ALBANY, NY (08/25/2014)(readMedia)-- The New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany announces its Fall 2014 schedule of visiting writer appearances and film series screenings. Events take place on the UAlbany uptown and downtown campuses and are free and open to the public (unless otherwise noted).

A science writer who advocates for face-to-face contact in an ever increasing digital age, and a science fiction writer who creates technology-obsessed worlds. A politician and a biographer of politicians. Award-winning poets who will discuss the importance of their craft in today's society, and a three-time felon who credits poetry with saving his life. A documentary film based on a new book that unravels a 43-year-old mystery. This is a sampling of some of the featured events and thought-provoking topics that will be explored as part of the Writers Institute's fall 2014 Visiting Writers Series and Classic Film Series.

Alison Lurie, New York State Author (2012-2014) leads off the Visiting Writers Series. Best known for her novels, Lurie will read from and discuss her new nonfiction book, The Language of Houses, an exploration of the expressive power of everyday architecture. Additional appearances by nonfiction authors will include: theatre critic John Lahr, author of a new biography of the brilliant but troubled playwright Tennessee Williams (Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh); David Finkel, author of the new book Thank You For Your Service that follows U.S. Iraq war veterans as they attempt to adapt to life after that war; Najla Said, whose memoir, Looking for Palestine: Growing up Confused in an Arab-American Family, explores her hyphenated identity; bestselling science writer and developmental psychologist Susan Pinker presents evidence of the importance of personal interaction in her new book The Village Effect; and historian and biographer Richard Norton Smith will discuss his new definitive biography of former NYS Governor and U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (On His Own Terms). U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand makes a special appearance in conjunction with the publication of her new book, Off the Sidebar, a playbook for advocacy.

Highlighting the fiction writers for the fall are award-winning novelists William Gibson and Joseph O'Neill. Gibson, visionary science fiction writer, will read from his new novel The Peripheral about a future world of drones, drugs, telepresence, kleptocracy and 3D fabbing. Joseph O'Neill will read from his new novel, The Dog, that was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014. Four first-time novelists will present two joint readings. Jacinda Townsend, author of Saint Monkey about two best friends raised in hardship in rural Kentucky, and Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning, a family saga set in the Virgin Islands, will read together. Also presenting a joint reading will be Angela Pneuman, a former UAlbany Ph.D. student and Presidential Fellow, author of the new novel Lay it on my Heart about the challenges faced by a Kentucky teenager whose "prophet" father is committed to a psychiatric hospital, and Julie Orringer, author of the bestselling novel The Invisible Bridge, the story of a Jewish Hungarian architecture student during the Holocaust.

Three award-winning poets will read from their work and discuss the relevance of poetry in today's society: Edward Hirsch, author of the new reference work A Poet's Glossary; Kimiko Hahn, author of the new collection Brain Fever; and Marie Howe, NYS Poet (2012-2014), who recently has helped organize events that bring poetry to public settings. In a celebration of the transformative power of art and poetry, the Institute is cosponsoring a series of events that focus on Tony Award-winning poet and performance artist, and three-time felon Lemon Andersen, who credits poetry with changing his life.

The Classic Film Series features several films that tie in with guests of the Visiting Writers Series. The Argentine film I, THE WORST OF ALL [YO, LA PEOR DE TODAS], about the embattled 17th century nun, Sor Juana, regarded as the mother of Mexican literature, will be screened prior to an appearance by celebrated translator of Spanish literature, Edith Grossman, whose newest work is a translation of poems by Sor Juana. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE will be screened prior to John Lahr's appearance to discuss his biography of playwright Tennessee Williams. Oscar-winning film and theatre composer David Shire will provide commentary following the screening of THE CONVERSATION, for which he composed the score and which director Francis Ford Coppola described as "one of the most effective, most successful film scores that I've had." Johanna Hamilton's documentary, 1971: THE FILM, based on the book The Burglary by Betty Medsger, reveals the identities of the individuals who broke into an FBI office in 1971 stealing documents that revealed the existence of a secret program of spying on U.S. citizens. Hamilton and Medsger will provide film commentary following the screening.

The complete listing of the Visiting Writers Series and Classic Film Series schedules follows.

VISITING WRITERS SERIES

September 18 (Thursday): Alison Lurie, New York State Author

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Campus Center Room 375

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

Alison Lurie, novelist and current New York State Author (2012-2014), is widely regarded as the Jane Austen of contemporary American letters for her modern "comedies of manners," novels including Truth and Consequences (2005) and the Pulitzer-winning Foreign Affairs (1984). Her new nonfiction book is The Language of Houses (2014), an exploration of the expressive power of everyday architecture.

