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January

A CELEBRATION OF THE NYS WRITERS INSTITUTE'S 40th ANNIVERSARY

6:30 p.m. Thursday, January 19

Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Join us as we celebrate our 40th year as one of the finest literary conversation programs in the world.

Over the past four decades, we have welcomed thousands of writers in all genres to Albany, in fulfillment of William Kennedy’s vision for making this city a crossroads on the map of world literature.

We will also celebrate Bill’s birthday—he turns 95 on January 16th! Most of all, we’ll be celebrating you, our audience. For 40 years, you’ve supported NYS Writers Institute events. We couldn’t have done it without you!

A reception with light refreshments to follow.

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ANDY GREENBERG: BLOCKCHAIN, BITCOIN AND 21ST CENTURY CRIME

Thursday, January 26

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Standish Room, Science Library

7:30 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Campus Center West Auditorium

One of America’s leading tech journalists and senior writer at WIRED magazine, Andy Greenberg presents his new book, Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency (Nov. 2022), “the propulsive story of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain, exposing once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence.”

The New York Times said, “[An] absorbing narrative… Each key section of the book... unfolds like a compact mystery.” His previous books include Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers (2019), and This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers (2012).

Cosponsored by the UAlbany College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity (CEHC), and the Honors College.

 

RAVEN LEILANI: FROM SHAKER HIGH SCHOOL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

Tuesday, January 31

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

7:30 p.m. — Reading / Q&A, Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

An emerging star of American fiction, Raven Leilani spent her young adulthood in Latham and attended Shaker High School. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Luster (2020), was an instant New York Times bestseller and “Notable Book of the Year.”

It tells the story of a young Black woman who becomes romantically involved with an older white man in an open marriage, and gets entangled in the complexities of his family life. Barack Obama named Luster one of his favorite books of 2020, and the New York Times reviewer said it “reads like summer: sentences like ice that crackle or melt into a languorous drip; plot suddenly, wildly flying forward like a bike down a hill."

Cosponsored by the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Program.

 

February

GILBERT KING: THE ART OF THE “TRUE CRIME” PODCAST

Wednesday, February 1 

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Standish Room, Science Library (3rd floor)

7:30 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Gilbert King, Niskayuna native and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is the creator of “Bone Valley,” one of the most acclaimed podcasts of 2022. King tells the story of Leo Schofield, who was sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife Michelle in Florida in 1987 and remains behind bars despite the fact that another man, Jeremy Scott, has confessed to the murder. In the course of 9 episodes, King uncovers startling new evidence that Scott is responsible for a string of murders.

King won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for Devil in the Grove, an account of the future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s role in defending four black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Florida in 1949.

Cosponsored by the UAlbany School of Criminal Justice and the Honors College.

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FILM SCREENING: "THE ICE STORM" 

7 p.m. Friday, February 3

Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

(United States, 1997, 112 minutes, color, Rated R)

Directed by Ang Lee. Starring Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci and Sigourney Weaver.

Set in suburban Connecticut in 1973, this acclaimed adaptation of Rick Moody’s novel tells the story of middle class families who experiment with casual sex and substance abuse, and find their lives spiraling out of control. The film was nominated for the Palme d’Or and Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival.

Join author Rick Moody and screenwriter James Schamus for a conversation about the film’s 25th Anniversary at the Third Annual Albany Film Festival on Saturday, April 1, 2023!

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LYNNE TILLMAN: ON BECOMING A CAREGIVER TO AN UNPLEASANT PARENT

4:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 7 

Craft Talk, Campus Center West Boardroom (1st Floor)

Lynne Tillman, award-winning author and UAlbany English Professor/Writer-in-Residence, presents her new book, MOTHERCARE: On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence (2022), an unflinching account of the painful experience of becoming caregiver to a very difficult parent. The Boston Globe said, “Masterfully-wrought . . . [A] stunning story of caregiving, with its questions of obligation and ethics and what it means to care for someone who, perhaps, didn’t care for you.”

Her previous books include the novel, No Lease on Life (1998), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and What Would Lynne Tillman Do? (2014), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.

