• Thursday, April 2nd at 4:00pm (Book launch party)

Help us celebrate the publication of new book by local author Marie Hartwell-Walker— Unlocking the Secrets of Self-Esteem: A Guide to Building Confidence & Connection One Step at a Time.   Hartwell-Walker is a licensed psychologist & marriage & family therapist.   She is a feature writer & advice columnist for psychcentral.com, & contributes to the divorce page on huffingtonpost.com.   Marianne Wait writes, “The key to boosting your self-esteem is to change not just how you think, but what you do.   That’s the light bulb idea in Hartwell-Walker’s eye-opening, empowering new book.”

• Thursday, April 2nd at 8:00pm (Poetry reading)

Kiki Petrosino will read in Memorial Hall, University of Massachusetts, as part of the University of Massachusetts MFA Program’s Visiting Writers Series.   Petrosino is author of two collections of poetry, Fort Red Border, & Hymn for the Black Terrific.

• Friday, April 3th at 4:30pm (Book launch party)

Join Mecca Sullivan in celebrating the publication of her new collection of fiction, Blue Talk & Love.   Sullivan is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies here at UMass.  Her fiction explores the intellectual, emotional, & bodily lives of young black women, through voice, music, & hip-hop inflected magical realist techniques.   Her short stories have appeared widely, & she is the winner of the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, the James Baldwin Memorial Playwriting Award, & fellowships, scholarships & residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Yaddo Colony, the Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat, & the Center for Fiction in New York City, where she received a 2011 Emerging Writers Fellowship.

• Sunday, April 5th at 3:00pm (Poetry reading)

jubilat/Jones Reading Series at the Jones Library, Amherst.   Poets Emily Kendal Frey & Julia Cohen will read.   Meet the poets at an informal Q & A session that follows the reading.     For more information go to jubilat/Jones Reading Series on Facebook.

• Monday, April 6th at 8:00pm (Reading)

Ayana Mathis will read from her latest work, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, which was a New York Times Bestseller, a 2013 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, an NPR Best Books of 2013, & was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as the second selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.     Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

• Friday, April 10th at 4:00pm (Book launch party)

Join Amherst resident Lisa Lieberman in celebrating the publication of a new book — All the Wrong Places: A Cara Walden Mystery.   Lieberman is author of Leaving You: The Cultural Meaning of Suicide as well as several digital-only translations & articles.   Aside from directing a nonprofit foundation dedicated to redressing racial & economic inequity in public elementary & secondary schools, she blogs about movies on DeathlessProse.com.

• Friday, April 10th at 7:00pm (Benefit)

The Sexual Minorities Educational Foundation, Inc. is hosting a second installment of Readings from the Archives.   Join us as community members, poets, activists, artists, & friends share their favorite funny, sexy, political, & erotic readings from our archive to celebrate queer histories & support the Sexual Minorities Archives.   Come out & support one of the oldest LGBTQ community archives in the United States!   Open to all—suggested donation is $10, more if you can/ less if you can't!   The Sexual Minorities Archive in Northampton is a national collection of LGBTQI literature, history, & art.

• Thursday, April 16th at 6:00pm(Award)

Julius Lester, & Pat & Peter Schneider, will receive the Jones Library’s second annual Samuel Minot Jones Award (the “Sammy”) for Literary Achievement, at the Yiddish Book Center on the Hampshire College campus, Amherst.   The event doubles as a part of a capital investment campaign for the Jones Library.   For more information, go here.

• Thursday, April 16th at 8:00pm (Reading)

Claire Messud will read in Memorial Hall, University of Massachusetts, as part of the University of Massachusetts MFA Program’s Visiting Writers Series. — Messud is author of a number of novels, including The Emperor’s Children, & most recently The Woman Upstairs.   The American Academy of Arts & Letters has recognized Messud’s talent with both an Addison Metcalf Award & a Strauss Living Award.

• Thursday, April 23rd at 7:00pm (Teach-in panel)

In observance of the 40th Anniversary of the final withdrawal of U.S. military forces from America’s most controversial war, the UMass History Department & the Veterans Education Project present a teach-in panel in the Bernie Dallas Room, Goodell Hall, UMass, with History Professor Chris Appy, Vietnam veterans, & anti-war activists.   The evening’s examination of the war & its varied legacies will include panelists sharing personal wartime & home front experiences, & a discussion of why & how, 40 years after it ended, the Vietnam War still affects our government & our national psyche.   In addition to Professor Appy (author of the just published American Reckoning: The Vietnam War & Our National Identity), speakers are Wayne Smith (Vietnam veteran, veterans’ advocate & activist), Cherie Rankin (U.S. Red Cross, South Vietnam), Randy Kehler (An activist who spent 22 months in federal prison for refusing to cooperate with the Vietnam draft), & Tom Weiner (Author of Called to Serve: Stories of Men & Women Confronted by the Vietnam War Draft, Vietnam anti-war activist).

• Friday, April 24th at 4:30pm (Book launch party)

Join Dona Kercher in celebrating the publication of her new book, Latin Hitchcock: How Almodóvar, Amenábar, De la Iglesia, Del Toro & Campanella Became Notorious.   Kercher, who lives in Amherst & teaches at Assumption College in Worcester, explores how these five directors modeled their early careers on Hitchcock & his cinematic aesthetics.

• Tuesday, April 28th at 8:00pm (Talk)

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will talk with Professor Frank Couvares in Johnson Chapel, Amherst College, about “Our Era of War & American Democracy.”   After the talk, Gates will sign copies of his book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.   For more information see the Amherst College press release.

• Thursday, April 30th at 7:00pm (Talk)

Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy will talk about her new book, Sacred Justice: The Voices & Legacy of the Armenian Operation Nemesis.   In this 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, MacCurdy’s timely book uses narrative, memoir, unpublished letters, & other primary & secondary sources to tell the story of a group of Armenian men who organized Operation Nemesis, a covert operation created to assassinate the Turkish architects of the Armenian Genocide.   MacCurdy was the Director of Writing at Ithaca College & is now special assistant to the president at Hampshire College, where she teaches courses in the personal essay & the theory and practice of therapeutic writing.   MacCurdy will be introduced by Adrienne Terrizzi.