September 23 (Tuesday): Edith Grossman, celebrated translator of Spanish literature

Seminar on translation - 4:15 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center

Edith Grossman is one of the world's most celebrated translators of Spanish literature into English. Her newest work is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (2014), a collection of poems by 17th century nun, poet, and feminist, Sister Juana, known to posterity as the "Phoenix of Mexico" and the "Tenth Muse." Grossman's acclaimed translations include several novels by Latin American Nobel Prize winners, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.

Cosponsored by UAlbany's Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Special Event hosted by The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza

Reading and Book Signing by Kirsten Gillibrand, U.S. Senator and author

Saturday, September 27 | 4:00 p.m., University at Albany, Campus Center Ballroom

Tickets: $27 (A copy of Kirsten Gillibrand's new book, Off the Sidelines, is included in the price of a ticket.)

Tickets may be purchased in advance from The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza (518-489-4761), or Market Block Books, Troy (518-328-0045), or at the door. Students with a valid ID are welcome without a ticket as space allows.

Kirsten Gillibrand, junior United States Senator from New York, is the author of the new book, Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World (2014), a playbook for women who want to step up, whether in Congress or the boardroom or the local PTA.

October 1 (Wednesday): John Lahr, theatre critic and biographer

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

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

John Lahr, former senior drama critic for the New Yorker, is the author of Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (2014), a new biography of the brilliant and troubled playwright. The New Republic called it, "A splendid book, one of the finest critical biographies of a playwright extant." Notes on a Cowardly Lion (1969), Lahr's biography of his father, actor-comedian Bert Lahr, was republished in 2000 with a new preface by the author.

Cosponsored by the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment

October 9 (Thursday): David Finkel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and nonfiction author

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

David Finkel, staff writer for the Washington Post, is the author of the bestselling 2009 book, The Good Soldiers, which recounts the seven months he spent as an embedded reporter with U.S. troops in Iraq. The sequel to that book, Thank You For Your Service (2013), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, follows some of these same soldiers as they attempt to adapt to life after the war.

Cosponsored by UAlbany's Journalism Program

October 15 (Wednesday): American Shakespeare Center's Much Ado About Nothing

Performance - 7:30 p.m., Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center

Live pre-performance music beginning at 7:00 p.m.

Advance Tickets: $15 general public / $10 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff

Day of Show Tickets: $20 general public / $15 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff

In this powerful comedy full of sparkling wit, the Bard gives us the joy of love won and the ache of love lost. He makes us laugh and breaks our hearts, then magically puts them back together again. Presented by UAlbany's Performing Arts Center

October 16 (Thursday): Jacinda Townsend and Tiphanie Yanique, fiction writers

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Campus Center Room 375

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

Jacinda Townsend is the author of a first novel, Saint Monkey (2014), the tale of two best friends raised in hardship in rural Kentucky at the beginning of the 20th century whose lives take different paths. In a starred Booklist review, Donna Seamon said, "This is a breathtakingly insightful, suspenseful, and gorgeously realized novel...."

Tiphanie Yanique is the author of a first novel, Land of Love and Drowning (2014), a family saga set in the Virgin Islands that follows three generations of a family as they experience love and death, wealth and ruin, hurricanes, racism, and a rapacious tourist industry. Born and raised on St. Thomas, Yanique is the author of the story collection, How to Escape from a Leper Colony (2010), winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.

October 21 (Tuesday): Poets in Conversation: Edward Hirsch, Kimiko Hahn, and Marie Howe

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

Edward Hirsch is the author most recently of A Poet's Glossary (2014), a monumental reference work about poetry's devices, forms, and techniques. Winner of a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Critics Circle Award (for the 1986 collection, Wild Gratitude), Hirsch is also the author of the 1999 surprise bestseller, How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry.

Kimiko Hahn is the author most recently of Brain Fever: Poems (2014), a collection that explores the poet's experiences as a woman, wife, mother, daughter, and artist in the light of her personal fascination with neuroscience and the latest findings of cognitive research. Celebrated for work rooted in Japanese and Chinese aesthetics, Hahn received the American Book Award for her 1995 collection, The Unbearable Heart.

Marie Howe, current New York State Poet (2012-2014), is an advocate for bringing poets and poetry to public places. Howe is the author of the collections, The Good Thief (1988), which was selected for the National Poetry Series, What the Living Do (1997), and The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2008).

October 28 (Tuesday): Najla Said, memoirist, actress, and playwright

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

Najla Said is the author of the new memoir Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family (2013), a witty exploration of post-modern, hyphenated American identity. The daughter of major Palestinian-American intellectual and political activist Edward Said, Najla spent her formative years in the largely Jewish milieu of Manhattan's Upper West Side. Said also wrote and starred in the hit Off-Broadway play, Palestine (2009).