Cosponsored by the UAlbany School of Social Welfare in association with the Internships in Aging Project, and the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Program

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FILM SCREENING: "DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST"

7 p.m. Friday, February 10 

Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

(United States, 1991, 113 minutes, color, Rated PG)

Directed by Julie Dash. Starring Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara-O.

Named one of “The Greatest Films of All Time” by the 2022 Sight and Sound Critics' poll of major critics—which is conducted only once each decade— "Daughters of the Dust" tells the story of three generations of Gullah women on the island of St. Helena, off the coast of South Carolina. The Gullah are an African American group who succeeded in preserving much of their African cultural and linguistic heritage in isolation from plantation society on the mainland.

Illustrative of the lack of access experienced by Black filmmakers, this 1991 film was the very first feature directed by an African American woman to be distributed theatrically in the United States.

Join director-screenwriter Julie Dash and film editor Amy Carey Linton for a conversation about "Daughters of the Dust" at the Third Annual Albany Film Festival on Saturday, April 1, 2023!

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HELEN ANDREWS AND JILL FILIPOVIC: THE BABY BOOMERS — THE WORST GENERATION?

Thursday, February 16 

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

7:30 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Join us for conversations about the mixed legacy of the Baby Boomers with two leading journalists of the Millennial Generation who represent widely divergent political perspectives.

Helen Andrews, conservative columnist, is the senior editor of The American Conservative, former managing editor of The Washington Examiner, and former associate editor of The National Review. Her recent book is BOOMERS: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster (Sentinel, January 2021). Noted Stanford University literary scholar Terry Castle said, “Baby Boomers (and I confess I am one): prepare to squirm and shake your increasingly arthritic little fists. For here comes essayist Helen Andrews.”

Jill Filipovic, journalist, lawyer, and weekly columnist for CNN who champions feminism in American politics and culture, is the author of OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind (paperback, 2020). The Washington Post said, “Particularly relevant in an election year...This book is full of data—on the economy, technology, and more—that will help millennials articulate their generational rage and help boomers understand where they’re coming from.”

 

FILM SCREENING: "INDIGNATION"

7 p.m. February 17

Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

(United States, 2016, 110 minutes, color, Rated R)

Directed by James Schamus. Starring Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts.

Major American screenwriter James Schamus — known for his many collaborations with director Ang Lee — adapted and directed this film based on Philip Roth’s 2008 novel about an awkward and introverted young Jewish man who enrolls in a Christian college in Ohio in order to escape being drafted into the Korean War. The UK Independent said, “Schamus shows just how easily a life can unravel. That's what makes "Indignation" such grim but poignant viewing.”

Join James Schamus for a conversation about his many films, (including "The Ice Storm"; "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman"; "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"; "The Wedding Banquet"; "Sense and Sensibility"; and "Lust, Caution") at the Third Annual Albany Film Festival on Saturday, April 1, 2023!

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2023 DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. CELEBRATION

7 p.m. Tuesday February 21

Terri Givens, thought leader and author of Radical Empathy

Celebration with student speakers and performers — 7:00 p.m., Campus Center Ballroom

Note: While this event is free, registration will be required. Please visit www.albany.edu/odi for more info and to register.

Terri Givens, renowned political scientist and thought leader, is the author of Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides (paperback, 2022), a book that addresses the global problems of hatred and xenophobia through a focused program of teaching empathy. She offers a revolutionary approach to ending racism— moving beyond an understanding of others’ lives and pain to recognize the origins of our own biases, including internalized oppression.

The founder of the Center for Higher Education Leadership and Brighter Professional Development, Givens is currently a Professor of Political Science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. A sought-after speaker, she uses her platform to encourage personal growth through empathy. She is also the author or coauthor of several scholarly works on racism and immigration, including The Roots of Racism: The Politics of White Supremacy in the US and Europe (2022), Immigration in the 21st Century (2020), Legislating Equality (2014), and Immigration Policy and Security (2008).

Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Student Association, and Honors College in collaboration with the NYS Writers Institute.

