Colleen McCullough, 77

Colleen McCullough, Author of ‘The Thorn Birds,’ Dies at 77
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, January 29, 2015

Leslie Feinberg, 65

Transgender Pioneer and Stone Butch Blues Author Leslie Feinberg Has Died
by Minnie Bruce Pratt, The Advocate, November 17, 2014

Bel Kaufman, 103

Bel Kaufman, Who Told What School Was Really Like, Dies at 103
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, July 25, 2014

Frank M. Robinson, 87

Frank M. Robinson, Dies at 87; Author and Adviser to Harvey Milk
by Paul Vitello, The New York Times, July 4, 2014

Sam Greenlee, 83

Sam Greenlee, Writer, Producer, Government Agent, Dies at 83
by Paul Vitello, The New York Times, May 30, 2014

Mary Stewart, 97

Mary Stewart, British Writer Who Spanned Genres, Dies at 97
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, May 15, 2014

Round-up: Turkish activism; Akerman closes in on Bausch; ballet fiction

Coming after a few dry presentations (Movement Research Studies Project panel on Vulnerable Bodies and the Embodiment of Resistance, Gibney Dance Center, May 6), Turkish dance artist Tan Temel held my attention with the clarity of his witness as a participant in the anti-development, Occupy-like protests in Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park. His brief talk also greatly benefited from a slide show of vivid photos from the early days of the Taksim Gezi sit-in, demonstrating the activists' confident and peaceful creativity. Inspiring! (An audio recording of this panel will be made available on iTunes. Click here for play or download links to recorded Movement Research events.)

Chantal Akerman's 1983 film, One Day Pina Asked... (Dance Films Association screening/discussion at Gibney Dance Center, co-presented by Gibney Dance Center's Sorry I Missed Your Show, May 7), looks quite different from Wim Wenders's grand, gorgeous and better-known Pina (2011), and feels different, too. Akerman's choice of a passive but magnifying camera zoomed right in on Pina Bausch's dancers rehearsing or performing puts the viewer right into the mix. It's a dancer's-eye view. Remember the scene in Nelken (Carnations) where a pack of men crowd a lone woman, touching and increasingly manhandling her body? From a proscenium theater's potentially safe, intellectualizing distance, Bausch's imagery is already disturbing. But try it this way, and your skin will crawl. The encounter of two extraordinary artists--Akerman and Bausch--produced a documentary of rare sensitivity and power (distributed by Icarus Films).

Novelist Maggie Shipstead
(c) Michelle Legro

Astonish Me, a novel by Maggie Shipstead (Knopf, 2014), astonished me a bit less than I would have expected, given the raves from book critics, some of whom spun remarks off the title (derived from Serge Diaghilev's challenge to Jean Cocteau: Ètonnez-moi). And it almost lost me, early on, with its account of a bland suburban mismatch--the stay-at-home mom who fled a low-level ballet career and never got over a brush with international intrigue; the husband who desired her first, married her somehow, but still can never quite feel sure of her. But, in the nick of time, Shipstead won me back with a scene centered around a fit of inappropriate, uncontrollable and infectious laughter. That's when I threw in with this writer. Even so, I can't say that I ever came to like or feel empathy for her characters, two generations worth. I never really settled into the narrative's chronological jumble, and at no time did I think the central "secret" would surprise any character or reader. But I did enjoy and rely upon Shipstead's shrewd, finely rendered insights into the psychology of her characters and their relations. This is where she truly shines. (ISBN: 978-0-307-96290-4)

Marsha Mehran, 36

Marsha Mehran, Writer of Iranians’ Irish Experience, Dies at 36
by Douglas Dalby, The New York Times, May 2, 2014

Doris Pilkington Garimara, 76

Doris Pilkington Garimara, Aboriginal Novelist, Dies at 76
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, April 20, 2014

Gabriel García Márquez, 87

Gabriel García Márquez, Exemplar of the Fiction of Magic Realism, Dies at 87
by Jonathan Kandell, The New York Times, April 17, 2014

Novelists Edward P. Jones and Yiyun Li read at 92Y, April

92Y

welcomes novelists

Edward P. Jones and Yiyun Li

Thursday, April 10, 8:15 pm

Edward P. Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for The Known World. “It’s difficult to think of a contemporary novel that rivals its sweep, its humanity, the unvarnished perfection of its prose and its ultimately crushing power,” wrote Dave Eggers.