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LOOKING AT LEMON: TRANSFORMING LIFE THROUGH LITERATURE

This series of events focuses on the life and work of Lemon Andersen, writer, performance artist, screen actor, and Tony Award-winning poet. Lemon is also a three-time felon who grew up in Brooklyn and spent years in jail and on probation until he attended a poetry reading and discovered he had a gift for expressing himself through words. This series celebrates Lemon's journey to transform his life through art.

October 24 (Friday) and November 1 (Saturday): LEMON: THE MOVIE film screening

October 24 (Friday): 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

November 1 (Saturday): 9:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

Directed by Laura Brownson and Beth Levison

This intricately crafted documentary follows Lemon's struggle to bring his life story to the stage. The movie features the music of hip-hop phenoms Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Aloe Blacc.

November 6 (Thursday): An Evening with Lemon Andersen

Presentation - 7:00 p.m., University Art Museum, Fine Arts Building

Lemon Andersen discusses his life and work, focusing on what nurtures him as an artist and how that has been the salvation in his life. An original cast member of the Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway (2002-2003), Lemon shared the 2003 Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. Lemon is the author of two poetry collections, Ready Made Real (2004) and County of Kings (2009), which earned the Grand Prize at the 2010 New York Book Festival.

November 13 (Thursday): County of Kings by Lemon Andersen

Performance - 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

Pre-performance discussion at 7 p.m.

Advance Tickets: $15 general public / $10 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff

Day of Show Tickets: $20 general public / $15 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff

Originally developed and directed by Elise Thoron, American Place Theatre took Lemon's life story and adapted it into a solo play now performed by Michael Angel Viera. Weaving hard-edged drama with urban poetry and gritty prose, the work follows Lemon's coming-of-age memoir. County of Kings is a Literature to Life stage presentation of Young Audiences New York.

LOOKING AT LEMON is presented by The University at Albany Foundation in conjunction with the Writers Institute, UAlbany's Performing Arts Center, and University Art Museum. Addition funding support provided by University Auxiliary Services at Albany; UAlbany's Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Office of Intercultural Student Success, and Alumni Association; and the Holiday Inn Express. Promotional assistance provided by the Campus Programming Board.

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November 9 (Sunday): William Gibson, science fiction author

Reading - 7:00 p.m., EMPAC Concert Hall, Rensselaer (RPI), Troy

William Gibson is a visionary author of speculative fiction whose work explores the future implications of contemporary human technologies. His 1984 novel, Neuromancer, winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick awards, helped to define the popular culture of the Computer Age. Gibson's new novel is The Peripheral (2014), about drones, drugs, outsourcing, telepresence, trailer parks, kleptocracy, and 3D fabbing.

Cosponsored by Rensselaer's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; Union Speakers Forum; and Department of Communication and Media

November 11 (Tuesday): Angela Pneuman and Julie Orringer, novelists and short story writers

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library

Reading - 7:30 p.m., Art Museum, Fine Arts Building

Angela Pneuman, former Ph.D. student and Presidential Fellow at UAlbany and Kentucky native, is widely hailed as an exciting new voice in Southern literature. Her first novel, Lay it on my Heart (2014), recounts the challenges that confront a Kentucky girl after her "prophet" father is committed to a psychiatric hospital. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Pneuman is also the author of the story collection, Home Remedies (2007).

Julie Orringer, fiction writer, is the author of the bestselling novel, The Invisible Bridge (2010), named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2010 by the New York Times. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Orringer is also the author of the story collection, How to Breathe Underwater (2003), a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year.

Cosponsored by the University Art Museum and UAlbany's English Department

November 18 (Tuesday): Susan Pinker, psychologist and author

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library

Susan Pinker, developmental psychologist and bestselling science writer, is the author of the new book, The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter (2014). Grounded in the new field of social neuroscience, The Village Effect presents convincing evidence that electronic communication can never replace the fundamentally human need for direct interaction. Pinker is also the author of the international bestseller, The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap (2008).

November 20 (Thursday): Richard Norton Smith, historian and biographer

A Conversation with Richard Norton Smith - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library

Keynote Lecture, "On His Own Terms" - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Richard Norton Smith, eminent historian of the American presidency, will deliver the keynote lecture for the Researching New York 2014 conference on his new book, On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller (2014). Fourteen years in the writing, the book is being hailed as the definitive biography of the New York governor and U.S. vice president.

Cosponsored by UAlbany's Department of History and the NYS Archives Partnership Trust in conjunction with the Researching New York 2014 conference. For additional information on all conference events go to: www.nystatehistory.org/researchny

December 2 (Tuesday): Joseph O'Neill, novelist

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center

Joseph O'Neill received the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for his bestselling novel, Netherland (2008). O'Neill's new novel, The Dog (2014), longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014, is the story of a luckless middle-aged man who flees New York City after a traumatic break-up with his long-term girlfriend in order to take a job as the household manager of a rich and capricious family in Dubai.

