• Sunday, September 16th at 3:00 P.M.(Poetry reading)

“Jubilat/Jones Reading Series”   D. Nurkse & Matthea Harvey 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.   Nurkse is author of seven volumes of poetry, including Fall, Voices Over Water, Rules of Paradise, & most recently, Burnt Island.   Formerly the Poet Laureate of Brooklyn, he has received the Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Tanne Foundation award, & the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry.   Matthea Harvey is author of three volumes of poetry—Sad Little Breathing Machine, Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form, & forthcoming, Modern Life.   Her first children’s book, The Little General & the Giant Snowflake, illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel, is forthcoming from Soft Skull.   Harvey is a contributing editor to jubilat.   She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence & lives in Brooklyn.

The reading will be preceded by a ‘Poetry Swap’ at 2:00 PM.

• Wednesday, September 19th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

Mark Costello will read in Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115) at Amherst College as part of the Amherst College Writing Center's Visiting Writers Series.   Costello co-authored Signifying Rappers: Rap & Race in the Urban Present with David Foster Wallace.   He published his first novel, Bag Men, under the name John Flood.   His most recent thriller, Big If, was a 2002 National Book Award finalist, of which Adrienne Miller, in her Esquire review wrote, “the pacing here is superb, & the novel unfolds with kind of jittery anticipation, even if nothing much, well, happens.”

• Thursday, September 20th at 5:00 P.M.(Book launch party)

Join Dorion Sagan in celebrating the publication of his new book Notes from the Holocene: A Brief History of the Future.   In a quirky yet highly thought-provoking style, Sagan uses his knowledge of philosophy, science, & sleight-of-hand magic to probe some of the deepest questions we face on Earth.   Sagan tackles the complex issues head-on & provides fresh insights into why we are here on Earth, the nature of technology, the prognosis for humanity, & the living, conscious nature of our planet.   Dorion Sagan’s articles have appeared in Wired, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Natural History, The Sciences, Pabular, Cabinet, & other magazines.   His books include What is Life, Origins of Sex, & Into The Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, & Life.

• Thursday, September 20th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

Poets Graham Foust & Rod Smith will read at Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts as part of the University of Massachusetts Creative Writing Program's Visiting Writer Series.   Foust is author of three volumes of poetry: As in Every Deafness, Leave the Room to Itself, & Necessary Stranger.   Matthew Gagnon, writing in Octopus Magazine, said, “If language has any agency, Foust makes an unsettling contribution to our contemporary dystopia, only that in the end, it's more real than imagined.”   Smith is author of many volumes of poetry, including Protective Immediacy, In Memory of My Theories, & most recently, Music or Honesty.   Brian Kim Stefans wrote, “The real game, reading Smith, is the play between determinacy – what the poet “intends” to write & what he “means” – & chance – how the poet grabs onto what swims across his ken & places it, wholesale, into a poem – a collage aesthetic mated with a sort of discovery narrative of the decidedly un-islanded mind.   This is ultimately the question of life itself, understood as a daily improvisation dependent on the tools at hand, some of the most useful of which are distraction, unreason, humor, pity & piety, not to mention music & honesty themselves.”

• Friday, September 21st at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

CANCELED “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 T.B.A.

• Sunday, September 23rd at 5:00 P.M.(Talk & workshop)

Dr. Birdley (aka Nevin Katz) will conduct a workshop on how to teach science to children ages 11 to 16.   Katz, who lives in Amherst, is author of Introducing Cells, Classifying Cells, Parts of Cells, Properties of Matter, Elements, Compounds, & Mixtures, & Atomic Structure & Chemical Reactions, which feature source cartoons, lesson guides, & student activities that make challenging science concepts fun & easily accessible.   (Dr. Birdley's website)

• Wednesday, September 26th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

Sue Miller will read in Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115) at Amherst College as part of the Amherst College Writing Center's Visiting Writers Series.   Miller is author of many novels, including The Good Mother, World Below, & Lost in the Forest; a collection of short stories, Inventing the Abbotts, as well as a memoir, The Story of My Father.   Her novel While I Was Gone was an Oprah's Book Club pick in 2000.