Awkwafina Makes Splash in West Addition

“I took a chance, you know, and it worked out,” said comedic rapper, soon-to-be movie star, and University at Albany alum, Nora Lum, also known as “Awkwafina.”

Lum walked through the Science Library halls, reminiscing about being a student here. She remembered walking down Fuller Road, walking through Stuyvesant Plaza, and living on Empire Commons. This was Lum’s second time back on campus since she graduated.

She made her way to her meet-and-greet, where she signed autographs and took pictures with students, before having an on-stage interview with Steve Barnes, a journalism professor and senior writer at the Times Union.

Lum first gained fame after releasing a music video for her song “My Vag” on YouTube back in 2012. It gained almost two million views.

“I was sitting on it for quite a while,” said Lum. “I was 19 when I wrote it. I actually wrote it here.” She released the song after graduation. About six or seven years after writing it, her friend heard it and decided that they needed to make a music video.

“It took a while,” she said. “I was working in a full-time job at the time, so I was scared to put it out.”
But Lum took a chance. Read more in the Albany Student Press.

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MacArthur Genius Filmmaker Stanley Nelson 4/7

Meet award-winning filmmaker and MacArthur Genius Stanley Nelson who will answer your questions following a screening of his acclaimed film, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, this Friday night, 7PM start time, Page Hall, UAlbany Downtown campus.

"Sober yet electrifying!" A. O. Scott, New York Times
"Essential history and a primer in making sense of how we live now."-- Washington Post
April 7 (Friday): THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION

 Film screening with commentary by director Stanley Nelson — 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

 Directed by Stanley Nelson (United States, 2015, 115 minutes, color and b/w)

 This feature length documentary explores the remarkable history of the Black Panther Party, its formation and ultimate downfall, and its cultural and political significance to the broader American culture. Nikki Baughan of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, called the film “Compelling and incisive,” and said, “The most shocking aspect…is how painfully relevant its message still is.” The film premiered at Sundance, aired on PBS, and received awards for Best Documentary from the Image Awards and the National Board of Review

Stanley Nelson is an Emmy Award-wining documentary filmmaker and recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in 2014. Nelson’s other films include FREEDOM RIDERS, JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLE’S TEMPLE, and THE MURDER OF EMMETT TILL, among others.
Note: Producer Marcia Smith, also originally scheduled to attend, will not appear at the event because of a scheduling conflict.
Sponsored in conjunction with UAlbany’s School of Criminal Justice’s Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century: Crime, Justice, and Public Memory Film Series.

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Unspeakably in love with books

"As a child I was unspeakably in love with books. My dad had built two massive shelves that ran the width of our knotty pine-paneled living room. These were laden with the many high quality volumes of great works sent regularly to my mother by a man who either was or fancied himself to be her suitor — an untold story unto itself. I was too young to appreciate either the distinction between the two or the peculiarity of my father having built the shelves for the books the supposed suitor sent."
Read the full column in the Times Union:  http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-opinion/article/Jo-Page-Reading-is-nothing-short-of-a-10987387.php

Come hear Jo Page speak about her new memoir, Preaching in My Yes Dress: Confessions of a Reluctant Pastor," this coming Tuesday, March 28. She'll share the stage with her teacher, UAlbany Professor Emeritus and novelist, 
March 28 (Tuesday):  Eugene Mirabelli, novelist, and Jo Page, memoir writer and journalist
Reading — 4:15 p.m., University Hall Room 110, Collins Circle, Uptown Campus
Jo Page, essayist, newspaper columnist, and ordained Lutheran minister, is the author of the new memoir, Preaching in My Yes Dress: Confessions of a Reluctant Pastor (2016), a candid, moving, and humorous account of her spiritual journey. Bestselling novelist Margot Livesey said the book is “all the things you hope a good memoir will be: profound, witty, deeply serious, wonderfully original, and utterly absorbing.” For 20 years the author of the "Reckonings" column for Metroland, Albany’s former newsweekly, Page now writes a column for the Albany Times Union. Read more
Eugene Mirabelli, Professor Emeritus of English at UAlbany, received the prestigious Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Gold Medal for his 2012 novel, Renato the Painter: An Account of His Youth & His 70th Year in His Own Words, the story of an artist who lives life with gusto and practices his art in defiance of critical and public neglect. Author and NPR reviewer Andrei Codrescu described the book as “…a fresco of Sicilian-American-New England life….” Mirabelli’s new book is the sequel, Renato After Alba: His Rage Against Life, Love & Loss in His Own Words (2016), an account of Renato’s experience of widowerhood at the age of 83. Publishers Weekly said, “The reader feels such affection for Renato… you can forgive him anything.” Read more

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Derek Walcott, in memoriam (1930-2017)

The Writers Institute mourns the passing of poet and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott who visited us in
1998.

