• Thursday, March 3rd at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Ted Conover will read from his most recent book, Routes of Man: Travels in the Paved World. Conover's books of narrative nonfiction have typically been explorations of off-beat social worlds. They include, Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes; Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America’s Illegal Migrants; & Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize & won the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction.   Sponsored by Amherst College’s Creative Writing Center.

• Friday, March 4th 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.

• Thursday, March 10th at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

David Means will read at Memorial Hall, University of Massachsetts.   Means is the author of several volumes of short fiction, including A Quick Kiss of Redemption; Assorted Fire Events, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; The Secret Goldfish; & most recently, The Spot.   Sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Visiting Writers Series.

• Friday, March 11th at 8:00 P.M. (Poetry reading)

Joy Ladin, a long-time Valley resident, is the author of five books of poetry: the just-published Coming to Life, named one of the five most important Jewish poetry books of 2010 by The Forward; Transmigration (a finalist for a 2009 Lambda Literary Award); Psalms; The Book of Anna; & Alternatives to History.   Her poems & essays have appeared in numerous publications, including American Poetry Review, North American Review, & Parnassus: Poetry in Review.   She has also written a forthcoming collection of autobiographical essays, Who Will Be: A Woman Caught in the Act of Becoming.   She teaches writing & American literature at Stern College of Yeshiva University, where she holds the David & Ruth Gottesman Chair in English.

• Thursday, March 24th at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Wells Tower will read from recent work.   Tower, author of the collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, the 2002 Plimpton (Discovery) Prize from The Paris Review, & a Henfield Foundation Award.   Tower was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers.   On June 10, 2010, he was presented with the Tenth Annual New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a $10,000 prize for an American writer under 40. His work was selected for the Best American Short Stories 2010.   Sponsored by Amherst College’s Creative Writing Center.

• Friday, March 25th 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.

• Tuesday, March 29th at 4:30 P.M. (Poetry reading)

Ilan Stavans & Martín Espada will talk about, & read from, The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, in the Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall, Amherst College.