• Thursday, December 2nd at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Lance Olsen will read in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts as part of M.F.A. Program’s Visiting Writers Series.   Olsen is author of author of ten novels, one hypermedia text, four critical studies, four short-story collections, a poetry chapbook, & a textbook about fiction writing, as well as editor of two collections of essays about innovative contemporary fiction.   His novels include 10:01, Anxious Pleasures: A Novel After Kafka, &, most recently, Calendar of Regrets.   Sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Visiting Writers Series.

• Thursday, December 2nd at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur will read in the Pruyne Lecture Hall at Amherst College.   Wilbur has won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice, the National Book Award, the Edna St. Vincent Millay award, the Bollingen Prize, as well as many other awards & honors.   He has many volumes of poetry to his credit, several volumes of prose, a children’s book, & has translated plays by Molière & Racine.   Published just this fall, his most recent volume of poetry is Anterooms: New Poems & Translations.   Sponsored by the Amherst College Center for Creative Writing.

• Friday, December 3rd 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.

• Sunday, December 5th at 2:00 P.M. (Reading)

Amherst’; Marietta Pritchard will talk about her new book, Among Strangers: A Family Story at the Jones Library on Amity Street.   Her book charts the history of several generations of her family, from Central Europe to Amherst.   It focuses on the story of a grandfather who fled Nazi persecution in Austria only to be captured in France.   Pritchard writes regularly for the Daily Hampshire Gazette & UMass Magazine, among other publications.   See her blog, Among Strangers for more information.

• Tuesday, December 7th at 7:00 P.M. (Talk)

Historian Heather Cox Richardson will discuss her new book, Wounded Knee: Party Politics & the Road to an American Massacre in the White Church, Historic Deerfield.   Richardson shows how fierce partisanship, heated political rhetoric, & an irresponsible, profit–driven media was ultimately responsible for the 1890 massacre of nearly 300 Sioux near Wounded Knee, South Dakota.   Richardson is author several books, including the acclaimed, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War.   For more information on the talk, Pioneer Valley History Network.

• Thursday, December 9th at 4:30 P.M.(Book launch party)

Join Michael Kasper in celebrating the publication of his latest verbo-visual production, Open-Book.   Kasper is an established author/creator of artist books, a small but delightful world where creativity & limited-edition production live in the ever-lengthening shadows of commercial publishing.   His previous books include The Shapes & Spacing of the Letters, All Cotton Briefs, Plans for the Night, Verbo-Visuals, Billy! Turn Down That TV!, & Chinese English Sentence Cards.

• Friday, December 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.

• Sunday, December 12th at 2:00 P.M.(Book launch party)

Join Sheila Rainford & Ruth Jones in celebrating the publication of their new book, Harvesting History: Amherst, Massachusetts, Farms 1700-2010.   The book’s essays look at the proud history of farms in Amherst & also consider the future of farming in the area.   Contributing authors include Leo Richards, Robert Herbert, Ed Wilfert, Deborah Owen Doulette, & Dorothy Ives.   It also features photographs by Jerome Liebling, Louise Currin, Donald David & Orra White Hitchcock, among others.   Published in collaboration with the Amherst Historical Society & the Amherst History Museum.

• Saturday, December 25th at 12:00 Noon(Fifth annual reading)

The Swiss writer Robert Walser died—of a heart attack, in a field of snow—on this day in 1956.   Walser (1878-1956) left school at fourteen & led a wandering, precarious existence while producing poems, essays, stories, & novels.   In 1933 he entered an asylum—he remained there for the rest of his life—& quit writing.   “I am not here to write,” he (apocryphally) said, “but to be mad.”   This year’s reading will begin at Amherst Books & continue after a Christmas Day walk to Flying Object, a new bookstore in Hadley.   Sponsored by the Robert Walser Society of Western Massachusetts, the bi-town reading will feature appearances by Susan Bernofsky, translator of Walser’s Masquerade & Other Stories, The Robber, The Assistant, The Tanners, & Microscripts; Dara Wier; Chris Ward; Guy Pettit; Emily Pettit; Nathaniel Otting; Lisa Olstein; Sara Majka; Lewis Freedman; & Ish Klein.