• Thursday, March 5th at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Stanley Crawford will read in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts as part of the M.F.A. Program's Visiting Writers Series.   Crawford is author of several novels, including Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine; Petroleum Man; & Some Instructions, a classic satire on all the sanctimonious marriage manuals ever produced.   He is also the author of two memoirs, & a collection of essays, The River in Winter.

• Thursday, March 5th at 8:00 P.M. (Poetry Reading)

Ilya Kaminsky will read in the Center for Russian Culture (Webster, 2nd floor), Amherst College, as part of the Amherst College Writing Center's Visiting Writers Series.   Kaminsky is author of Dancing in Odessa, which won the Whiting Writer’s Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, & the Ruth Lilly Fellowship given annually by Poetry magazine.   It was also named Best Poetry Book of the Year 2004 by ForeWord Magazine.

• Friday, March 6th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

“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.   Tonight’s readers TBA.

• Monday, March 9th at 8:00 P.M.(Talk)

Michael Lux will talk about his new book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be.   Lux is the co-founder & CEO of Progressive Strategies.   Since starting the company, Mike has launched a number of important projects, including American Family Voices, an issue advocacy group working on pocketbook issues for American families; & the Progressive Donor Network, which works to coordinate a network of individual donors, issue advocacy groups, & top flight political consultants & strategists.   He is co-founder of OpenLeft.com, a news, analysis & action website dedicated toward building a progressive governing majority in America.   In November of 2008, Lux was named to the Obama-Biden Transition Team.   In that role, he served as an advisor to the Public Liaison on dealings with the progressive community & has helped shape the office of Public Liaison based on his past experience working on the Clinton-Gore Transition, as well as in the White House.   His new book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be argues that progressives today are fighting to improve America, as they always have, in contrast to conservatives, who have always worked to defend the status quo and the interests of elites.   Drawing on a deep knowledge of American history & the ways of Washington, & writing in a clear, accessible style, Lux shows how progressives have time & again been instrumental in creating positive change, whether in the realm of civil rights, electoral democracy, civil liberties, women's rights, or economic fairness.

• Tuesday, March 10th at 8:00 P.M.(Poetry reading)

Roz Spafford has been a writer, teacher & activist for the last three decades.   Until recently she taught writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz & wrote book reviews & a newspaper column of media & cultural criticism, called Mediations.    Her poetry & fiction have appeared in numerous literary magazines.   Her recent collection of poetry, Requiem, won the Gell Poetry Prize for an “outstanding unpublished book-length collection of poetry.”   Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carl Dennis judged the contest.

• Thursday, March 12th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

Nami Mun will read as part of the Amherst College Writing Center's Visiting Writers Series.   She received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award for fiction & the Farrar Prize for Drama.   She has received a Pushcart Prize, as well as scholarships & residencies from Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Eastern Frontier, Squaw Valley Writers’ Conference, Tin House Writers’ Conference, & Key West Literary Seminar.   Her stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, Evergreen Review, among other journals, as well as Tin House, who named her an Emerging Voice of 2005.   Miles from Nowhere is her first novel.

• Friday, March 13th at 3:00 P.M. (Talk)

Ha-Joon Chang will talk about his new book, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade & the Secret History of Capitalism, in the 3rd floor conference room in Gordon Hall (428 No. Pleasant Street) at the University of Massachusetts.   Chang is a leading leading heterodox economist whose superb critique of neo-liberal views of globalization & development are a must read for anyone interested in alternate visions of these processes.   For more information go to the Political Economy Research Institute website.

• Sunday, March 22nd at 5:00 P.M.(Book launch party)

Help celebrate the publication of a new autobiography by Amherst resident Rosalie Porter, American Immigrant: My Life in Three Languages.   Porter, who arrived in the U.S. at age six not knowing a word of English, has been a fellow at Harvard University, a Spanish Bilingual Teacher, the Director of Bilingual/ESL Programs in the Newton, MA, Public Schools, & Chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Bilingual Education.   She is author of several books, including Forked Tongue: The Politics of Bilingual Education & Educating Language Minority Children: An Agenda for the Future.

• Wednesday, March 25th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

Emily Barton will read as part of the Amherst College Writing Center's Visiting Writers Series.   Barton's fiction has appeared in Story, American Short Fiction, & Conjunctions.   Her first novel, The Testament of Yves Gundron, called “blessedly post-ironic, engaging, & heartfelt” by Thomas Pynchon, won the Bard Fiction Prize & was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.   Her most recent novel, Brookland, is the tale of sisters who run a gin distillery in late eighteenth-century Brooklyn.   Barton is the recipient of a 2006 artist's grant from the National Endowment for the Arts & a 2006 fellowship from the Guggenheim.  