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PETER ORNER: LIVING TO READ, READING TO LIVE

4:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 28

Craft Talk, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Award-winning fiction writer and essayist Peter Orner, whose work often celebrates the joy and necessity of reading, is the author of the new essay collection, Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin (2022), “a unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life.” In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said, “Pushcart Prize–winning fiction writer Orner brings his lyrical, mosaic style to the story of his own life in this gorgeous and contemplative memoir.” His previous essay collection, Am I Alone Here?, Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live (2016), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.

Cosponsored by the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Program.

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March

JESSICA VALENTI: FEMINISM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY  

Thursday, March 2 

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

7:30 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Campus Center West Auditorium

Jessica Valenti, UAlbany graduate, is "one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation” (The Washington Post). The UK Guardian named her one of the “Top 100 Inspiring Women in Writing and Academia,” and “the pioneering blogger whose online activism dragged feminism into the 21st century.”

A bestselling author, she earned her B.A. in 2001, double-majoring in Women’s Studies (now Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) and English. Her many acclaimed books include Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World (2020), Sex Object: A Memoir (2016), Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth about Parenting and Happiness (2012), The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women (2009), Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power & a World Without Rape (2008), He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know (2008), and Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters (2007).

With generous support from the UAlbany Alumni Association. Cosponsored by the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Office of Health Promotion in association with Gender and Sexuality Month.

 

FILM SCREENING: "LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN"

7 p.m. Friday, March 3

Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

(United States, 1989, 102 minutes, color, Rated R)

Directed by Uli Edel. Starring Stephen Lang, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Burt Young.

Set in the working class underbelly of Brooklyn in the 1950s, amid a milieu of union corruption, prostitution and violence, this award-winning film stars Stephen Lang as a factory shop steward who falls in love with a transgender woman. Desmond Nakano adapted the script from the underground classic 1964 novel by Hubert Selby Jr., the subject of obscenity trials and book bans.

Join major American actor Stephen Lang for a conversation about "Last Exit to Brooklyn" at the Third Annual Albany Film Festival on Saturday, April 1, 2023! A star of both the Broadway stage and Hollywood screen, Lang portrays the main antagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch in "Avatar" (2009) and "Avatar: The Way of Water" (2022).

 

PAULINA PORIZKOVA: ON BEAUTY, AGING, LOVE, LOSS, GRIEF AND JOY

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 7

Conversation / Q&A Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Hosted by Marion Roach Smith, author of The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life.

Paulina Porizkova, one of the best-known supermodels of the 1980’s, presents her new memoir, No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful (2022). Major novelist Ann Patchett called it, “A book about a rare life, profound love, profound grief, anxiety, self-assurance, empowerment, aging, loss, and joy,” and said, “It is nuanced, complex, insightful, helpful, and constantly surprising.” Born in Cold War Czechoslovakia, Porizkova appeared on her first Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover in 1984, and became the face of Estée Lauder in 1989. No Filter explores her extraordinary career, the experience of aging, and her long and often painful relationship with Ric Ocasek, frontman of The Cars, who died in 2019. It appears on “Must-Read” lists in numerous media outlets, including TIME, Good Morning America, and the New York Post.

 

HERNAN DIAZ: ONE OF THE “TOP TEN BOOKS” OF 2022

Thursday, March 9 

Hernan Diaz in conversation with Paul Stasi

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Standish Room, Science Library (3rd Floor)

7:30 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer-nominated fiction writer and former UAlbany faculty member, is the author of the acclaimed new novel, Trust (2022), a mind-blowing and multi-layered narrative, the book is composed of four manuscripts, each telling a different version of the life of a Wall Street tycoon and his wife, building to Black Thursday and the Great Depression. One of the most talked-about novels of the year, Trust was named one of the “Top Ten Books of 2022” in both the New York Times and the Washington Post, and long-listed for the Booker Prize. Born in Argentina and raised in Sweden, Diaz was Assistant Professor in the UAlbany Hispanic and Italian Studies Department in the 2000s and 2010s. His first novel, In the Distance (2017), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Paul Stasi is a UAlbany English Associate Professor, and a friend of Hernan Diaz who is thanked in the acknowledgments of Trust. He researches and teaches in the areas of Modernism, 20th-century Anglophone writing, Marxist, aesthetic, and postcolonial theory, and silent film. His new book is The Persistence of Realism in Modernist Fiction (2022), from Cambridge University Press. Previous books include Modernism, Imperialism and the Historical Sense (2012), Ezra Pound in the Present (co-editor 2016), and Deadwood and the End of American Empire (co-editor 2013).

