NYS Writers Institute announces Fall 2015 visiting writers and classic film series schedules

ALBANY, NY (08/19/2015)(readMedia)-- The New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany announces its Fall 2015 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).

The Writers Institute Fall 2015 schedule of events offers a rich variety of genres, from poetry to science writing to fiction to history to memoir to filmmaking and theatre. The upcoming series will even include a food writer-New York Times columnist and bestselling cookbook author Mark Bittman, whose work has been described by PBS as a "bible of basic cooking for millions of Americans."

The series will showcase two extraordinary former students at UAlbany-journalist Tom Junod, who holds the all-time record for National Magazine Award nominations (eleven!), and Edward Burns, director, actor, and one of the most prolific and influential independent filmmakers currently at work. Burns will present his new memoir, Independent Ed (2015), about which Matt Lauer of Today said, "Every young, hungry, creative person should view this as a textbook.... It's a how-to."

The Fall series boasts a number of partnerships with University and community organizations. Examples include a reading by a young female science writer and neuroscientist, Casey Schwartz, whose event will help to launch a new Women in Science and Health group (WISH) at UAlbany, in partnership with the RNA Institute and School of Public Health; and a visit with Young Adult novelist Jason Reynolds, author of fiction designed to entertain and inspire urban teens. Reynolds will spend time in the afternoon with students at Albany High School, and meet with the public in the evening at the New York State Museum, with the cosponsorship of a large coalition of civic and educational groups.

The Institute is also partnering with the Researching New York Conference on an appearance by Ginger Strand, author of The Brothers Vonnegut (2015), about the relationship between Kurt Vonnegut, one of the great novelists of American literature, and his brother Bernard, a long-time UAlbany professor and atmospheric scientist, who both worked at GE in Schenectady early in their careers.

The best in literary fiction will be represented by Ann Beattie, a giant of the short story form; Pulitzer-winning novelist Adam Johnson; experimental fiction writer and MacArthur Fellow Donald Antrim; and National Book Award finalist Mary Gaitskill. The Institute will also host a visit with writers affiliated with the literary magazine Conjunctions, including major American horror novelist Peter Straub, MacArthur grant-winning poet Ann Lauterbach, and Bradford Morrow, the magazine's editor and author of the acclaimed new mystery, The Forgers (2014).

Former FBI agent, Golden Gloves boxing champion, former publisher of The Paris Review, and local author Bernard F. Conners will discuss his new memoir, Cruising with Kate: A Parvenu in Xanadu (2015), in which he recounts his remarkable life story.

The Institute will also play host to two accomplished documentary filmmakers as part of our ongoing collaboration with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice: Oscar-nominated director Rachel Grady with her film DETROPIA, about the colorful and decaying metropolis of Detroit; and Sean Dunne, "Best New Director" at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, whose film OXYANA examines the prescription painkiller abuse epidemic in Appalachia.

Also during the Fall semester the Writers Institute anticipates announcing the next State Author and State Poet.

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

VISITING WRITERS SERIES

September 10 (Thursday): Tom Junod, award-winning journalist and UAlbany graduate

Seminar on magazine journalism – 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library, Uptown Campus

Tom Junod, UAlbany graduate and writer for Esquire, is the author of some of the most celebrated pieces in American magazine writing. A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award of the American Society of Magazine Editors, he holds the all-time record for nominations for that award-eleven in all.

NOTE: On Friday, September 11th, Tom Junod will appear at the Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Albany, at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss his article "The Falling Man," a 2003 meditation on AP photographer Richard Drew's iconic image of a 9/11 victim plunging to his death.

Cosponsored by the University at Albany and New York State Museum

September 24 (Thursday): Conjunctions reading with Bradford Morrow, Ann Lauterbach, and Peter Straub

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

Conjunctions, a literary magazine based at Bard College, has been called, "One of our most distinctive and valuable literary magazines.... innovative, daring, indispensable, and beautiful" (PEN American Center). Three major writers involved with the magazine will read from their own work.

Bradford Morrow – founding editor of Conjunctions, novelist, essayist, and poet. Morrow's latest novel is The Forgers (2014), a literary thriller, and a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Mystery/ Thriller for 2014. Other novels by Morrow include The Almanac Branch (1991), a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, and The Diviner's Tale (2011).

