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Events
Events listed in white are at the bookshop; events listed in yellow are elsewhere.
All events are free & open to the public.
(Click on a picture to purchase.)
- Sunday, April 2nd at 3:00 P.M.
“Jubilat/Jones Reading Series” Poets
Jen Bervin &
Terrance Hayes will read in the Trustees Room at the Jones Library in Amherst. Bervin has worked as a fire look-out in Arizona & taught at NYU. Her books include
Nets &
Under What is Not Under, & numerous artists' books. Cole Swenson said of Bervin's work that "it's a gesture that recognizes all that is already here in the remnants that surround us. It's an art of recombination, & she makes no effort to hide the seams. The stitches that hold the fragments together become part of the visual pleasure, & the juxtapositions, intersections, overlaps & reiterations that join her fragments of language become an integral part of what we hear. Hayes is author of several volumes of poetry, including
Muscular Music,
Hip Logic, & a new collection (to be) published in March,
Wind in a Box. He teaches at Carnegie-Mellon, & is the recipient of many awards & honors, including a Whiting Writers Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, a National Poetry Series award, a Pushcart Prize, a Best American Poetry selection, & a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
- Wednesday, April 5th at 8:00 P.M.
New Yorker staff writer
Elizabeth Kolbert will talk in the Pryune Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115) on the Amherst College campus. Kolbert's occasional pieces were collected in
The Prophet of Love: And Other Tales of Power & Deceit. Her new book,
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature & Climate Change expands & develops a three-part series she wrote for the
New Yorker. In it, Kolbert lets facts rather than polemics tell the story: in short, the Earth is now nearly as warm as it has been at any time in the last 420,000 years & is on the precipice of an unprecedented climate regime, one with which modern humans have had no prior experience.
- Thursday, April 6th at 8:00 P.M.
Tyran Grillo, a UMASS alum from the Japanese Languages & Literature Department, will be reading from his translation of
Parasite Eve, a novel by Tokyo-based author & lecturer Hideaki Sena.
Parasite Eve is infused with the author’s firsthand knowledge of microbiology & evolutionary concepts. It was instrumental in sparking a subsequent boom in the horror genre in Japan and even spawned a popular diptych of video games which were imported into the American market to great success. Grillo will be giving a brief talk about the development of horror fiction in Japan & the effect
Parasite Eve has had on the literary market, followed by a reading from the novel itself & book signing. Anyone interested in Japanese fiction, horror, or science fiction, as well as general readers are certain to find something intriguing at this event. (
Read more!).
- Friday, April 7th at 4:00 P.M.
David Cline will sign copies of his new book,
Creating Choice: A Community Responds to the Need for Abortion & Birth Control, 1961-1973. A study of reproductive activism in the Valley, Cline's book reads like a who's who of names in local family counseling & abortion rights. With a preface by University of Massachusetts professor Joyce Berkman & Hampshire College professor Susan Tracy, there are sections on, among others, Leslie Laurie, Lawrence Siddal, Sam Topal, Meredith Michaels, Ellen Story, & Robin Dizard. Cline is in town to participate in the annual reproductive rights conference sponsored by the Civil Liberties & Public Policy Program at Hampshire College. (
More information!) Cline did graduate work at the University of Massachusetts & is now at the University of North Carolina.
- Friday, April 7th at 8:00 P.M.
“Live Lit” Students in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts will read from their recent work. Evenings usually include a mix of poetry & fiction. This evening's performers are Liz Hughey, Chris Hosea, Cecily Iddings, & Mark Rosenberg.
- Saturday, April 8th at 8:00 P.M.
Jennifer Shahade, the 2004 U.S. Woman’s Chess Champion, will read from her book,
Chess Bitch. Shahade is a two-time U.S. Women's Champion & has represented America in three Olympiads: 2000, 2002, & 2004. She holds the title of WIM (Woman International Master) & has two norms for the "men's" IM title. In her book Shahade gives an eye-opening account of how today’s young female chess players are successfully knocking down the doors to this traditionally male game, infiltrating the male-owned sporting subculture of international chess, & giving the phrase ”play like a girl“ a whole new meaning.
- Friday, April 13th at 8:00 P.M.
William Gass will read in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst as part of the University's Visiting Writer series. Gass: philosopher, novelist, literary critic, short-story writer, essayist, polymath, genius, translator, editor, iconoclast & idolater —from
Omensetters's Luck &
The Heart of the Heart of the Country; from
Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife &
The Tunnel to
The World Within the Word &
Fiction & the Figures of Life &
Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation , & the new collection,
The Temple of Texts— Gass impresses with intelligence, imagination, with craft.
- Tuesday, April 18th at 7:30 P.M.
Matthew Bogdanos, author of
Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine’s Passion for Ancient Civilizations & the Journey to Recover the World’s Greatest Stolen Treasures, will talk at the Mahar Auditorium, Room 108 at the University of Massachusetts. Following the talk there will be a reception at the Fine Arts Center where Bogdanos will autograph copies of his book. Matthew Bogdanos was an assistant D.A. in New York City until 9/11—when he returned to uniform to head counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan & later in Iraq. There Bogdanos gave himself the mission of finding antiquities that had been stolen from the Iraq National Museum during the American invasion. Colorful characters & double-dealing are the norm as Bogdanos tries to sort out what really happened during the chaos of war. We see his team going on raids & negotiating recoveries, blowing open safes & mingling in the marketplaces, & tracking down leads from Zurich & Amman to Lyons, London, & New York.
