• Thursday, October 1st at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Join Lauren Rosenberg in celebrating the publication of her new book, The Desire for Literacy: Writing in the Lives of Adult Learners.   In her new book, Rosenberg takes up the imperative established by community literacy researchers to engage with people in communities outside of formal schooling in an effort to understand adult learners’ motivations & desires to become more literate when they choose reading & writing for their own purposes.   Focusing on the experiences, knowledge, & perspectives of four adult learners, she examines instances in which participants resist narratives of oppression, particularly when they become authors.

• Friday, October 2nd at 3:30pm (Reading)

Jenny Hubbard will read in the Goodwin Room, Jones Library, Amherst.   Hubbard, who writes for young adults, is author of Paper Covers Rock, which was a finalist for ALA’s William C. Morris YA Debut Award.   Her most recent novel, And We Stay, was named a 2015 Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association (ALA).   And it’s set in Amherst!   For more information: Jones Library Event Calendar.

• Friday, October 2nd at 6:30pm (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.

• Saturday, October 3rd at 1:00pm - 7:00pm (Poetry reading)

Amherst Poetry Festival will host a day-long reading series at the Dickinson Homestead, 280 Main Street, Amherst.   Poets Dara Wier, Richard Michelson, Deborah Gorlin, & many others will read.   This is only one event in the weekend-long festival.   For more information go to Amherst Poetry Festival.

• Sunday, October 4th at 3:00pm (Poetry reading)

jubilat/Jones Reading Series at the Jones Library, Amherst.   Poets Amy Lawless & Morgan Parker will read.   Meet the poets at an informal Q & A session that follows the reading.     For more information go to the jubilat Event page.

• Monday, October 5th at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Come help us celebrate the publication of a new book by University of Massachusetts professor Daniel Sack—After Live: Posibililty, Potentiality, & the Future of Performance.   Sack, who holds a joint appointment in the Commonwealth Honors College & the English Department, has written widely in contemporary international performance.   He’s currently working on a book on Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.

• Tuesday, October 6th at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Join Amherst resident Patricia Appelbaum in celebrating the publication of her new book, St. Francis of America: How a Thirteenth-Century Friar Became America’s Most Popular Saint.   St. Francis of Assisi is embraced as the patron saint of animals, beneficently presiding over hundreds of Blessing of the Animals services on October 4, St. Francis's Catholic feast day.   Not only Catholics, however, but Protestants & other Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, & nonreligious Americans commonly name him as one of their favorite spiritual figures.   Drawing on a dazzling array of art, music, drama, film, hymns, & prayers, Appelbaum explains what happened to make St. Francis so familiar & meaningful to so many Americans.   For more information, see Appelbaum’s blog.

• Tuesday, October 6th at 7:00pm (Talk)

Consumer advocate, political activist & author Ralph Nader will talk at the Stirn Auditorium, Amherst College.   Sponsored by the Amherst College Political Union.

• Wednesday, October 7th at 6:00pm (Reading)

Mary Gaitskill will read in the Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall, Amherst College from her forthcoming book, The Mare.   Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories & novels, including Veronica, a National Book Award Finalist.   Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories, & The O. Henry Prize Stories.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

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

Ivan Vladislavić will read from his recent work in Memorial Hall, UMass, Amherst.   Vladislavić is a South African short story writer & novelist.   He is author of the highly praised novels The Folly & Double Negative, as well as Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked.   Sponsored by the University of Massachusetts MFA Program’s Visiting Writers Series.  

• Wednesday, October 14th at 2:00-6:30pm (2-Day Symposium)

“Forty Years After: Chinua Achebe & Africa in the Global Imagination”   Bernie Dallas Room, Goodell Hall, UMass, Amherst   Caryl Phillips, Chika Unigwe, Okey Ndibe, Maaza Mengiste, Achille Mbembe, among others, will discuss the importance of Chinua Achebe, particularly in light of the talk he gave at the University of Massachusetts in 1975, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.”   For more information, see the symposium’s website.

• Thursday, October 15th at 2:00-6:30pm (2-Day Symposium)

“Forty Years After: Chinua Achebe & Africa in the Global Imagination”   Bernie Dallas Room, Goodell Hall, UMass, Amherst   Caryl Phillips, Chika Unigwe, Okey Ndibe, Maaza Mengiste, Achille Mbembe, among others, will discuss the importance of Chinua Achebe, particularly in light of the talk he gave at the University of Massachusetts in 1975, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.”   For more information, see the symposium’s website.

• Monday, October 19th at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Join us celebrating the publication of a new book by Tanisha Ford, Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, & the Global Politics Of Soul.   Ford teaches in the Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at UMass.   Her new book explores how & why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, & Johannesburg incorporated style & beauty culture into their activism.   Drawing from an eclectic archive, Ford offers a new way of studying how black style & Soul Power moved beyond national boundaries, sparking a global fashion phenomenon.

• Tuesday, October 20th at 7:00pm (Poetry reading)

Gregory Lawless & David Bartone will read from recent poetry.   Lawless is the winner of the 2013 Orphic Prize for Poetry & the 2014 Red Mountain Poetry Prize.   His poems have appeared in Pleiades, Cimarron Review, The National Poetry Review, & Salamander, & others.   He is the author of I Thought I Was New Here, Foreclosure, & Far Away.   Bartone is the author of Practice on Mountains, winner of the 2013 Sawtooth Poetry Prize; & Spring Logic, a chapbook.   His poems & translations have appeared at Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, The Laurel Review, Mountain Gazette, Pleiades, & Volt, among others.

• Wednesday, October 21st at 6:00pm (Reading)

Binyavanga Wainaina will read from recent work in the Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115), Amherst College.   Wainaina is a Kenyan author, journalist & winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing.   In April 2014, Time magazine included Wainaina in its annual TIME 100 as one of the “Most Influential People in the World.”   Author of numerous influential articles, he has also written a memoir: One Day I Will Write About This Place.   Co-sponsored by the Amherst College Visiting Writers Series.

• Thursday, October 22nd at 7:00pm (Reading)

Rachel Hills will talk about her new book, The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies & Reality, in conversation with Come As You Are author Emily Nagoski.   Hills, a journalist who has written for Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic, the Daily Beast & the New York Times amongst others, interwines social science research & in-depth interviews to expose the invisible norms & unspoken assumptions that shape the way we think about sex today.

• Friday, October 23rd at 7:00pm (Reading)

Douglas Bradley & Craig Werner will talk about their new book, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War.   In We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War Bradley & Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam.   They explore how & why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other & the World back home & of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight.

• Monday, October 26th at 4:00pm (Reading)

Mona Eltahawy will talk in the Amherst Room, Campus Center, UMass, Amherst, about her recent book, Headscarves & Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution.   Eltahawy is an award-winning columnist on Arab & Muslim issues & global feminism.   Publisher’s Weekly called her book a “timely & provocative call to action for gender equality in the Middle East.”   For more information see the University of Massachusetts Events Calendar.

• Tuesday, October 27th at 7:00pm (Reading)

Eileen Myles will read from her new collection of poetry, I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems 1975-2014, & her recently re-issued novel, Chelsea Girls .   Myles is an American poet & writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, libretti, plays, & performance pieces over the last three decades.  Myles is described as “one of the savviest & most restless intellects in contemporary literature.”

• Thursday, October 29th at 5:30pm (Reading)

Robin Lewis, Hampshire alum & former faculty member, will read from her new collection of poetry, Voyage of the Sable Venus, at the Hampshire College Library Gallery.