• Thursday, November 1st at 7:00pm (Talk)

Local activist John Bonifaz will read from & talk about his new co-authored book, The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump.   Bonifaz is a co-founder & President of Free Speech For People.   He previously served as the Executive Director & General Counsel of the National Voting Rights Institute, & as the Legal Director of Voter Action, a national election integrity organization.   A distinguished attorney, he has been at the forefront of key voting rights battles across the country for more than two decades, & is a winner of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award.

• Monday, November 5th at 7:00pm (Poetry reading)

Kevin Goodan returns to the Valley to read from his new collection of poetry, Anaphora.   Goodan, an alum of the UMass MFA Program for Poets & Writers, is author Winter Tenor & In the Ghost-House Acquainted, which won a New England/New York Award from Alice James Books as well as the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award.   His poems have been published in such journals as Ploughshares, Crazyhourse, & Colorado Review.

• Tuesday, November 6th at 7:00pm (Conversation)

Globalism & its Discontents: Point/Counterpoint with Ilan Stavans   Amartya Sen will talk with Ilan Stavans in Stirn Auditorium, Amherst College.   Sen is the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor at Harvard University & member of faculty at Harvard Law School.   He is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge & was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1998.   For more information on the series, go here.

• Wednesday, November 7th at 8:00pm (Poetry reading)

Local poet Cameron Awkward-Rich will read from recent work.   Awkward-Rich is the author of Dispatch, winner of the 2018 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award & forthcoming from Persea Books; & Sympathetic Little Monster.   He is an assistant professor of women, gender, & sexuality studies at UMass.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

• Thursday, November 8th at 4:00pm (Discussion)

21st Annual Eqbal Ahmad Symposium “Jackson Rising: Participatory Democracy, Solidarity Economy, & the Struggle for Racial Justice in Jackson, Mississippi”   At the Robert Crown Center, Hampshire College, Rukia Lumumba, Safiya Omari & Charles Taylor will discuss the history of organizing for economic democracy, Black self-determination, & political transformation.   For more information, see the Hampshire College Eqbal Ahmad Annual Lecture Series page.

• Thursday, November 8th at 8:00pm (Poetry reading)

Martín Espada will read from recent work.   Espada, who teaches in the English Department at UMass, is author of about 20 books of poetry, essays & translations, including The Angels of Bread, The Trouble Ball, & most recently, Vivas to Those Who Have Failed.   His many honors include the 2018 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Literary Award, an American Book Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship & a Guggenheim Fellowship.   For more information, see the UMass MFA’s events calendar.

• Friday, November 9th at 5:00pm (Party! Party! Party!)

Amherst Books is celebrating its 15th Anniversary!   15% discount all day on everything.   Food, music, & more!   Many local authors, including Christopher Benfey, Madeleine Blais, Jan Conn, John Crowley, Lawrence Douglas, Peter Gizzi, Daniel Hall, John Hennessy, Norton Juster, John Katzenbach, Andrea Lawlor, Kelly Link, Charles Mann, Cammie McGovern, Peggy O'Brien, Jeff Parker, Ilan Stavans, Dara Wier, Ellen Doré Watson, & many, many, more, will join us from 5:00 to 6:30 to read a poem or paragraph or to say a few words—& sign books!   We’ll also be unveiling our new logo, designed by Audrey Helen Weber.

• Tuesday, November 13th at 12:10pm - 1:00pm (Noontime Book Conversation)

Amherst Books Noontime Book Conversation Michael Greenebaum will lead a discussion about Jenny Offill’s book Dept. of Speculation. — The group usually meets on the second Tuesday of every month from 12:10pm until 1:00pm & has no fixed members (although quite a few regulars).   If you can, purchase your copy from Amherst Books with a 10% discount.   Feel free to bring your lunch; water will be provided.   (December’s book will be Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist.)

• Tuesday, November 13th at 7:00pm (Talk)

2018 Feinberg Series: Another World is Possible: Revolutionary Visions, Past & Present   Walidah Imarisha will talk in the Ballroom, Student Union, UMass, Amherst.   Imarisha co-edited two anthologies, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements & Another World is Possible. Her nonfiction book Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, & Redemption won a 2017 Oregon Book Award.   She is also the author of the poetry collection Scars/Stars. See the Feinberg series website for more information.

• Thursday, November 15th at 7:00pm (Readings)

Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop Presents A Night of Nonfiction   POSTPONED until December 5th   Celia Jefferies, Leslie Eaton Clark, John D. Bidwell, Kris Holloway, & Marion VanArsdell will read from recent work.   Jeffries’ work has appeared in numerous newspapers & literary magazines including Westview, Solsticelitmag, & Puerto del Sol.   She recently finished a novel & is currently working on a memoir.   Clark is author of George Bronson Rea, Propagandist: The Life & Times of a Mercenary Journalist.   Her coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake won an award for “Best-On-the-Spot” News Coverage.   Holloway is author & Bidwell, editor, of the wonderful memoir, Monique & the Mango Rains: Two years with a Midwife in Mali.   VanArsdell, who taught for years in the Northampton public school system, is author of I Teached Him to Talk: Stories of Children with Autism.   For more information go to the Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop’s upcoming events page.

• Sunday, November 18th at 3:00pm (Poetry reading)

jubilat/Jones Reading Series at the Jones Library, Amherst.   Emily Skillings & Emily Liebowitz will read.   Meet the poets at an informal Q & A session that follows the reading.

• Tuesday, November 27th at 7:00pm (Talk)

2018 Feinberg Series: Another World is Possible: Revolutionary Visions, Past & Present   Erica Armstrong Dunbar & Barbara Krauthamer will talk at the First Churches, 129 Main St., Northampton, MA, on “Escaping Slavery, Envisioning Freedom.”  Dunbar is author of Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.   Krauthamer, who teaches at UMass, is co-author of Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans & the End of Slavery.   The talk is part of the All Hamptons Read program.   See here for more information about the program, or here for more information about the UMass History Department’s Feinberg series.

• Thursday, November 29th at 7:00pm (Reading)

Amy Bloom will read from her recent work in Pruyne Lecture Hall, Fayerweather Hall, Amherst College.   Bloom is a psychotherapist, essayist, children’s book author, short story writer & novelist.   Her most recent novel is White Houses.  Sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

• Friday, November 30th at 7:00pm (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.

• Friday, November 30th at 7:00pm (Conversation)

Globalism & its Discontents: Point/Counterpoint with Ilan Stavans   Martha Nussbaum will talk in the Stirn Auditorium, Amherst College.   Nussbaum is an American philosopher & political theorist.   Author of many books, her most recent is The Monarchy of Fear: a Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis.   For more information on the series, go here.