See video from his Albany visit here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tlWeaErcVE

See more about his Albany visit here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/walcott.html

Read the New York Times obituary here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/books/derek-walcott-dead-nobel-prize-literature.html?_r=0

Derek Walcott, whose intricately metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean, the harsh legacy of colonialism and the complexities of living and writing in two cultural worlds, bringing him a Nobel Prize in Literature, died early Friday morning at his home near Gros Islet in St. Lucia. He was 87.

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Dael Orlandersmith Rescheduled to May 1st!

Please note that Dael Orlandersmith, Obie-winning playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama, has rescheduled her appearances to Monday, May 1st (she was originally scheduled to appear March 20th).

Orlandersmith will deliver the annual Burian Lecture about her life in the theater and her powerful new play, “Until the Flood,” about explosive events and racial tensions in Ferguson, Missouri. Her work frequently explores the struggles of African Americans in urbans settings, and life in the rough East Harlem neighborhood of her childhood. Cosponsored by the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment and UAlbany’s Theatre Program

May 1 (Monday):  The 21st Annual Burian Lecture— Dael Orlandersmith, award-winning playwright 

Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

The Burian Lecture — 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

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Paul Grondahl to host Diane Ackerman, Tuesday 3/7

Paul Grondahl, the newly-named director of the Writers Institute, will host his first events on Tuesday, March 7th. Please join us in giving him a warm welcome.

Grondahl earned a master’s degree in English at UAlbany in 1984. An award-winning journalist and biographer, he has been a staff writer at the Albany Times Union for more than 30 years.  His projects on domestic violence, death and dying, mental illness in state prisons and the problems facing sub-Saharan Africa have won local, state and national journalism prizes.

DIANE ACKERMAN

BESTSELLING AUTHOR, POET, AND NATURALIST TO READ FROM AND DISCUSS HER BOOK THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE

NYS Writers Institute, Tuesday, March 7, 2017

4:15 p.m. Seminar  University Hall Room 110, Collins Circle, Uptown Campus

8:00 p.m. Reading  Clark Auditorium, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Downtown Albany

Diane Ackerman, renowned for her explorations of the natural world in nonfiction and poetry, received the National Outdoor Book Award and PEN’s Henry Thoreau Prize for her 2015 book The Human Age, about new efforts to save the planet. Her other works include A Natural History of the Senses (1990); the memoir and Pulitzer finalist One Hundred Names for Love (2011), and The Zookeeper’s Wife (2007), the true story of a Warsaw zookeeper’s family that saved 300 Jews during the Holocaust, which will be released as a film starring Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain on March 31st. A trailer for the new film will be screened at the 8PM event.

For more about Diane Ackerman:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/ackerman_diane17.html    

For more about the Visiting Writers Series:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html  

For more information, contact the NYS Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or visit us online at www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

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Lydia Kulbida Joins Film Panel This Friday 3/3!

Lydia Kulbida will join our pre-film discussion about His Girl Friday (1940) with leading local journalists this coming Friday at Page Hall (newly added event). Lydia is a prominent Capital Region broadcast journalist who co-anchors News10ABC at 4pm with Elisa Streeter and Chief Meteorologist Steve Caporizzo, and also co-anchors News10ABC at 6pm and FOX23 News at 10pm with John Gray.

March 3 (Friday): HIS GIRL FRIDAY

Pre-screening talk with Lydia Kulbida, Rosemary Armao, Marion Roach Smith and Casey Seiler about the challenges facing women in journalism —

7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus, 1400 Washington Ave.

Film screening to follow— 8:00 p.m.

Directed by Howard Hawks (United States, 1940, 92 minutes, b/w)

Starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

A newspaper editor uses every trick he can think of to stop his top reporter—and ex-wife—from quitting journalism and hopping a train to Albany to marry another man with the intention of settling into a new life as a housewife. This fast-paced comedy with overlapping dialogue was adapted by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur from their  Broadway hit The Front Page. Chicago Reader reviewer Dave Kehr described Cary Grant’s performance as “…truly virtuoso— stunning technique applied to the most challenging material.” The American Film Institute ranked His Girl Friday at #19 in its list of the best American comedies of all time. Quentin Tarantino credits the film with teaching him to write dialogue.

 

A new high-definition digital restoration of His Girl Friday will be shown.

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