• Friday, February 10th at 8:00 P.M.

Tomaž Šalamun will read as a part of the University of Massachusetts M.F.A. Program's Visiting Writer Series in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts.   Šalamun was born in 1941 in Zagreb, Croatia & raised in Koper, Slovenia.   He has a degree in Art History from the University of Ljubljana, & before devoting himself to poetry he worked as a conceptual artist.   He has published thirty collections of poetry in his home country & is recognized as one of the leading poets in Central Europe.

• Sunday, February 12th at 3:00 P.M.

“Jubilat/Jones Reading Series”   Poets Caroline Knox & Evie Shockley will read in the Trustees Room at the Jones Library in Amherst.   Caroline Knox is author of several volumes of poetry including, The House Party, To Newfoundland, Sleepers Wake, & He Paves the Road with Iron Bars.   Matthea Harvey has written of Knox that, “like a photocopy of an intricate collage, [her] poems abolish sources & hierarchies & ‘common sense’.   The text on a Spam label becomes a series of haiku, the cathedral & chicken coop are architecturally twinned....”   Shockley’s poetry collection, A Half-Red Sea, is forthcoming from Carolina Wren Press, which also published her chapbook, The Gorgon Goddess.   Her poems have appeared in numerous journals & anthologies, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Blue Fifth Review, Brilliant Corners, Callaloo, & Talisman.   Shockley, a Cave Canem fellow, is the recipient of a residency at the Hedgebrook retreat center for women writers & other awards supporting her work.   She teaches literature & creative writing at Rutgers University.

• Friday, February 17th at 8:00 P.M.

Performance artist & poet Fiona Templeton will perform new work.   Scottish born & raised, she was a co-founder of London's seminal company, the Theatre of Mistakes.   She has lived in New York for over 15 years, writing & directing award-winning performance works, including YOU—The City , an intimate citywide play for an audience of one, which has been recreated in several European cities.   Recognition premiered in 1996 at The Kitchen, New York.  Other books include London, Elements of Performance Art, SSH Off (for Siobhan Liddell's drawings), Hi Cowboy, & Delirium of Interpretations (an antibiographical play).

• Saturday, February 18th at 3:00 P.M.

Amherst resident & jazz great, Yusef Lateef, will sign copies of his new book, The Gentle Giant: The Autobiography of Yusef Lateef.   Read more!

• Thursday, February 23rd at 4:00 P.M.

Join Mt. Holyoke professor, Deborra Battaglia, & University of Massachusetts professor, David Samuels, in celebrating the publication of Battaglia's new book, E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces.   (Read more!)   Battaglia is author of On the Bones of the Serpent: Person, Memory, & Mortality in Sabarl Island Society, & editor of Rhetorics of Self-Making.

• Friday, February 24th at 8:00 P.M.

“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.   This evening will be a series of short readings by First Year students.

• Monday, February 27th at 8:00 P.M.

Canceled Clear Cut Press presents Public Experiments in Reading & Sound—with new research from novelists Stacey Levine & Matt Briggs & popular science from We Two & The Universe.   Briggs is the author of three story collections, The Remains of River Names, Misplaced Alice, & The Moss Gatherers.   He lives in Seattle, Washington.   Stacey Levine grew up in St. Louis & lives in Seattle.   Her collection, My Horse & Other Stories, won the PEN/West fiction award in 1994.   Since then she has published a novel, Dra—, & short stories in numerous venues.   We Two & The Universe, "a his & hers journey into the fabric of space-time through a cold fusion of post-psychedelic video, Shaker chants, fractals, gems, & formal lecture", is Jona Bechtolt & Claire L. Evans.

• Tuesday, February 28th  —book signing at 6:30, talk at 7:00 P.M.

Stacy Gueraseva, author of Def Jam, Inc., will talk in the Browsing Room at Neilson Library at Smith College.   Def Jam, Inc. traces story of Russell Simmons & Rick Rubin—their company’s incredible rise from the NYU dorm room of the nineteen–year–old Rubin (where LL Cool J was discovered on a demo tape) to the powerhouse it is today; from financial struggles & scandals—including The Beastie Boys’s departure from the label & Rubin’s & Simmons’s eventual parting—to revealing anecdotes about artists like Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Foxy Brown, Jay-Z, & DMX.   Gueraseva, who is a native of Russia & graduated from Smith College in American Studies, has been writing about music & culture since 1995 for national publications that have included Interview, Vibe, & XXL.   She is the former editor–in–chief of Russell Simmons’ Oneworld magazine & a juror for the annual Hip-Hop Odyssey (H2O) film festival.   (The talk will be preceded by a book signing in the Browsing room beginning at 6:30.)