War Correspondents Making History and Headlines, from the Battlefields of the Civil War to the Far Reaches of the Ottoman Empire (May 2014), tomorrow, Tuesday, April 29th.
More about the events: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/patton_Robert14.html
Booklist said: “A fascinating cast of characters…Patton details major conflagrations and social and technological changes amid the gore of war and the prose of reporters of another era.”
More about the book: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/128217/hell-before-breakfast-by-robert-h-patton#praise
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Sweet Dreams in the L. A. Times
Kenneth Turan reviews Sweet Dreams (to be screened Friday, followed by Q&A with actress and ice cream entrepreneur Jennie Dundas) in the L. A. Times:
'Sweet Dreams' is the story of the first ice cream shop in Rwanda and the remarkable group of female drummers who overcame incredible suffering to make it happen.... The most memorable thing about "Sweet Dreams" is that it allows us to experience the resilience, the capacity for happiness these women retain in spite of all they've been through. There's a lesson there for all of us.
More in the L. A. Times: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-sweet-dreams-20131129,0,180521.story#ixzz2zoKZuLut
More about Friday's event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/dundas_jennifer14.html Read More......
Jennifer Dundas, Stage and Screen Credits
More about Friday's event: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/dundas_jennifer14.html
From Wikipedia:
Jennifer Dundas (born January 14, 1971 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American actress best known for her role as Chris Paradis, Diane Keaton's lesbian daughter, in The First Wives Club. Other selected films include Puccini for Beginners, Legal Eagles, The Beniker Gang and The Hotel New Hampshire. Dundas has guest starred in TV shows such as Desperate Housewives and Law and Order: Criminal Intent. She has also performed in the New York Theatre, including the play Arcadia. She won an Obie (Off-Broadway) Award for her performance in Good as New by Peter Hedges.
From IMDB:
In addition to her film credits, Jennifer Dundas has had a long and distinguished career in the New York theatre. She starred in the American premieres of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" opposite Billy Crudup on Broadway, "Iron" and "Further Than The Furthest Thing" at Manhattan Theatre Club. She created the role of Edie in the world premiere of Jules Feiffer's "Grownups" on Broadway, and she originated Maggie in Peter Hedges' "Good As New" opposite John Spencer at Manhattan Class Company, for which she received an OBIE Award. Her acclaimed New York performances include "The Little Foxes" opposite Stockard Channing, "Ah, Wilderness!" with Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards, "As You Like It" (Shakespeare In The Park, directed by Mark Lamos), and "A Winter's Tale" with Christopher Reeve and Mandy Patinkin (Public Theatre, directed by James Lapine). Ms. Dundas' other notable performances include Laura in "The Glass Menagerie" opposite Sally Field at the Kennedy Center, Raina in "Arms and The Man" opposite Eric Stoltz at Williamstown, Hermia in Sir Peter Hall's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Ahmanson, and Dunyasha in "The Cherry Orchard" opposite Annette Bening and Alfred Molina at the Mark Taper Forum. She has played starring roles at Trinity Rep, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, American Repertory Theatre, South Coast Rep, Long Wharf Theater and many others.
In 1995, Ms. Dundas was honored by American Theatre Magazine as one of six New Faces of The Year. Featured on the cover with her were fellow honorees Billy Crudup, Megan Mullally, Justin Kirk, Rufus Sewell, and Jude Law.
Originally from Newton, MA, Ms. Dundas made her Broadway debut at age ten, and appeared in her first film at age eleven.
In summer '06 she went "home" to Boston to play Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company on Boston Common, which was estimated to have been viewed by over 75,000 people in a period of three weeks.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Howard Read More......