Cosponsored by the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Program, and the Department of Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies.

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IRISH HERITAGE CELEBRATION WITH POET PAUL MULDOON

7 p.m. Wednesday, March 15 

7:00 p.m. — Conversation/Q&A, Irish American Heritage Museum, 21 Quackenbush Square, Albany, NY 12207

Celebrate Irish American Heritage Month with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, “the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War” (Times Literary Supplement), and the author of more than 30 collections. In November 2022, Irish President Michael Higgins named Muldoon the ninth “Ireland Professor of Poetry,” an honor bestowed jointly by universities and cultural organizations in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland—and a role akin to “Poet Laureate” for all of Ireland.

His most recent collection is Howdie-Skelp (2021), named for the slap in the face a midwife gives a newborn baby to wake it up. The book was named a Best Book of the Year by Financial Times, Irish Times, and The Guardian (UK).

Sponsored by the Irish American Heritage Museum in collaboration with the NYS Writers Institute.

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DAVID BARCLAY MOORE: THE MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS “WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR”

6 p.m. Wednesday March 22 

Conversation / Q&A, Main Branch, Albany Public Library, Large Auditorium, 161 Washington Ave, Albany

REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://davidbarclaymoore.eventbrite.com

David Barclay Moore is the author of the runaway middle grade bestseller, The Stars Beneath Our Feet (2017), the story of a young man who “tries to steer a safe path through the projects in Harlem in the wake of his brother’s death.” Winner of the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award, the novel has been adopted as a core text in school curricula throughout the U.S. The New York Times said, "The right story at the right time…. It’s not just a narrative; it’s an experience. It’s the novel we’ve been waiting for.” Moore’s new novel is Holler of the Fireflies (2022), about a “boy from the hood in Brooklyn” and his experiences at a STEM camp in Appalachia, where he encounters racism and discovers who he is, including his sexual identity. School Library Journal called it, “both timely and timeless.”

Presented by the Albany Public Library and the New York State Writers Institute.

Major support and funding provided by the Carl E. Touhey Foundation.

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JENNIFER EGAN: RADIANT, DAZZLING AND ELECTRIFYING FICTION!

Thursday, March 23

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

7:30 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Campus Center West Auditorium

Jennifer Egan, one of the leading fiction writers of her generation, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for her bestselling, structurally inventive novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010), widely hailed as one of the best novels of the 21st century (The Guardian, TIME, Entertainment Weekly). Her much-anticipated new novel, The Candy House (2022), is the story of a Silicon Valley billionaire who creates a company that allows users to upload and download human memory. Publishers Weekly called it “an electrifying and shape-shifting story that one-ups its Pulitzer-winning predecessor.” Egan served as President of the literary and human rights organization PEN America from 2018 to 2020.

Cosponsored by the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Program, and the Honors College.

 

AUTHORS THEATRE

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 28

"Pranayama" with playwright James Anthony Tyler

Staged reading of "Pranayama" followed by Q&A with playwright James Anthony Tyler, director, and cast.

Arena Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

In a Bikram yoga studio in Harlem, aspiring yogis breathe deep under heat lamps and move through the postures of their practice, while their lives are forever changed. Over the course of three seasons, relationships, politics, grief, and birth alter the calm of the studio’s microcosm, while the country careens towards the fall 2016 Presidential election...and its results that no one saw coming. With his trademark humor and subtle drama, James Anthony Tyler’s fantastically diverse and fabulously large cast of 10 characters will be brought to the stage by UAlbany Theatre students, performing alongside professional actors, in a reading of this work-in-progress.

