Fwd: FW: Announcing our Fall 2022 Season Schedule and Albany Book Festival Schedule of Events
Dan Wilcox
From: Huber, Michael J <mhu...@albany.edu>
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 2:46 PM
Subject: FW: Announcing our Fall 2022 Season Schedule and Albany Book Festival Schedule of Events
To: <WRITE...@listserv.albany.edu>
We’re delighted to announce our Fall 2022 season, an eclectic mix of events featuring award-winning authors, poets, journalists, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, and our 5th Annual Albany Book Festival.
The season highlight will be the Albany Book Festival, 10:30 a.m. through 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17, at the UAlbany Campus Center, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany NY 12222.
The event, free and open to the public, will showcase more than 100 authors and poets, including Garry Trudeau, creator of “Doonesbury,” Susan Choi, award-winning author of Trust Exercise (2019), Robert Pinsky, former U.S. Poet Laureate, and a tribute to gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. The book festival will also feature panel discussions on Apocalyptic Fiction, Immigration, Parenting, New York History, and Food, online workshops, scores of local authors selling and signing their books, exhibits, family-friendly activities, and more.
A message from Paul Grondahl, Director of the New York State Writers Institute.
“We established the Albany Book Festival as a way to underscore and to celebrate anew the capital city’s grand literary tradition. We created an annual fall community event that appeals to all ages of people who like to read books. It promotes literacy while bringing together a diverse group of extraordinary writers and large crowds of book lovers. We’re encouraged by how many communities have embraced this annual event, which has taken root and grows each year.
While hosting dozens of literary events this fall, we collaborate across the University at Albany and throughout the Capital Region with organizations committed to celebrating the written word in its myriad forms. Please join us for the book festival and our other fall programs, which remain free and open to all through the generous financial support of our sponsors.”
The NYS Writers Institute’s Fall 2022 season begins on Friday, Aug. 26, with a screening and Q&A of the documentary “A Tear in the Sky.” Starring William Shatner of “Star Trek” and celebrity physicist Michio Kaku, the film follows a team of military personnel and scientists — including two UAlbany physics professors, Kevin Knuth and Matthew Szydagis — as they attempt to re-capture, in real-time, evidence of UFOs and other space anomalies using state-of-the-art, military-grade equipment, and technology.
Special events of the season include:
- Telling the Truth 2022, on Friday, Oct. 28, a one-day conference of conversations that will address attacks on truth, free speech, a free press, and the First Amendment, as well as propaganda, misinformation, hacks, deep fakes, conspiracy theories, and threats to our democracy.
- National Book Award winner Andrea Barrett will join the Writers Institute for two events on Tuesday, Sept. 20.
- Kwame Alexander, a New York Times bestselling author of 35 books, will visit with Albany schoolchildren and the Writers Institute will distribute hundreds of copies of his new book The Door of No Return (September 2022) in advance of his evening event on Thursday, Oct. 6.
- Michelle Alexander, whose book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010), spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, is slated to visit Albany Tuesday, Oct. 11. Co-sponsored with The College of Saint Rose.
- American Book Award-winning poet Carolyn Forché, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her new collection, In The Lateness of the World, will visit on Thursday, Nov. 17.
- Melissa Gilbert, who portrayed Laura Ingalls in the classic TV show, “Little House on the Prairie” will discuss her new book, Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, A Life Rediscovered (2022) on Wednesday, Nov. 30.
- Previously announced, WAMC’s Joe Donahue will host two Creative Life discussions during the fall: essayist Lucy Sante on Tuesday, Oct. 18, and illustrator, author, and designer Maira Kalman on Wednesday, Nov. 16.
All events take place on UAlbany's uptown and downtown campuses and are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Visit nyswritersinstitute.org
Please share this email with your book-loving friends. Thanks!
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NYS Writers Institute Fall 2022 Schedule of Events
Download a print version of the full season schedule (PDF)
A FILM THAT ASKS, "ARE WE ALONE?"
