Our season schedule organized like a bookstore
- NYS Writers Institute
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 hours ago
On our website, you'll see our fall events listed chronologically. Makes sense.
Here, we've arranged our authors and featured guests as they'd be displayed in the mythical "NYS Writers Institute Bookstore." Click on each name to view event details.
AI AND SOCIETY
Keach Hagey – The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future
4:30 p.m. Thursday, September 11
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, December 2
ARCHITECTURE
Jay Wickersham, Chris Milford, and Hope Mayo - Henry Hobson Richardson: Drawings from the Collection of Houghton Library (2025)
4:30 p.m. Monday, November 17
BIOGRAPHY / MEMOIR
Ken Auletta – Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence (2022)
7:30 p.m. Monday, September 29
Sari Botton – And You May Find Yourself... Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo (2022); Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York (2021), and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York (2014).
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 8
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar – My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's (2023)
Albany Book Festival – 2:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Gerald McCarthy – Hitchhiking Home from Danang: A Memoir of Vietnam, PTSD and Reclamation (2023)
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 9
Honor Moore – A Termination (2024); Our Revolution: A Mother and Daughter at Midcentury (2019); The Bishop's Daughter: A Memoir (2008); Red Shoes - Poems (2005); Darling (2001); The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter (1996); Memoir (1988)
Albany Book Festival – 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Tracy O’Neill – Woman of Interest (2024); Quotients (2020); The Hopeful (2015)
Albany Book Festival – 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Lyn Slater – How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon (2024)
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 8
Sam Tanenhaus - Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America (2025); The Death of Conservatism (2009); Literature Unbound: A Guide for the Common Reader (1984); Louis Armstrong: Musician (1988); Old Greenwich Village: An Architectural Portrait (1995); Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (1997); The Death of Conservatism (2009)
7:30 p.m. Monday, November 3
Natasha Williams – The Parts of Him I Kept: The Gifts of My Father’s Madness (2025)
Albany Book Festival – 2:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Peter Wolf – Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses (2025)
7:30 p.m. Friday, September 5
CHILDREN & YA FICTION
Tami Charles – Muted (2021); We Are Here (2023); All Because You Matter (2020); Together, United (2025)
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 29
Ta-Sean C. Murdock – I Am Brave and Bright: Affirmations for Overcoming Bullies (2024)
Albany Book Festival – Noon Saturday, Sept. 27
FICTION
Megan Abbott – El Dorado Drive (2025); The Turnout (2021); You Will Know Me (2016)
Albany Book Festival – 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Andre Aciman – Call Me by Your Name (2007); Room on the Sea: Three Novellas (2025); Eight White Nights (2010); Harvard Square (2013); Enigma Variations (2017); Out of Egypt (memoir) (1995);
False Papers: Essays on Exile and Memory (2000)
4:30 p.m. Thursday, October 16
Ayad Akhtar – Disgraced (2013); The Invisible Hand (2015); Homeland Elegies (2020)
“Telling the Truth” conversations - 5:30 p.m. Friday, November 14
Jordan Castro – Muscle Man (2025); The Novelist (2022)
Albany Book Festival – 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Dennard Dayle – How to Dodge a Cannonball (2025); Everything Abridged: Stories (2022)
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 11
Manuel Gonzales – The Regional Office is Under Attack! (2017); The Miniature Wife and Other Stories (2013)
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 2
Lindsay Hill – Sea of Hooks (2013); Tidal Lock (2024)
Albany Book Festival – 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Luis Jaramillo – The Witches of El Paso (2024); The Doctor's Wife (2012)
Albany Book Festival – 11:45 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Min Jin Lee – Pachinko (2017); Free Food for Millionaires (2007)
7:30 p.m. Friday, September 26 and 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Adam Johnson – The Wayfinder (2025); The Orphan Master's Son (2012); Fortune Smiles (2015)
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 28
Aashish Kaul – Bliss Mountain (2025); The Queen’s Play (2015)
4:30 p.m. Thursday, October 9
Valeria Luiselli – The Lost Children Archive (2019); The Story of My Teeth (2015); Tell Me How It Ends (2016)
4:30 p.m. Thursday, September 18
Julia Phillips – Bear (2024); Disappearing Earth (2019)
Albany Book Festival – 11:45 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Minita Sanghvi – Happy Endings (2022)
Albany Book Festival – 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Christopher Shaw – The Manager: A Tale of the Cold War (2025)
Albany Book Festival – 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Scott Turow – Presumed Guilty (2025); Presumed Innocent (1987); The Burden of Proof (1990); et al.