A rising star in the American theatre, James Anthony Tyler received the 3rd Annual Horton Foote Playwriting Award in 2018 and the Theatre Masters Visionary Playwrights Award in 2016. He previously appeared in the Authors Theatre program in 2019 with his play-in-progress, “Talkin' To This Chick Sippin' Magic Potion.” He is one of the inaugural playwrights to receive a commission from Audible’s emerging playwrights fund. His other plays include “Some Old Black Man,” “All We Need Is Us,” “hop tha A,” “Artney Jackson,” and “Dolphins and Sharks.” He was a staff writer for the OWN Network show “Cherish the Day” created by Ava DuVernay. Currently, he is writing for a new Apple TV+ drama series starring an Academy Award-winning actress.  

Presented by the UAlbany Theatre Program and the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment in collaboration with the NYS Writers Institute.

 

RACHEL LUNA: LIVING UNFILTERED AND UNAFRAID

Rachel Luna, Author, Entrepreneur, and Journaling Mentor-in-Residence

6 p.m. Wednesday March 29 

Journaling Workshop, Albany Public Library, Large Auditorium, 161 Washington Ave, Albany

REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://rachelluna.eventbrite.com

4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 30

Book talk about Permission to Offend, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Among her many accomplishments, Rachel Luna is an innovative journaling workshop leader who will spend time in a variety of Capital Region settings imparting her knowledge and teaching her craft to young people and adults. A successful entrepreneur who teaches and speaks all around the world on confidence, leadership, entrepreneurship & freedom— Luna has been profiled in Forbes magazine (“How Breast Cancer Turned This Entrepreneur into A Better Business Woman”) and was named by that same publication one of the “Top 11 Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs to Follow on Instagram.” A 10-year veteran of the US Marine Corps, Luna was born into a working class, migrant Puerto Rican family. Both her parents died of AIDS. She recounts her story of resilience and determination in her new book, Permission to Offend: The Compassionate Guide for Living Unfiltered and Unafraid (2023).

Presented by the Albany Public Library and the New York State Writers Institute.

Major support and funding provided by the Carl E. Touhey Foundation.

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April

ALBANY FILM FESTIVAL

Saturday, April 1, 2023, at the University at Albany

Visit albanyfilmfestival.org for more details.

 

 

FROM UALBANY TO THE LITERARY STRATOSPHERE

April 6 (Thursday)

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

7:30 p.m. — Reading / Q&A, Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, breakout bestselling author and UAlbany English Department alum, is the author of the debut novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars (April 2023), the story of two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own. Author Kiese Laymon said in advance praise, “I’ve never read satire so bruising, so brolic, so tender and really, so pitch-perfect. It’s nuts brilliant. Just read it!” Adjei-Brenyah took the literary world by storm with his first story collection, Friday Black (2018), a satirical look at what it’s like to be young and Black in America. In 2018, he was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree by Colson Whitehead.

With generous support from the UAlbany Alumni Association. Cosponsored by the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Program.

 

A LANDMARK HISTORY OF “ACT UP” AND THE AIDS CRISIS

April 10 (Monday)

Sarah Schulman, AIDS historian, novelist, and activist

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk on Fiction and Nonfiction, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition [PRIVATE EVENT - NOT IN BROCHURE]

7:30 p.m. — Film Screening / Q&A with Sarah Schulman, Campus Center West Boardroom (1st Floor)

Sarah Schulman, nonfiction writer, novelist, activist, screenwriter, and playwright, is the author of the landmark work of history, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 (2021), winner of innumerable awards and honors, including the 2022 Lambda Literary LGBTQ Nonfiction Award. Schulman is the author of more than 20 books and her newest novel, Shimmer, will be published in June 2023.

 

Film:  UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP

(United States, 2012, 90 minutes, color, Unrated) Directed by Jim Hubbard. Starring David Barr, Ken Bing, Gregg Bordowitz.

Sarah Schulman co-produced this feature-length documentary, an outgrowth of her ACT UP Oral History Project. Metacritic said the film “combines startling archival footage that puts the audience on the ground with the activists… to explore… how a small group of men and women of all races and classes, came together to change the world and save each other’s lives.”

 

Cosponsored by the LGBTQ Advisory Council, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the Writers Institute, with major support from an ODI Diversity Transformation Grant.