August 26 (Friday)
A TEAR IN THE SKY
Film screening and Q&A with UAlbany professors Kevin Knuth and Matthew Szydagis, who are featured in the film — 7:00 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
(United States, 2022, 88 minutes, color) Directed by Caroline Cory.
A Tear in the Sky explores the field of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (known formerly as UFOs)— a subject that is generating considerable mainstream interest since the release of previously classified U.S. government videos, and the creation by the Pentagon of a UAP Task Force in August 2020. Starring William Shatner of Star Trek and celebrity physicist Michio Kaku, the film follows a team of military personnel and scientists— including two University at Albany physics professors, Kevin Knuth and Matthew Szydagis— as they attempt to re-capture, in real time, evidence of UFOs and other space anomalies, using state-of-the-art, military-grade equi p.m.ent and technology.
Kevin Knuth, Ph.D. is Associate Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University at Albany (SUNY), as well as Editor-in-Chief of the physics journal, Entropy (MDPI). He is a former NASA research scientist having worked for four years at NASA's Ames Research Center in the Intelligent Systems Division designing artificial intelligence algorithms for astrophysical data analysis.
Matthew Szydagis, Ph.D. is Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University at Albany (SUNY), where he specializes in experimental particle astrophysics. He is the developer of important new tools in his field, including NEST (Noble Element Simulation Technique) software, and “snowball chamber” supercooled water technology.
September 6 (Tuesday)
African Americans and Asian Americans-- Sharing Cultures
Asha Lemmie, novelist, and Bohan Phoenix, rap music artist
Craft Talk with Asha Lemmie — 4:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Conversation with Asha Lemmie and Bohan Phoenix about cultural admiration, understanding, sharing and respect among Blacks and Asians— 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Asha Lemmie is an African American fiction writer who is passionately interested in Japanese culture. Her novel, Fifty Words for Rain (2020), begins during World War II, and follows the life of a biracial woman, Noriko “Nori” Kamiza, the child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover. A New York Times bestseller and Editors’ Choice, the book was a selection of the Good Morning America Book Club. Elisabeth Egan said in a New York Times review, “Asha Lemmie’s sprawling, thought-provoking debut novel…. will give you 50 reasons to cancel the rest of your day.”
Bohan Phoenix 博涵, born in Hubei, China, is a New York rap artist who came to the U.S. at age 11. Inspired by rap music as a young immigrant, he began collaborating with the Chinese hip-hop group Higher Brothers in 2017. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, he led the call for Asian rap artists to become more active in the movement. This year, he was tapped to star in Van’s footwear brand campaign in China, and performed a half-time show for the Brooklyn Nets in March. His debut summer 2022 album, Cities Are for Fools, has been described as an “ode to New York.”
September 17 (Saturday)
Albany Book Festival – More at www.albanybookfestival.com
10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
University at Albany Campus Center
STORIES FROM CENTRAL NEW YORK
September 20 (Tuesday)
Andrea Barrett
Craft Talk — 4:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Reading / Conversation — 7:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Andrea Barrett, major American fiction writer, won the National Book Award for the short story collection, Ship Fever (1996), and was a Pulitzer finalist for Servants of the Map: Stories (2002). One of Lit Hub’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2022,” her newest collection is Natural History (Sept. 2022), featuring six stories set in a small community in central New York, and spanning the decades between the Civil War to the present day. Writing in advance praise, author Karen Russell called Barrett “A genius-enchantress,” and Kirkus called the book, “More superb work from an American master.”
September 22 (Thursday)
Zaina Arafat
Craft Talk — 4:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Reading / Conversation — 7:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Zaina Arafat, LGBTQ Palestinian-American journalist and fiction writer, is the author of the debut novel, You Exist Too Much (2020), which received the 2021 Lambda Literary Award. In her online newsletter, The Audacity, Roxane Gay named it her favorite book of 2020. The novel follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life. O, The Oprah Magazine called it, “A provocative and seductive debut,” and said, “Novels like these don’t exist enough.”
