Events: "Meaningful dialogue" on the UAlbany campus
- NYS Writers Institute
- Sep 11, 2025
- 3 min read
During a time when meaningful dialogue is more important than ever, the NYS Writers Institute remains committed to our mission:
...to explore and teach the writing craft; to celebrate diverse voices in all genres; to honor the power of literature as a force for individual growth and social good; and to foster a vibrant community of readers and writers who engage in meaningful dialogue.
Our home base is the University at Albany — a place of learning where "meaningful dialogue" is foundational to how we grow together as a civil society.
This month, UAlbany launches The Great Dane Dialogue, a campus-wide initiative -- in honor of Constitution Day (Wednesday, September 17) -- created to promote civil discourse, strengthen civic engagement and help students navigate disagreement with empathy and respect.
We hope you will join us in conversation at our Writers Institute's events celebrating Constitution Day.
4:30 p.m. Monday, September 15
Conversation / Q&A
University at Albany
Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West
1400 Washington Avenue Albany NY 12222
Amanda Litman, cofounder of the political organization, Run for Something, is the author of the new book, When We're in Charge: The Next Generation’s Guide to Leadership (2025), a “guide for the next generation of leaders on how to show up differently, break the cycle of bad boomer leadership, and navigate the changing demands of those in power and the evolving expectations people have of their workplace.
Noon Wednesday, September 17
University at Albany
Main Library
1400 Washington Avenue Albany NY 12222
Take time to hear freedom ring. Participate (or feel free to just listen) in a marathon reading of the United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence right outside the main entrance to the Library.
7 p.m. Wednesday, September 17
University at Albany
Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center
1400 Washington Avenue, Albany NY 12222
Join us for a special Authors Theatre event, a staged reading and discussion of "Building the Wall" by Robert Schenkkan, directed by Shaun Tubbs, and featuring Michael Schantz and Krystel Lucas.
A brief Q&A with faculty members will follow this 90-minute staged reading.
4:30 p.m. Thursday, September 18
University at Albany
Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center
1400 Washington Avenue, Albany NY 12222
A conversation with Valeria Luiselli, author of The Lost Children Archive, the story of a family road trip that collides with an immigration crisis at the southwestern border.
The New York Times named it one of the “10 Best Books of the Year.” It won the Rathbone Folio Prize 2020, the Dublin Award 2021, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Booker Prize, among others. Writing in Oprah’s O. magazine, Carmen Maria Machado said, “Not since Lolita has a road trip so brilliantly captured the dark underbelly of the American dream, the gulf between its promise and reality.” Her other bestselling books include The Story of My Teeth (2015) and Tell Me How It Ends (2016).
3 p.m. Monday, September 22
University at Albany
Multi-Purpose Room - Campus Center West
1400 Washington Avenue, Albany NY 12222
Loretta Ross is the author of Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel. A MacArthur Prize-winning activist, author, scholar, and professor at Smith College, Ross has been on the frontlines of Civil Rights and Feminist movements the past 50 years.
7 p.m. Friday, September 19
Screening with commentary by director Tony Bui
Page Hall - University at Albany Downtown Campus
135 Western Avenue, Albany NY 12203
(Vietnam, 1999, 113 minutes, color, Rated PG-13) Directed by Tony Bui. Starring Don Duong, Nguyen Ngoc Hiep, Tran Manh Cuong, Zoe Bui, and Harvey Keitel. Watch the trailer
The first film to receive both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, "Three Seasons" presents a variety of characters as they experience the past, present, and future of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in the early days of “Đổi Mới,” the state capitalist market reforms initiated in 1986. "Three Seasons" was the first American film to be made in Vietnam after the U.S. lifted its 30-year trade embargo in 1994.
5:30 p.m. Friday, November 14
Page Hall, University at Albany Downtown Campus
135 Western Avenue Albany NY 12203
Later this season, the NYS Writers Institute will host Telling the Truth in a Post-Truth World, a pair of discussions featuring speakers across the political spectrum discussing Rethinking American Politics, about finding common ground in an age of polarization, and Standing on Principles, about reviving the foundational principles of American society, both moral and legal.