 

THE JOURNEY OF MAKING A BOOK

April 11 (Tuesday)

UAlbany Faculty Author Showcase:  Sarah Giragosian and David Goldsmith

4:30 p.m. — Craft talk and conversation, Campus Center West Boardroom (1st Floor)

Join us for a conversation with two members of the University at Albany faculty discussing the “journey” of making a book, including the joys and challenges of conducting research, making time to write, organizing content, editing, revising, and finding a publisher.

Sarah Giragosian is co-editor with Virginia Konchan of Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems (2023), an anthology of interconnected essays that explore the art and technique of poetry manuscript assembly. She is the author of the poetry collections Queer Fish (2017), winner of the American Poetry Journal Book Prize, and The Death Spiral (2020). A Ph.D. graduate of the UAlbany English Department, she teaches in the Writing and Critical Inquiry Program and the English Department.

David Goldsmith, geologist and Director of the UAlbany Honors College, is the author of On Solid Ground: Why the Earth Isn’t as Controversial as You May Think (2023), a book that illustrates what geologists know about the earth by telling the stories of the people who made major geological discoveries, while addressing the arguments of doubters and nay-sayers. Goldsmith joined the UAlbany community in 2022, after 25 years of teaching experience in geology, paleontology, and the history of science.

 

RPI’s ANNUAL MCKINNEY AWARDS

April 12 (Wednesday)

Gish Jen

Reading and McKinney Writing Contest Awards — 7:00 p.m., EMPAC Building, Rensselaer (RPI), 110 8th Street, Troy

Gish Jen, one of America’s greatest storytellers, is the author of the new book, Thank You, Mr. Nixon (2022), a collection of stories that, together, constitute “a fictional journey through U.S.-China relations, capturing the excitement of a world on the brink of tectonic change.” The New Yorker named it a “Best Book of the Year,” and Booklist said, “Jen distills five decades of cultural collision, confusion, and collaboration between the U.S. and China into eleven gorgeously comedic and heartbreaking stories.” Her most recent novel was The Resisters (2020), a tale of dystopia, climate change, and baseball that Esquire named one of the “Top 50 Sci-Fi Books of All Time.”

Sponsored by the Mary A. Earl McKinney Endowment; Rensselaer Union; School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; Rensselaer’s Department of Communication and Media; Friends of Folsom Library; and the NYS Writers Institute.

 

BLACK HAIR:  A STORY OF ART, BEAUTY, CULTURE, HISTORY, AND PRIDE

April 13 (Thursday)

4:30 p.m. — Book Talk with Lyzette Wanzer, author of Trauma, Tresses, and Truth, Campus Center West Boardroom (1st Floor)

7:30 p.m. — Celebration with Lyzette Wanzer and student performers, hosted by UAlbany music professor, ethnomusicologist, singer-songwriter, author, and activist Kyra Gaunt, Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Join us for a celebration of the culture and history of African American hair identity and fashion with writer, editor, and workshop instructor, Lyzette Wanzer. In the afternoon, Ms. Wanzer will discuss her new book, Trauma, Tresses, and Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (2022). Ms. Wanzer will answer questions about the complexities of Black identity with respect to hair. As a San Francisco-based author-activist, she will also discuss the California law known as “The CROWN Act,” which prohibits discrimination based on hair style and hair texture. In the evening, UAlbany Professor Kyra Gaunt will host an event with the author, as well as student poets, musicians and dancers. We will also screen Ayoka Chenzira’s 10-minute animation, Hair Piece: A story for nappy headed people (1984).

Cosponsored by the Department of Music and Theatre, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Intercultural Student Engagement, and the NYS Writers Institute.

 

BURIAN LECTURE ON LIFE IN THE PERFORMING ARTS

April 17 (Monday)

Stephen Adly Guirgis

7:30 p.m. — The 26th Annual Burian Lecture, Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Craft Talk [THEATRE CLASSES] — 4:30 p.m., Recital Hall, UAlbany Performing Arts Center [PRIVATE EVENT - NOT IN BROCHURE]

Stephen Adly Guirgis, a 1992 UAlbany graduate, is one of the leading playwrights of his generation. Known for raw, edgy, streetwise dramatic works set in New York City, he received the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for “Between Riverside and Crazy,” a dark comedy about a retired police officer facing eviction from his apartment. The play began its Broadway run on November 30, 2022. A former co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater, Guirgis worked closely with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who directed five of his plays. Other works include “The Mother****r with the Hat” (2011), nominated for seven Tony Awards; “Our Lady of 121st Street” (2003); and “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” (2000), which the New York Times, in 2018, named one of the “Best 25 Plays” of the past 25 years.