Cosponsored by the UAlbany Honors College.
A WOMAN OF ENDURANCE
September 29 (Thursday)
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Craft Talk — 4:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Reading / Conversation — 7:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
In association with the University at Albany’s Celebration of Latin American History Month.
SUPERSTAR OF YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE
October 6 (Thursday)
Conversation/Q&A — 7:00 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Kwame Alexander, a household name among readers of children’s and YA literature, is the New York Times bestselling author of 35 books, including The Undefeated, winner of the Caldecott Medal and Newbery Honor, and The Crossover, winner of the Newbery Medal. His new novel is The Door of No Return (Sept. 2022), the story of Kofi, an 11-year-old boy who is taken from the normal childhood and vibrant life of his West African village into the brutality of the Translatlantic Slave Trade. Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson series) called it, “Absolutely spellbinding... An unforgettable journey to be treasured and shared across generations.”
Major support and funding provided by the Carl E. Touhey Foundation.
LIGHTING THE FIRE OF THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT
October 11 (Tuesday)
Michelle Alexander, acclaimed author and civil rights attorney
Conversation [REGISTRATION REQUIRED] — 7:00 p.m., The College of Saint Rose, Massry Center for the Arts, Picotte Recital Hall, 1002 Madison Ave, Albany
Stay tuned to nyswritersinstitute.org for registration information
Michelle Alexander is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010), a book that spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. It was named one of the most important books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly‚ Slate‚ The Chronicle of Higher Education‚ Literary Hub, Book Riot‚ and Zora. The book portrays mass incarceration as a method of reinforcing a racial caste system. Ibram X. Kendi said, “This bestseller struck the spark that would eventually light the fire of Black Lives Matter.”
Presented in partnership with The College of Saint Rose and UAlbany's Office of Diversity & Inclusion.
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: SYMPOSIUM AND AWARD CEREMONY
October 14 (Friday)
The High Peaks Impact Awards
Symposium and Award Ceremony [REGISTRATION REQUIRED], 1:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m., Massry Center for Business Building
Join UAlbany’s School of Business for The High Peaks Impact Awards, an award program to honor regional businesses for excellence in the embodiment of Environmental Social Governance (ESG) practices. This afternoon symposium will also include a keynote address from George Serafeim (author of Purpose and Profit: How Business Can Lift Up the World) and panel discussions to share best practices as to how ESG benefits businesses and their stakeholders in multiple ways.
For more information on the schedule of events and to register, visit www.albany.edu/business/esg-symposium
Created and produced by the New York State Writers Institute, University Art Museum, and UAlbany Performing Arts Center in collaboration with WAMC Northeast Public Radio, this series features leading figures from a variety of artistic disciplines in conversation with WAMC’s “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue about creative inspiration, craft, and career.
October 18 (Tuesday)
Lucy Sante, renowned essayist and cultural commentator
A Creative Life Conversation with WAMC’s Joe Donahue — 7:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Lucy Sante is a transgender, Belgian-born nonfiction writer, art critic, and cultural commentator of astonishingly wide interests, including the Beastie Boys, early photography, and the history of NYC reservoirs. She’s also “one of the handful of living masters of the American language, as well as a singular historian and philosopher of American experience” (Peter Schjeldahl of the New Yorker). As Luc Sante, she is best-known for Low Life (1991), about crime and entertainment in Old New York, 1840-1919, and her collected essays, Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005 (2007). A second collection, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, came out in 2020. She wrote about her recent gender transition in the February 2022 issue of Vanity Fair.
Major support for The Creative Life is provided by the University at Albany Foundation and University Auxiliary Services.
