• Thursday, February 5th at 5:30pm (Book launch party)

Join University of Massachusetts history professor Chris Appy in celebrating the publication of his new book, American Reckoning: The Vietnam War & Our National Identity— an analysis of the relationship between the war’s realities & myths & its impact on our national identity, conscience, pride, shame, popular culture, & postwar foreign policy.   Appy is also author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides.

• Thursday, February 5th at 7:00pm (A Conversation)

Former Amherst residents Annie Baker & Madeleine George will talk with Wendy Kohler about their ties to Amherst & its influence on their work at the Amherst Regional High School, 21 Mattoon Street, Amherst.   Baker won the Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick, while George was nominated for The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence.   Sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Museum.   For more information go to its website.

• Friday, February 6th at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Join John Higginson in celebrating the publication of his new book, Collective Violence & the Agrarian Origins of South African Apartheid, 1900-1948.   Higginson, who teaches in the History Department here at the University of Massachusetts, is a research Fellow in the College of Human Sciences & the department of history at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, South Africa.   Collective Violence examines the dark odyssey of official & private collective violence against the rural African population & Africans in general during the two generations before apartheid became the primary justification for the existence of the South African state.

• Saturday, February 14th at 4:00pm (Book launch party)

A Valentine’s Day Party to celebrate the publication of a new novel by Susan Snively about the love affair between Emily Dickinson & Judge Otis Phillips Lord, The Heart Has Many Doors: A Novel of Emily Dickinson.   Snively is a guide, discussion leader, & film script writer for the Emily Dickinson Museum.   She was the founder & first director of the Writing Center at Amherst College, where she worked from 1981 until 2008.   She taught courses in writing & autobiographies of women, & has published four collections of poems: From This Distance, Voices in the House, The Undertow, & Skeptic Traveler.   (Please note: this is a book launch party, not a reading—which we’ll have later on in the year.)

• Sunday, February 15th at 2:00pm-6:00pm (Symposium)

The University of Massachusetts Department for Theater presents a symposium in the UMass FAC Curtain Theater: “Tennessee Williams: Gender Play in 2015 & Beyond”—a fun, forward-thinking & feminist discussion about America’s most beloved playwright & his complex relationship to gender, sexuality, trans & queer identities.   Panelists will include Broadway director Michael Wilson, dramaturg Chris Baker, Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival Curator & Co-founder David Kaplan, & Smith College professor Ellen Kaplan.   The symposium will conclude with a screening of Richard Brooks’ 1958 film classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.   For more information go to UMass Amherst Events Calendar.

• Monday, February 16th at 4:00pm (Talk)

Eula Biss will talk in the Gallery of the Harold F. Johnson Library, Hampshire College, Amherst, about her new book On Immunity: An Inoculation.   Named one of the ten best books of 2014 by the New York Times & other major publications, On Immunity investigates recent controversies about vaccination & is garnering reviews that compare her to Joan Didion & Susan Sontag.   Biss is author of a collection of poetry, The Balloonists, & Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.   For more information go to the Hampshire College News & Events website.

• Wednesday, February 18th at 4:00pm (Book launch party)

Help us celebrate the publication of a new book by University of Massachusetts history professor Bruce Laurie —Rebels in Paradise: Sketches of Northampton Abolitionists.   Laurie is author of numerous books, including, most recently, Beyond Garrison: Antislavery & Social Reform.

• Tuesday, February 24th at 8:00pm(Reading)

Joshua Mehigan will read from his recent collection of poetry, Accepting the Disaster, which was cited as a best book of the year in The New York Times Book Review, The TLS, & other publications.   Mehigan’s first book, The Optimist, was a finalist for the 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.   His poems have appeared in periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, & Poetry, which awarded him its 2013 Levinson Prize.     Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

• Wednesday, February 25th at 7:00pm (Reading)

Brian Adams will read from his new romantic comedy, Love in the Time of Climate Change.   Adams is a professor of Environmental Science & co-chair of the Science Department at Greenfield Community College.   Of his new book, the environmentalist Bill McKibben said, “It’s a pleasure to meet this fellow sufferer of Obsessive Climate Disorder; he’s definitely funnier than most of us environmental types.”

• Thursday, February 26th at 8:00pm(Reading)

Okey Ndibe will read from his recent novel, Foreign Gods, Inc., in Memorial Hall, University of Massachusetts, as part of the University of Massachusetts MFA Program’s Visiting Writers Series.   Ndibe, who earned his M.F.A. & Ph.D. here at the University of Massachusetts, moved to the U.S. from Nigeria to be the founding editor of African Commentary, a magazine published the the late novelist Chinua Achebe.   Ndibe is also author of the novel, Arrows of Rain.