Presented by the UAlbany Theatre Program and the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment in collaboration with the NYS Writers Institute.

 

AMERICA— WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

April 18 (Tuesday)

Bill McKibben, leading environmental activist and author

7:30 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Campus Center West Auditorium

Bill McKibben is the author of numerous bestselling books on the environment, including The End of Nature (1989), the first book to alert general readers to the climate crisis. His new book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened (2022), a reflection on disturbing developments in the nature of American patriotism, faith, and prosperity. U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said, “If we survive the interlocking plagues of climate change, right-wing authoritarianism, and savage inequality, future generations will utter the name of the New England moral visionary and activist McKibben with the reverence we speak of Emerson, Thoreau, and Garrison.”

Co-sponsored by UAlbany’s Office of Sustainability and the UAlbany Environmental Humanities Lab

 

THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF “BLACK LIVES MATTER”

April 19 (Wednesday)

Peniel Joseph

7:00 p.m. — Conversation / Q&A, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, 30 2nd St., Troy, NY 12180

Distinguished historian of racial justice movements Peniel E. Joseph will deliver the inaugural lecture in a planned annual event in remembrance of the late Bob Doherty, former president of the Justice Center of Rensselaer County. Joseph’s new book, The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century (2022), examines the racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020 in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. He argues that Black Lives Matter marks a “Third Reconstruction” in the ongoing struggle by Black Americans that is as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. The Washington Post called it, “searingly relevant.”

Presented by The Justice Center of Rensselaer County with support from the NYS Writers Institute and the Center for Law and Justice.

 

A MULTIGENERATIONAL SAGA ABOUT THE TENACITY OF WOMEN

April 25 (Tuesday)

Elizabeth Graver, novelist

4:30 p.m. — Craft Talk, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

7:30 p.m. — Reading/Q&A, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

Elizabeth Graver is the author of Kantika (April 2023), a dazzling multigenerational saga about Sephardic Jewish families that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home. Gish Jen said, “Intimately imagined, lyrically written, and rich with historical detail, Kantika weaves forced displacement, wild reinvention and triumphant healing into a big, border-crossing family saga. Marvelous!” Graver’s fourth novel, The End of the Point, was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award and selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, and The O. Henry Prize Stories.

Cosponsored by the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Program, and University at Albany Hillel.

 

April 29 (Saturday)  

SELECTED SHORTS 

7:30 p.m. — Performance, Main Theatre, 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 https://epay.albany.edu/C21455_ustores/web/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=1728&SINGLESTORE=true

 

The acclaimed weekly public radio broadcast turned touring show has a simple premise: take great stories by well-known and emerging writers and have them performed by terrific actors of stage and screen. Be transported through the magic of fiction in this unique night of literature in performance. Stay tuned to nyswritersinstitute.org for more updates on the featured stories and cast.  

Presented in collaboration with the UAlbany Performing Arts Center with support from the University at Albany Foundation and University Auxiliary Services.

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May

SECOND ANNUAL INDIGO DYE DAY

April 30 (Sunday)

*Rain Date May 1 (Monday)

Magical Indigo: An indigo-dyeing workshop

1:00 p.m. — Workshop, Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West Addition

 

Join us for our second Indigo Dye Day program to mark the start of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The event will again be hosted by former Writers Institute Graduate Assistant Kaori Otera Chen of the UAlbany Anthropology Department, and noted textile artist, Darius Homayounpour. Last year’s gathering drew more than 100 people— including preschoolers, young families, UAlbany students and senior citizens— to learn about the cultural history of indigo dyeing, create an indigo textile artwork to bring home, and celebrate AAPI heritage.