NYS Writers Institute, Friday, November 6, 2015
4:15 p.m. Reading | Lecture Center 5, Academic Podium, Uptown Campus
7: 00 p.m. [Note early start time] Film screening and discussion | Page Hall, 135 Western Ave., Downtown Campus

CALENDAR LISTING:
Edward Burns, award-winning filmmaker, actor, screenwriter, and former UAlbany student, will read from his new memoir, Independent Ed (2015), on Friday, November 6, 2015 at 4:15 pm in Lecture Center 5 on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Later that same day, at 7:00 pm in Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, on the University at Albany’s downtown campus, Burns will offer commentary and answer questions following a screening of two episodes from his new TV police drama on TNT, Public Morals, for which he directs, writes and stars. Free and open to the public, both events are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute.

PROFILE
Edward Burns is an award-winning filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter, as well as a former UAlbany student. His many films include The Brothers McMullen, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, She’s the One (1996), starring Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz, and Sidewalks of New York (2001), with Brittany Murphy and Rosario Dawson. As an actor, Burns has appeared in films such as Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning war epic, Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Nancy Meyer’s romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet.

He is also the author of a new memoir, Independent Ed: Inside a Career of Big Dreams, Little Movies, and the Twelve Best Days of My Life (2015). The new memoir provides a candid account of the ups and downs of the first two decades of his remarkable career. He recounts stories of the lengths he has gone to in securing financing for his films, and discussion how he found stars on their way up—including Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz— to work in his films. Today’s Matt Lauer said “Every young, hungry, creative person should view this as a textbook…It’s a how-to.” Newsday said, “Independent Ed is Burns’s inspirational speech to filmmakers wondering how to begin, or how to keep going.”

Burns is currently writing, directing, and starring in the new police drama, Public Morals, which debuted on TNT in August 2015. The Indiewire reviewer said, “In his first dip into serialized storytelling, Burns has created an ideal example of how to make a genre on its last legs come to life again for modern audiences. You’ve seen bits and pieces of this before. You may even know where it’s going from time to time. But audiences would be hard-pressed to deny Public Morals is an addictive form of ‘extra-ordinary’ entertainment.”

Edward Burns was born in Woodside, Queens in 1968 and grew up in Valley Stream, Long Island. He attended SUNY Oneonta and the University at Albany before transferring to Hunter College in New York City to study film. He left school without graduating.  Burns is married to supermodel Christy Turlington. The couple recently starred in a major ad campaign for Calvin Klein’s fragrance, Eternity.