7:30 p.m. Monday, October 20
Ledia Xhoga - Misinterpretation (2024)
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 18
Tamani Wooley – Do You Dare (2025)
Albany Book Festival – 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
FICTION BY “FOOD” WRITERS
Mark Kurlansky – Cod (1997), Salt (2002), Milk! (2018), Salmon (2021) Cheesecake (2025)
7:30 p.m. Monday, October 6
Ruth Reichl – The Paris Novel (2024), Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998), Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (2005), Save Me the Plums (2019), and Delicious! (2014).
7:30 p.m. Monday, October 6
FILM SCREENINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
7 p.m. Friday, October 17
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 27
7 p.m. Friday, September 19
7 p.m. Friday, October 3
HISTORY
Molly Beer – Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution (2025)
Albany Book Festival – Noon Saturday, Sept. 27
Michael Luo – Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America (2025)
4:30 p.m. Thursday, October 23
Bridget Read – Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America (2025)
Albany Book Festival – 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Russell Shorto – The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America (2025)
Albany Book Festival – Noon Saturday, Sept. 27
NON-FICTION
Thomas Bass – Return to Fukushima (2025); The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game (2009)
4:30 p.m. Thursday, October 9
Tembe Denton-Hurst – Fresh Sets: Contemporary Nail Art from Around the World (2025)
Albany Book Festival – 11:45 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Paul Elie – The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s (2025); The Life You Save May Be Your Own (2004); Reinventing Bach (2012)
Albany Book Festival – 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Chantal Fernandez – Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon (co-author with Lauren Sherman, 2024)
Albany Book Festival – 11:45 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Roxane Gay – Bad Feminist: Essays (2014); Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)
Albany Book Festival – 1:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Ellen Jovin – Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian (2022)
7 p.m. Friday, October 3
John McWhorter – Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words (2025); Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever (2021); Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America (2021)
Albany Book Festival – 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Debbie Millman – Love Letter to a Garden (2025); Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People (2021)
Albany Book Festival – 1:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Loretta Ross – Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel (2025)
3 p.m. Monday, September 22
Niobe Way – Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture (2024)
Albany Book Festival – 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Dana A. Williams – Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship (2025)
Albany Book Festival – 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
POETRY
Samiya Bashir – I Hope This Helps (2025)
Albany Book Festival – 2:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Cathy Linh Che – Becoming Ghost (2025)
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 9
Kristie Frederick Daugherty – Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift (2024)
Albany Book Festival – 2:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Kimiko Hahn – The Ghost Forest: New and Selected Poems (2024); Foreign Bodies (2020); Brain Fever (2014); Toxic Flora (2010); The Unbearable Heart (1996)
7:30 p.m. Friday, September 26 and 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Edward Hirsch – My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy (2025); How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry (1999)
7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 4
Randall Horton – Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays (2022); {#289-128}: Poems (2020)
Albany Book Festival – “Poasis and Beyond: Always the Many” – 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Urayoán Noel – Transversal (2021); Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (2015); In Visible Movement (2014); Boringkén (2008)
Albany Book Festival – “Poasis and Beyond: Always the Many” – 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Leah Umansky – Of Tyrant (2024)
Albany Book Festival – 2:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
POLITICS
Chris Gibson – The Spirit of Philadelphia: A Call to Recover the Founding Principles (2025)
“Telling the Truth” conversations - 5:30 p.m. Friday, November 14
Amanda Litman – When We're in Charge: The Next Generation’s Guide to Leadership (2025)
4:30 p.m. Monday, September 15
Lydia Polgreen – New York Times columnist
“Telling the Truth” conversations - 5:30 p.m. Friday, November 14
Andrew Yang – Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy (2021)
“Telling the Truth” conversations - 5:30 p.m. Friday, November 14
PUBLIC AND STAGED READINGS
Authors Theatre event - 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17
William Kennedy – Legs (1975)
Marathon public reading - 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday, November 5