Ann Lauterbach – poet, essayist, and contributing editor of Conjunctions. Celebrated for poetry of ravishing intensity, Lauterbach is a past winner of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her recent collections include Under the Sign (2013), and Or to Begin Again (2009), a National Book Award finalist.

Peter Straub – horror writer, poet, and contributing editor of Conjunctions. One of America's preeminent authors of horror fiction, Peter Straub received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005. His many award-winning novels include A Dark Matter (2010), In the Night Room (2004), and Lost Boy, Lost Girl (2003), as well as two coauthored with Stephen King: Black House (2001) and The Talisman (1984).

September 29 (Tuesday): Ann Beattie, novelist and short story writer, and Peg Boyers, poet

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

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

Ann Beattie is one of America's most celebrated practitioners of the short story form, winner of the 2000 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story and the 2005 REA Award for the Short Story. Her newest book is The State We're In: Maine Stories (2015), set in her adopted home state.

A selection of the Albany Times Union Book Club

Peg Boyers is executive editor of the literary magazine, Salmagundi and teaches creative writing at Skidmore College and the NYS Summer Writers Institute. Her poetry collections include To Forget Venice (2014), Honey With Tobacco (2007), and Hard Bread (2002).

October 6 (Tuesday): Casey Schwartz, science writer

Seminar - 4:15 p.m., D'Ambra Auditorium, Life Sciences Building (LSRB 2095), Uptown Campus

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany

Casey Schwartz, science journalist, is the author of the new book, In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis (2015), a witty, accessible, and entertaining introduction to new developments in brain science-notably the reconciliation of neuroscience and psychoanalysis.

Cosponsored in conjunction with the launch of UAlbany's Women in Science and Health group (WISH), in association with the RNA Institute and the School of Public Health.

October 13 (Tuesday): Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, and short story writer

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

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

Adam Johnson is the author of the story collection, Emporium (2002), and the novels, Parasites Like Us (2003), and The Orphan Master's Son (2012), which received the Pulitzer Prize. His new story collection is Fortune Smiles (2015). Publishers Weekly said, "Often funny, even when they're wrenchingly sad, the stories provide one of the truest satisfactions of reading: the opportunity to sink into worlds we otherwise would know little or nothing about."

Presented in conjunction with the department-wide reading project of UAlbany's English Department

October 20 (Tuesday): American Shakespeare Center performance of Julius Caesar

Performance - 7:30 p.m., Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center (live music begins at 7:00 p.m.), Uptown Campus

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 email: tickets@albany.edu or call the PAC Box Office at: (518) 442-3997

In this moving, thrilling, and deeply human play, Shakespeare shows us a world on fire; a world spinning out of control; a world where some of history's most famous men commit horrific crimes in the name of patriotism and honor. Julius Caesar is a masterpiece of betrayal, violence, and perhaps most surprisingly - love.

Presented by the Performing Arts Center with support provided by University Auxiliary Services and Holiday Inn Express.

October 22 (Thursday): Mark Bittman, food writer and New York Times columnist

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

Presentation/interview - 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Mark Bittman is one of America's best-known food writers. His newest book is A Bone to Pick-The good and bad news about food, with wisdom and advice on diets, food safety, GMOs, farming, and more (2015). Bittman's writing on food appears in the Opinion, Dining, and Magazine sections of The New York Times.

Cosponsored by the Albany Times Union and UAlbany's School of Public Health

October 29 (Thursday): Mary Gaitskill, novelist and short story writer

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

Reading - 8:00 p.m., Campus Center Room 375, Uptown Campus

Mary Gaitskill received a National Book Award nomination for her 2005 novel, Veronica (2005). Her new novel, The Mare (2015), explores the evolving relationship among three characters: Velvet, a Dominican girl from the inner city, Ginger, a middle-aged white woman in Upstate New York, and the abused and spirited mare at a local stable who transforms their lives.