October 20 (Thursday)
Gregory Maguire
Reading / Conversation — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Gregory Maguire is the beloved author of Wicked (the basis of the hit Broadway musical), a multimillion-copy bestselling writer, and a proud University at Albany alum (Class of 1976). He will present his new Wicked spinoff, The Oracle of Maracoor (Oct. 2022), the second installment in his new trilogy, Another Day, which follows the adventures of Elphaba’s green-skinned granddaughter, Rain, in the strange land of Maracoor, across the ocean from Oz. The first installment, The Brides of Maracoor, appeared in 2021. People magazine called it, “exquisitely crafted,” and Buzzfeed said, “this latest Oz tale is as satisfying a read as the Wicked Years quartet.”
Cosponsored by the UAlbany Honors College, Young Writers Project and World of Writing LLC.
WE REFUSE TO FORGET
October 25 (Tuesday)
Caleb Gayle
Craft Talk — 4:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Conversation — 7:30 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, 222 Madison Avenue, Albany
Caleb Gayle, is the author of We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power (2022), a landmark work that presents the untold history of Native Americans and African Americans in Oklahoma. In praise of Gayle’s writing, Kiese Laymon said the book, “reminds readers, on damn near every page, that we are collectively experiencing a brilliance we’ve seldom seen or imagined.” Jacqueline Woodson called it, “An important part of American history told with a clear-eyed and forceful brilliance.” Gayle also wrote the much-discussed May 25, 2021 cover story for the New York Times Magazine on the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Co-sponsored by the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education.
A CELEBRATION OF HMONG CULTURE THROUGH THE ARTS
October 27 (Thursday)
“Being Hmong Means Being Free”
Film Screening — 4:30 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
This documentary (57 minutes) highlights the history, culture and identity of the Hmong immigrants who have settled in the United States between 1975 and the early 1990s and explores how dramatically life has changed for Hmong in the space of a generation.
Display of Paj ntaub (Hmong story cloths or flower cloths)
On display from October 24 – November 4, Performing Arts Center Lobby
In cooperation with the Hmong Cultural Center in Minnesota, the PAC will display Paj ntaub, an integral part of Hmong culture for centuries, which depicts history, traditional life in Laos, Hmong New Year, folk tales and neighboring people.
November 3 (Thursday)
“The Latehomecomer”
Performance — 7:30 p.m., UAlbany Performing Arts Center
Advance tickets: $15 general public / $10 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff
Day of show tickets: $20 general public / $15 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff
For tickets, visit www.albany.edu/pac and look for Prime Performances.
This Literature to Life stage adaptation of Kao Kalia Yang’s memoir of the same name follows her journey from a quiet student struggling to speak English while facing racial discrimination to a self-empowered young woman claiming her voice to tell the untold story of her people, the Hmong. Gaosong Heu, an accomplished Hmong actress, performs this powerful tale that tells a universal story of immigration through the specific lens of this ancient culture inextricably bound to the history of the war in Vietnam.
Presented by the UAlbany Performing Arts Center in collaboration with the NYS Writers Institute and made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Additional support provided by the University at Albany Foundation, Office of Intercultural Student Engagement, University Auxiliary Services, and the Alumni Association through the Grandma Moses Fund.
Telling the Truth 2022
Symposium — 5:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
We welcome the public to our 4th edition of “Telling the Truth.” This year’s conversations will address attacks on truth, free speech, a free press, and the First Amendment, as well as propaganda, misinformation, hacks, deep fakes, conspiracy theories, and other ongoing threats to our democracy that crystallized in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Panelists— among others— will include Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times, and the author of Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts (2019), about the precarious state of the American press; and Nandini Jammi, leading truth-in-broadcasting activist and founder of the advertising watchdog agencies, Check My Ads and Sleeping Giants.
THE EMPIRE STATE ARCHIVES & HISTORY AWARD
November 1 (Tuesday)
Lonnie G. Bunch III
Ceremony/Conversation with host Harold Holzer [REGISTRATION REQUIRED, In-person and livestreaming options available] —7:00 p.m., NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, 222 Madison Avenue, Albany
Lonnie G. Bunch III is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian, overseeing 21 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and several education units and centers. A widely published author, Bunch has written on topics ranging from the Black military experience, the American presidency, African American history in California, diversity in museum management and the impact of funding and politics on American museums. His most recent book, A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, chronicles the making of the museum that would become one of the most popular destinations in Washington.