Yiyun Li’s new novel is Kinder Than Solitude. “Li is extraordinary, a storyteller of the first order,” wrote Junot Díaz. She “inhabits the lives of her characters with such force and compassion that one cannot help but marvel at her remarkable talents.”

Ticket information

92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan
(map/direction)

Writing of Afghan women to be presented at Queens library

The Friends of Richmond Hill Library

and The Afghan Women’s Writing Project

present

Readings from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project
featuring novelist and founder Masha Hamilton

at Richmond Hill Library, Queens

Monday, January 13, 6:30pm

Admission: Free

A selection of poems, essays, and stories by participants of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project will be read by audience members, AWWP staff and volunteers, and special guests. AWWP believes that to tell one’s story is a human right, and this work testifies to the bravery of Afghan women and to the power of their words. Author and AWWP founder Masha Hamilton will also read from her latest novel What Changes Everything.  Admission is free.

Masha Hamilton is the author of five acclaimed novels, most recently What Changes Everything, which the Washington Post praised for its “elegantly wrought prose (which) conveys terror as well as tenderness” and 31 Hours, which the Washington Post called one of the best novels of 2009. In October 2013, she finished sixteen months working in Afghanistan as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy. She is currently working as Communications Director for Concern Worldwide. She also founded two world literacy projects, the Camel Book Drive and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

Masha is the winner of the 2010 Women’s National Book Association award, presented “to a living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books and allied arts, and who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.” She began her career as a full-time journalist, working in Maine, Indiana, and New York City before being sent by the Associated Press to the Middle East, where she was news editor for five years, including the period of the first intifada, and then moving to Moscow, where she worked for five years during the collapse of communism, reporting for the Los Angeles Times and NBC-Mutual Radio and writing a monthly column, Postcards from Moscow. She also reported from Kenya in 2006, and from Afghanistan in 2004 and 2008. 

Richmond Hill Library
118-14 Hillside Avenue, Queens
Train: J or Z to 121 Street
Bus: Q10, Q55, Q56

Rechy's "City of Night" turns 50

A First Gay Novel, a Poor Latino Boyhood and the Confluence
by Gregg Barrios, The New York Times, November 30, 2013

Novelist James McBride on winning his National Book Award

Traveling With John Brown Along the Road to Literary Celebrity
James McBride on His Novel ‘The Good Lord Bird’

by Julie Bosman, The New York Times, November 24, 2013

Oscar Hijuelos, 62

Oscar Hijuelos, Who Won Pulitzer for Tale of Cuban-American Life, Dies at 62

by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, October 13, 2013

Writers of color in science fiction and fantasy

Beyond ‘Game of Thrones’: Exploring diversity in speculative fiction

by Mindy Farabee, Hero Complex, Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2013

William Demby, 90

William Demby, Author of Experimental Novels, Dies at 90
by William Yardley, The New York Times, May 31, 2013

Wikipedia fail: What's happening to women novelists

Wikipedia’s Sexism Toward Female Novelists
by Amanda Filipacchi, The New York Times, April 24, 2013

Film version of Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima" opens today

The author of “Bless Me, Ultima” talks about his book reaching the big screen at age 75
by Kristina Puga, NBCLatino, February 21, 2013

Novelist Jamaica Kincaid to read at 92Y

Jamaica Kincaid

a reading from her new novel, See Now Then,
and a conversation with critic Darryl Pinckney

Monday, February 25
8:15pm

presented by 92Y's Poetry Center 

in collaboration with The Paris Review

Her writing is a shared plenitude, a promise of more where that came from....[A] writer of boldness and encouragement who keeps on showing us the ever-dawning possibilities in writing and in the world. -- Ian Frazier

Ticket information

92nd Street Y (Buttenwieser Hall)
Lexington Avenue at 92nd St, Manhattan
(map/directions)