A selection of the Times Union Book Club

November 5 (Thursday): Donald Antrim, fiction writer and memoirist

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

Donald Antrim, 2013 MacArthur Fellow and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Verificationist (2000) and The Hundred Brothers (1998). Antrim's newest book is a collection of short stories, The Emerald Light in the Air (2014). Writing in Publishers Weekly, Joseph O'Neill called the stories, "brilliant, antic, emotional... tremendously funny and moving."

November 7 (Saturday): "A Celebration of Women in the Arts," featuring playwright Tina Howe

Musical and theatrical presentations - 7:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, Uptown Campus

Tina Howe, world-renowned and award-winning playwright, will be the speaker at "A Celebration of Women in the Arts," which will also feature a student choral performance, and a staged reading of Howe's short comedy, "Water Music" (2000). Sponsored by UAlbany's Department of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies

November 12 (Thursday): Bernard F. Conners, novelist, memoirist, and publisher

A conversation with Times Union columnist Paul Grondahl - 8:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany

Bernard F. Conners is a former FBI agent and Golden Gloves boxing champion, as well as the author of several bestselling novels [The Hampton Sisters (1987) and Dancehall (1983)], the former publisher of The Paris Review, and an Emmy-winning TV producer. He recounts his remarkable life story in the new memoir, Cruising with Kate: A Parvenu in Xanadu (2015).

Cosponsored by Friends of the NYS Library

November 17 (Tuesday): Jason Reynolds, young adult novelist and poet

Reading - 7:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany

Jason Reynolds, award-winning young adult novelist, writes smart, funny, urban fiction for "teenage boys who don't like to read." He is the author of When I Was the Greatest (2014), winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, The Boy in the Black Suit (2015), and All American Boys (2015, with Brendan Kiely).

Cosponsored by Albany High School, The Center for Law and Justice, The African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region, UAlbany's Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning, and Friends of the NYS Library

November 19 (Thursday): Ginger Strand, fiction and nonfiction author

Seminar, "A Writer in the Archive" - 2:00 p.m., M. E. Grenander Special Collections Research Room, Science Library 350, Uptown Campus

Keynote Lecture, "The Brothers Vonnegut: Bernard Vonnegut and Kurt Vonnegut in GE's House of Magic" - 7:30 p.m., Clark Auditorium, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany

Ginger Strand is the author of The Brothers Vonnegut: Science and Fiction in the House of Magic (2015), about the relationship between Kurt Vonnegut, one of the great novelists of American literature, and his brother Bernard, a long-time UAlbany professor and atmospheric scientist, who both worked at GE in Schenectady early in their careers.

Cosponsored by UAlbany's Department of History and M. E. Grenander Archives and Special Collections, and the New York State Archives Partnership Trust in conjunction with the Researching New York Conference. Further information on the entire Researching New York Conference, is available at: www.nystatehistory.org.

A selection of the Times Union Book Club

CLASSIC FILM SERIES

September 18 (Friday): EL NORTE

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

Directed by Gregory Nava (United States, 1984, 141 minutes, color, in Spanish, Maya, and English)

Starring Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, David Villalpando, Ernesto Gómez Cruz

In this epic story about the hardships of undocumented workers, a brother and sister escape political violence in Guatemala and make their way north in hope of finding a better life in the USA.

September 25 (Friday): DETROPIA

Film screening and discussion with director Rachel Grady - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall,

135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (United States, 2012, 90 minutes, color)

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (and winner of the Editing Prize), DETROPIA is a poignant and visually stunning exploration of the disintegration of Detroit.

Rachel Grady and frequent collaborator Heidi Ewing shared a 2006 "Best Documentary" Oscar nomination for JESUS CAMP, about children attending an evangelical Christian summer program. Other prize-winning films by Grady and Ewing include THE BOYS OF BARAKA (2005) and 12TH & DELAWARE (2010).

Cosponsored in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Crime, Justice, and Social Structure Film Series

October 2 (Friday): THE TOLL OF THE SEA

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

Directed by Chester M. Franklin (United States, 1922, 54 minutes, color)

Starring Anna May Wong, Kenneth Harlan, Beatrice Bentley

SILENT with live musical accompaniment by Mike Schiffer

The first film to use two-strip Technicolor, this technical classic stars pioneering Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong as a Chinese woman who rescues and falls in love with a shipwrecked American seaman.