CLASSIC FILM SERIES

September 19 (Friday): I, THE WORST OF ALL [YO, LA PEOR DE TODAS]

Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by María Luisa Bemberg | Argentina, 1990, 105 minutes, color, in Spanish with English subtitles

Based on a biography by Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, this film tells the story of the embattled 17th century nun, Sor Juana, who would come to be regarded as the mother of Mexican literature.

Screened in conjunction with an appearance by translator Edith Grossman (see September 23 Visiting Writers listing).

September 26 (Friday): A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Elia Kazan | United States, 1951, 122 minutes, b/w | Starring Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter

A fading Southern belle, Blanche DuBois, moves into a crowded New Orleans apartment in this Oscar-winning film based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tennessee Williams. The American Film Institute named it one of the 100 best American films of all time.

Screened in conjunction with an appearance by John Lahr, author of a new biography of playwright Tennessee Williams (see October 1 Visiting Writers listing)

October 10 (Friday): SAFETY LAST!

Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor | United States, 1923, 73 minutes, b/w, silent with live musical accompaniment by Mike Schiffer | Starring Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother

One of the iconic comedies of the silent era, SAFETY LAST! features slapstick genius Harold Lloyd as a young go-getter from a small American town who moves to the "big city" in order to make something of himself, but winds up in all sorts of trouble instead.

October 17 (Friday): DEVDAS

Film screening - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali | India, 2002, 185 minutes, color, in Hindi with English subtitles

Starring Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

This "Bollywood" musical extravaganza was named the best film of world cinema in 2002 by Richard Corliss of Time, and ranked eighth in that magazine's top ten films of the new millennium in May of 2012. Based on the classic Bengali novella, DEVDAS tells the story of three star-crossed lovers.

October 24 (Friday): LEMON: THE MOVIE (see Visiting Writers listing)

October 31 (Friday): BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA

Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola | United States, 1992, 128 minutes, color | Starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins

One of the great horror spectacles of its decade, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA manages to be faithful to the original novel and, at the same time, a wildly original interpretation.

November 7 (Friday): THE CONVERSATION, 40th Anniversary film screening and discussion with Oscar-winning composer and songwriter David Shire

Film Screening and Discussion - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola | United States, 1974, 113 minutes, color | Starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield

In this brilliant psychological thriller, a surveillance expert experiences a moral crisis when he comes to believe that the targets of his spying activities will be murdered. Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the film also received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Composer David Shire's score is widely celebrated as a deeply probing character study of protagonist Harry Caul.

David Shire is one of America's most admired composers for film and theatre. Shire received an Oscar for his work on the theme song for NORMA RAE (1979), and two Grammy Awards for his original music for SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977).

Sponsored in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Civility, Surveillance, and Public Spaces Film Series

November 14 (Friday): GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by David Lean | United Kingdom, 1946, 118 minutes, b/w | Starring John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Tony Wager

Widely regarded as one of the best translations of literature to the screen, David Lean's adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1861 novel was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, and won for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

November 21 (Friday): BLOW-UP

Film screening - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni | UK/Italy, 1966, 111 minutes, color | Starring Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, David Hemmings

Based on a story by Argentine fiction writer Julio Cortázar (1914-1984), BLOW-UP won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and received Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. A "mod" fashion photographer believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film during a photo shoot in a London park.

Cosponsored by UAlbany's Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

December 5 (Friday): 1971: THE FILM

Film screening and discussion with director Johanna Hamilton and author Betty Medsger - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Johanna Hamilton | United States, 2014, 79 minutes, color | Based on the nonfiction book, The Burglary (2014) by Betty Medsger

On March 8, 1971, eight ordinary citizens broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and obtained secret files that revealed the existence of COINTELPRO, a secret and illegal program of spying on American citizens. Those responsible have never revealed their identities-until now. 1971: THE FILM was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Betty Medsger was a young reporter at the Washington Post in 1971 when she received from anonymous sources copies of stolen FBI files that revealed the existence of COINTELPRO. She recounts the story, revealing the burglars and their motives, in her new book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI (2014).

Johanna Hamilton is the director of 1971 (2014), her first feature film, based on Betty Medsger's The Burglary. She previously served as co-producer of the acclaimed documentary, PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL (2008), about Liberian women waging a campaign for peace in their country, which received the Tribeca Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize and the Edward R. Murrow Award of the Overseas Press Club.

Seminar: Johanna Hamilton and Betty Medsger will hold an informal seminar on Friday, December 5 at 4:15 p.m. in Science Library Room 340, on the UAlbany uptown campus.

Sponsored in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Civility, Surveillance, and Public Spaces Film Series

For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

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Posted Monday August 25, 2014 at 10:00 am by New York State Writers Institute