Visit www.nysarchivestrust.org for ticket information.
FEMINISM, FAME, ART, COMMERCE, AND AUTONOMY
November 9 (Wednesday)
Elisa Albert
Reading / Conversation — 7:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Elisa Albert’s new novel is Human Blues (2022), the story of Aviva Rosner, a successful singer-songwriter who desperately wants a child, though she struggles with infertility and is extremely wary of assisted reproductive technology. The New York Times reviewer called it, “[An] explosively hip, funny and heartfelt book,” and said it, “takes off with magnificent speed and never lets up.” Writing in Gawker, Lily Meyer said, “Few contemporary authors embody feminine swagger like [Elisa Albert].” Her previous books include the novels, After Birth (2015) and The Book of Dahlia (2008), and the story collection, How This Night Is Different (2006).
Maira Kalman, illustrator, author, and designer
A Creative Life Conversation with WAMC’s Joe Donahue — 7:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Maira Kalman is one of America’s most beloved illustrators, as well as an acclaimed author of books for children and adults. The creator of many covers for The New Yorker, her work adorns books by Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Michael Pollan, and the bestselling Illustrated Elements of Style by Strunk & White. She collaborated with David Byrne (The Talking Heads) on the 2020 book, American Utopia, with text from Byrne’s Broadway show, and more than 150 paintings by Kalman. She has also designed fabric for Isaac Mizrahi, accessories for Kate Spade, sets for Mark Morris, and— with her late husband Tibor Kalman— clocks, umbrellas, and other objects for MOMA.
THE CREATIVE LIFE
Created and produced by the New York State Writers Institute, University Art Museum, and UAlbany Performing Arts Center in collaboration with WAMC Northeast Public Radio, this series features leading figures from a variety of artistic disciplines in conversation with WAMC’s “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue about creative inspiration, craft, and career.
Major support for The Creative Life is provided by the University at Albany Foundation and University Auxiliary Services.
MAJOR AMERICAN POET
November 17 (Thursday)
Carolyn Forché, major American poet
Craft Talk — 4:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Reading / Conversation — 7:30 p.m., Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition
Carolyn Forché, won the 2021 American Book Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her new collection, In The Lateness of the World, which NPR called, “An undisputed literary event.” The new collection furthers “a poetry of witness,” a tradition that Forché helped to define—a clear-eyed examination of war, imprisonment, torture and slavery. Hilton Als said in the New Yorker, “History—with its construction and its destruction—is at the heart of In the Lateness of the World. . . . one feels the poet cresting a wave—a new wave that will crash onto new lands and unexplored territories.”
A HOME REMADE, A LIFE REDISCOVERED
November 30 (Wednesday)
Melissa Gilbert
Conversation with WAMC’s Joe Donahue — 7:00 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium
Melissa Gilbert endeared herself to America as Laura Ingalls on the classic TV show, Little House on the Prairie (1974-1983). She starred subsequently in numerous made-for-TV movies and served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild (2001-2005). In 2018, she and her husband Timothy Busfield moved to a rustic cottage on 14 acres in the Catskills, where they grow their own food and raise chickens. With self-deprecating humor, she recounts her quest to lead a simpler life— with all of its unexpected mishaps and challenges— in the new book, Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, A Life Rediscovered (2022). Publishers Weekly called the book, “utterly entertaining.”
The NYS Writers Institute would like to thank its Albany Book Festival presenting sponsors:
Pernille Ægidius Dake, Bruce Piasecki & The Creative Force Fund, University Auxiliary Services
and supporting sponsors:
Ellen Jabbur, Richard and Carol Miller, The Swyer Companies, and the Times Union.
For additional information visit www.nyswritersinstitute.org or contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620.
Masks are strongly recommended indoors at the University at UAlbany. More information on the university's COVID policy: www.albany.edu/covid-19/visitors-events.
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