October 9 (Friday): 4 LITTLE GIRLS

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

Directed by Spike Lee (United States, 1997, 102 minutes, color)

Nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar, Spike Lee's masterpiece of nonfiction filmmaking chronicles an American tragedy and turning point of the Civil Rights Movement: the 1967 bombing of an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama.

October 16 (Friday): OXYANA

Film screening and discussion with director Sean Dunne - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time] Page Hall,

135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Sean Dunne (United States, 2013, 78 minutes, color)

OXYANA is an intimate and harrowing profile of Oceana, West Virginia-a once-thriving coal town that has become the "capital" of the Oxycontin drug abuse epidemic. The film won two major awards at the Tribeca Film Festival: Best Documentary Feature-Special Jury Mention and Best New Documentary Director.

Sean Dunne is known for films that focus on socially marginalized individuals, and for his ability to get his subjects to "open up" and share their stories. A former writer and producer for The History Channel, Dunne received an Emmy nomination for his short film, THE ARCHIVE.

Cosponsored in conjunction with UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice's Crime, Justice, and Social Structure Film Series

October 23 (Friday): KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS

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

Directed by Robert Hamer (United Kingdom, 1949, 106 minutes, b/w)

Starring Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson

An impoverished cousin of the Duke of D'Ascoyne is determined to acquire his title by murdering the eight heirs who precede him in the line of succession. Alec Guinness plays all eight heirs in this beloved Ealing Studios comedy, ranked as one of Time magazine's "100 Best Movies of All Time" (2005).

October 30 (Friday): HOUSE [HAUSU]

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

Directed by Nobuhiko Ôbayashi (Japan, 1977, 88 minutes, color, in Japanese with English subtitles)

Starring Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ohba

A critical favorite, HOUSE is a wacky horror tale about seven Japanese schoolgirls and the demonically-possessed house that tries to eat them. Manohla Dargis of the New York Times said in 2010, "Delirious, deranged, gonzo or just gone, baby, gone.... The yelps you'll hear, and possibly emit...will be of surprise and delight, not terror."

November 6 (Friday): THE FITZGERALD FAMILY CHRISTMAS

Film screening and discussion with director Edward Burns - 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall,

135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Edward Burns (United States, 2012, 99 minutes, color)

Starring Kerry Bishé, Connie Britton, Edward Burns

Burns returns to the Irish-American Long Island family milieu of his earliest films with this holiday tale of siblings who await the arrival of the father who abandoned them 20 years earlier. The New York Times said Burns "shuffles this dense material with the dexterity of a card shark."

Edward Burns is an award-winning director, actor, screenwriter, and former UAlbany student. His first film, THE BROTHERS McMULLEN (1995), won Best Dramatic Film at Sundance.

NOTE: Burns will read from his new memoir, Independent Ed (2015), which provides a candid chronicle of his storied career and the ups and downs of making movies on Friday, November 6 at 4:15 p.m. in Lecture Center 5, Academic Podium.

November 13 (Friday): ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

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

Directed by Miloš Forman (United States, 1975, 133 minutes, color)

Starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman

In this landmark film of the 1970s, adapted from Ken Kesey's 1962 novel, a newly-admitted patient in a mental institution attempts to organize a rebellion against the iron-fisted head nurse. The film received five Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

November 20 (Friday): THINGS TO COME

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

Directed by William Cameron Menzies (United Kingdom, 1936, 100 minutes, b/w)

Starring Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson

The human race blunders into a future of pointless world war and rampant plague-but hope endures in this 1936 epic adapted by sci-fi master H. G. Wells from his 1933 novel.

December 4 (Friday): TIMBUKTU

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

Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania, 2014, 97 minutes, color, in French, Arabic, Bambara and Songhay with English subtitles)

Starring Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki

Seeking a life of simple pleasures on the outskirts of Timbuktu in the Sahara Desert, a family of cattle herders must contend with extremists and jihadists who refuse to tolerate their way of life. The film earned nominations for both the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

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 Wednesday August 19, 2015 at 10:01 am by New York State Writers Institute