• Wednesday, April 1st at 6:30 P.M. (Reading)

William Taubman will talk on "Writing Biographies of Khrushchev & Gorbachev" at the Sunderland Public Library, 20 School Street, Sunderland.   Taubman is Bertrand Snell professor of Political Science at Amherst College.   He won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize & the National Book Critics Circle awards in Biography for his book Khrushchev: the Man & His Era.

• Tuesday, April 7th at 5:00 P.M.(Book launch party)

Join us in celebrating the publication of a new fantasy novel by University of Massachusetts undergrad, Rachel Drummey—Twins of the Golden City.   “For the first seventeen years of her life, Lena knew nothing but cruelty.   Held captive in a palace in the desert, Lena was taught to use her singular powers in combat so that she could eventually become the champion of her despised captor, Lord Daimonas.   But when a mysterious fellow prisoner helps Lena escape, she flees to the northern country of Aurea.   There she finds sanctuary among the Order of the Aureate Guard, a group of men &amnp; women who have powers just as Lena does, though Lena’s unique abilities quickly set her apart as one of the most gifted of the Order.   In Aurea, Lena also meets Hadrian, a boy her own age & of similar talent.   Though they quickly grow very close, the diabolical plot of Lena’s former captor threatens to tear them apart.   In the face of tragedy & temptation, Lena & Hadrian must each decide where their allegiances will truly lie.’

• Thursday, April 9th at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Kevin Stewart will read in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts as part of the M.F.A. Program's Visiting Writers Series.   Stewart is author of The Way Things Always Happen Here: Eight Stories & a Novella, which was nominated for Foreword Magazine‘s Book of the Year Award for Fiction/Short Stories & the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Fiction/Poetry.   Stewart has also been awarded Appalachian Heritage's Plattner Award in Fiction & the Texas Review Novella Prize.

• Friday, April 10th 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, April 13th at 4:00 P.M. (Reading / Talk)

“Creativity, Eros & Politics: Political & Sexy Subjects in Chinese”   Yang Lian & Yo Yo (with Michael Kasper) will talk & read from recent work in Paino Room, Science Building, Amherst College.   Lian was born in Switzerland in 1955, & grew up in Beijing.   He began writing when he was sent to the countryside in the 1970s.   On his return to Beijing he became one of the first group of young ‘underground’ poets, who published the literary magazine Jintian.   Lian’s poems became well-known & influential inside & outside of China in the 1980s, especially when his poem “Norlang” was criticized by the Chinese government during the ‘Anti-Spiritual Pollution’ movement.   Lian was awarded the Flaiano International Poetry Prize in 1999 & his book Where the Sea Stands Still: New Poems won the title “Poetry Books Society Recommended Translation” in 1999.   His other books in English include Unreal City: A Chinese Poet in Auckland; Concentric Circles; Yi; & Riding Pisces: Poems from Five Collections.   Yo Yo (Liu Youhong) was born in western China.   Yo Yo & Lian were in Auckland when the massacre in Tiananmen Square occurred on 4 June 1989 — a day that would change their lives.   Following the news that two of Lian's books had been banned in China, the couple began a life of exile.   Humanscape: Ghost Speak, a selection of prose & essays, was published in Beijing, followed by two collections of short fiction, She Saw Two Moons & Wings of Desire, & a novel, Ghost Tide.   Sponsored by the Asian Languages & Civilizations Department at Amherst College & the Department of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

• Tuesday, April 14th at 4:00 P.M. (Talk / Reading)

“Watching Ourselves Set Sail: The Self–Awareness of Contemporary Chinese Literature”   Yang Lian & Yo Yo (with Michael Kasper) will talk, in room 301 Herter Hall at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.   See above, Monday, for more information.

• Thursday, April 16th at 7:00 P.M. (Reading)

Martha Sandweiss will read at the Pelham Public Library from her new book, Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love & Deception Across the Color Line.   Sandweiss is a Pelham resident, Amherst College Professor, & noted historian of the American West.   Passing Strange tells the story of Clarence King, a man who lived a double life in the late nineteenth & early twentieth century—as the celebrated white explorer, geologist & writer— & as a black Pullman porter & steelworker.   As Janet Maslin wrote in her glowing review in the New York Times, “Passing Strange tells an astounding true story that would beggar most novelists’ imaginations....A fine, mesmerizing account.”   (For more information, see here.)

• Friday, April 17th 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.

• Friday, April 24th — 9th Annual Juniper Literary Festival

All events take place in the Fine Arts Center Lobby & the University Gallery

   6:00 P.M.   Independent Press Fair Opening Reception

   8:00 P.M.     Anne Halley Memorial Reading:

Marilyn Hacker & Amy Leach

The Anne Halley Poetry Prize is named in memorial for Anne Halley, to honor her 25 years of work as poetry co-editor of the Massachusetts Review as well as her work as a poet & writer.   Her last collection of poetry, Rumors of the Turning Wheel, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2003.

• Saturday, April 25th — 9th Annual Juniper Literary Festival

All events take place in the Fine Arts Center Lobby & the University Gallery

12:30 P.M.   Fair re-opens

  1:00 P.M.   Address: “The New American Renaissance”:

Eric Lorberer, Founding Editor, Rain Taxi Review of Books

     1:30 P.M.   Editors Roundtable:

Lucy Corin, FC2; Christian Hawkey, jubilat; David Lenson, Massachusetts Review; Ethan Paquin, Slope; Ellen Doré Watson, Massachusetts Review & Alice James Books; moderated by Eric Lorberer.

      3:00 P.M.   Reading:

Christian Hawkey, Thomas Glave & “Deck of Cards” poetry performance, staged by Missoula Oblongata

      8:00 P.M.   Reading:

Yusef Komunyakaa, Lucy Corin, & lê thi diem thúy

• Sunday, April 26th at 3:00 P.M.(Poetry reading)

“Jubilat/Jones Reading Series”   Lucie Brock–Broido & Timothy Donnelly 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.   Brock-Broido is author of several volumes of poetry, including Trouble in Mind, & Master Letters.   She has received many honors, including the Witter-Bynner prize of Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, the Harvard-Danforth Award for Distinction in Teaching, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, & a Guggenheim fellowship.   Donnelly is author of Twenty–seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit.  His poems have appeared in Conduit, Denver Quarterly, Fence, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Verse & elsewhere.   He is the recipient of a Master Writer Fellowship from the New York State Writer’s Institute & The Paris Review’s 2003 Bernard F. Connors Prize.   He is the poetry editor of the Boston Review.

• Monday, April 27th at 12:00 Noon(Talk)

Peter Manseau will talk on “Collecting Gods: Why Telling Stories About Other People's Belief's Might Just Save the World,” at the University of Massachusetts in Goodell Hall, Room 604.   Manseau is author of several books, including Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, & Their Son, a memoir about his parents; Killing The Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible; & Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction.   His most recent book, Rag & Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead, is a fascinating, intelligent, & sometimes funny tour of the human relics at the root of the world’s major religions.   Sponsored by Bachelor’s Degree With Individual Concentration Program & the Department of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies.

• Monday, April 27th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

Join Magic Helicopter Press for a night of Juniper afterglow small press poetry.   Poets Jack Christian, Kendra Grant Malone, & Jono Tosch will read their succotash, imminent hop, & sweet tea.   Christian will be reading from his newly released Magic Helicopter chapbook Let's Collaborate.   Malone is the author of numerous chapbooks, including Chasing Pigeons Makes Me Feel More Powerful & Conor Oberst Sex.   Tosch is the author of a chapbook forthcoming from The Chuckwagon.