- Thursday, April 20th at 4:00 P.M.
Book signing with
Kristin Henderson &
Kim Ponders.. Henderson is a frequent contributor to the
Washington Post Magazine. As the wife of a Navy chaplain who served with the Marines in Afghanistan & Iraq, Henderson, a Quaker, is active in the Marine Corps‘ Key Volunteer family support program & Compass, the Navy's spouse mentoring program. She often writes about the military spouse's perspective on deployment & homecoming issues. Kristin is the author of the critically praised memoir,
Driving by Moonlight: A Journey Through Love, War, & Infertility, which details her experience during her husband's deployment to Afghanistan following 9/11. Her latest book
While They're at War: The True Story of American Families on the Homefront takes a broader look at the experiences of military families in wartime. Ponders, after graduating from Syracuse University, worked as a journalist in northern California. She holds an M.S. in International Relations & an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. After joining the Air Force, she flew E-3 AWACS surveillance missions over Iraq in the first Gulf War, & she now works as a flight test engineer for the Air Force Reserves in New Hampshire. Her first novel,
The Art of Uncontrolled Flight, was published to considerable critical acclaim in the fall of 2005, & she is currently at work on a second novel about the Air Force Academy. Henderson & Ponders are in town as part of the
Nostoi: Stories of War & Return program at Hampshire College.
- Friday, April 21st at 4:00 P.M.
Poet
Mary Jo Salter will read from her own poetry & comment on Dickinson's influence & inspiration as part of the third annual “A Little Madness in the Spring” program on the Emily Dickinson Homestead Lawn. Salter is Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College, & is author of many volumes of poetry, including
Open Shutters,
A Kiss in Space,
Sunday Skaters,
Unfinished Painting, &
Henry Purcell in Japan. For more information, go to the
Dickinson Homestead website.
- Friday, April 21st at 8:00 P.M.
“Live Lit” Students in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts will read from their recent work. Evenings usually include a mix of poetry & fiction. This evening's performers are Josh Bolton, Lesley Yalen, Brian Baldi, & Tom Burke.
- Tuesday, April 25th at 4:00 P.M.
Join us in celebrating the publication of a new book by Hampshire College professor
Lise Sanders.
Consuming Fantasies: Labor, Leisure, & the London Shopgirl, 1880–1920, examines the cultural significance of the shopgirl—both historical figure & fictional heroine—from the end of Queen Victoria’s reign through the First World War. (
Read more!)
- Thursday, April 27th at 4:00 P.M.
University of Massachusetts history professor
Brian Ogilvie will sign copies of his new book,
The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe. Ogilvie is an intellectual & cultural historian of Europe with special interests in the history of science, scholarship, & religion from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment. Illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, & photographs,
The Science of Describing is the first broad interpretation of Renaissance natural history in more than a generation & will appeal widely to an interdisciplinary audience. (
Read more about the book!)
- Thursday, April 27th at 8:00 P.M.
An evening with two recent Slope Editions poets.
Amanda Nadelberg's
Isa the Truck Named Isadore was chosen winner of the 4th Annual Slope Editions Book Prize, which was judged by Lisa Jarnot. The book is a formal revelation, with poems written to unseen & off-stage “others” in alphabetical order, from ‘Adelaide’ to ‘Zeb’. Its territory, covering ground from heartbreak to travel to childhood to humor, is just as wide–ranging. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including
Octopus,
jubilat,
The Canary,
Unpleasant Event Schedule,
No: a journal of the arts &
Conduit. She currently lives in Minneapolis.
Matt Hart is author of
Who’s Who Vivid. Dean Young, wrote that “Hart's poetry is luxurious with nerve, speed & crash, the work of an explorative explosiveness that is constantly whacked by the world as it is. Welcome to a new realism hatching from the old. Welcome to the human heart. Welcome to the launch site”. Hart is co-editor of the literary journal
Forklift: Ohio. He has published poetry in
The Canary,
Conduit,
Ploughshares,
Salt Hill &
Spinning Jenny. Online, his work can be seen in such journals as
Diagram,
H_NGM_N,
Octopus,
Stirring &
Typo.
- Friday, April 28th 7:00–10:00 P.M.
Juniper Festival in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts
- 7:00 P.M. Book & journal fair open for browsing.
- 7:30 P.M. Poets Chris Edgar, Marcella Durand, Christian Hawkey, Ann Lauterbach, & Rachel Levitsky, will read.
- Saturday, April 29th 10:00 A.M.–10:00 P.M.
Juniper Festival in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts
- 10:00 A.M. Book & journal fair open for browsing
- 10:30 A.M. Address by Angus Fletcher on “Ashbery & the Electronic Subscriber”
- 11:30 A.M. Address by Eric Loberer on “The Ashbery Bridge: Poetry & Public Space”
(break)
2:00 P.M. John Ashbery will be interviewed by Rob Casper
- 3:00 P.M. Address by David Lehman on ”Contemporary Literary Landscapes”
- 3:30 P.M. Editors’ Roundtable, “Independent Publishing: Influences & Effects” with Martine Bellen, Conjunctions; MacGregor Card, The Germ; Brian Henry, Verse; & Eugene Richie, John Ashbery: Selected Prose; —moderated by David Lehman
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- 7:30 P.M. Poetry reading by John Ashbery