• Thursday, March 26th at 7:00 P.M.(Benefit talk, reception, & signing)

Author Leslie Garis will speak in the Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall at Amherst College for the Seventh Annual Family Outreach of Amherst, “Salute to Familes”, Benefit.   Garis, who is perhaps best known for New York Times Magazine profiles of such writers as Georges Simenon, Rebecca West, John Fowles, Harold Pinter, Joan Didion, & Susan Sontag, spent much of her childhood in Amherst with her mother, her mentally ill father, & her grandparents—authors of the “Uncle Wiggily” series, as well as the “Tom Swift”, & many of the “Bobbsey Twin”, books.   Garis’s new book, House of Happy Endings, is a moving memoir of those times.   She will be joined for this evening’s benefit by Putlizer Prize-winner, Madeleine Blais.   Tickets are available at the door, or call 413.549.5999 for reservations.  Tickets are $25 Benefactor; $10 General; $5 Senior; & are free to students.  

Family Outreach of Amherst (FOA) was established in 1989 in response to the closing of an Amherst homeless shelter for women and children.   Although the shelter staff found housing in Amherst for the six families who had been staying at the shelter, they were concerned that these families were not stable enough to sustain their housing.   With funds from the town of Amherst & private donations, an outreach program was created to follow the families into the community to ensure that they would not become homeless again.   FOA has gone from providing case management services of those original six families to serving over three hundred families a year through their Home Visiting Program, Advocacy, & Information and Referral services.   Vist their website here.

• Friday, March 27th at 4:00 P.M.(Book launch party)

Help celebrate the publication of Amherst resident Patricia Appelbaum’s new book—Kingdom to Commune: Protestant Pacifist Culture between World War I & the Vietnam Era.   Appelbaum, who has taught at the University of Massachusetts & Springfield College, argues that Protestant pacifism, which constituted the religious center of the large-scale peace movement in the United States after World War I, is best understood as a culture that developed dynamically in the broader context of American religious, historical, & social currents.   Exploring piety, practice, & material religion, she describes a surprisingly complex culture of Protestant pacifism expressed through social networks, iconography, vernacular theology, individual spiritual practice, storytelling, identity rituals, & cooperative living.   Between World War I & the Vietnam War, she contends, a paradigm shift took place in the Protestant pacifist movement.   Pacifism moved from a mainstream position to a sectarian & marginal one, from an embrace of modernity to skepticism about it, & from a Christian center to a purely pacifist one, with an informal, flexible theology.

• Friday, March 27th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

“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.   Tonight’s readers TBA.

• Saturday, March 28th at 10:00 A.M.(Book launch party)

Help us celebrate the publication of a new book by Amherst resident Amy Zuckerman—2030: A Day in the Life of Tomorrow’s Kids.   Zuckerman has been an international business consultant & author of many books on international business, technology & economic development.   Among other professional organizations & associations, she is a member of the Creative Economy Initiative, a New England-wide organization, that both boosts the arts & helps develop new industries that relate to arts & technology.   2030, written with James Daly & illustrated by John Manders, is her first book for children.   Inspired by trends & scientific research, 2030, is not only a peek at some cool future gadgets (talking dog collars, cars that drive themselves), but also a chance to see how a changing environment might affect our lives.   George Lucas, director of Star Wars, said, “Kids will love this book.   It’s a fun look at the exciting world that is heading their way.”

• Sunday, March 29nd at 3:00 P.M.(Poetry reading)

“Jubilat/Jones Reading Series”   Zachary Schomburg & Emily Kendal Frey will read from their recent work as part of the jubilat/Jones Reading Series in the Trustees Room at the Jones Library, 43 Amity Street in Amherst.   Schomburg is author of the darkly comic debut collection, The Man Suit.   James Tate wrote that “Schomburg is a wildly imaginative poet who will take you many places you've never been or even dreamed of, always with grace and quirky humor.   Whether you are caught in Abraham Lincoln’s Death Scene or the Sea of Japan, you are certain to enjoy the original vision of this highly entertaining poet."   Frey lives in Portland, Oregon.   Recent work is forthcoming from New York Quarterly, Spinning Jenny, & Knock.

• Tuesday, March 31st at 8:00 P.M.(Poetry reading)

Joshua Beckman, Noelle Kocot & Chelsey Minnis will read from their recent work.   Beckman is the author of six books, including Take It; Shake; & two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer: Nice Hat. Thanks., & Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty.   He is an editor at Wave Books & has translated numerous works of poetry & prose, including Poker by Tomaž Šalamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award.   He is also the recipient of numerous other awards, including a NYFA fellowship & a Pushcart Prize.   Kocot is the author, most recently, of Sunny Wednesday.   She is also author of Poem for the End of Time & Other Poems; 4; & The Raving Fortune, & is the recipient of several awards, including an NEA fellowship.   Minnis is the author of Zirconia, winner of the 2001 Alberta Prize from Fence Books; Foxina; Bad Bad; & most recently, Poemland.