Angela Pneuman Fiction Writer and former UAlbany grad Previous visit: March 2007

Amy Biancolli Times Union Journalist and memorist

ANGELA PNEUMAN, FICTION WRITER AND FORMER UALBANY GRAD STUDENT,
AND AMY BIANCOLLI, TIMES UNION JOURNALIST AND MEMOIRIST, TO READ FROM THEIR WORK

NYS Writers Institute, November 11, 2014

4:15 p.m. Seminar | Standish Room, Science Library, Uptown Campus
7:30 p.m. Reading | Art Museum, Fine Arts Building, Uptown Campus

EVENT DETAILS:
Angela Pneuman, fiction writer and former UAlbany grad student, and Amy Biancolli, Times Union arts writer and memoirist, will read from and discuss new work on Tuesday, November 11, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. [note early start time] in the Art Museum, Fine Arts Building, on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Earlier that same day the authors will offer an informal seminar at 4:15 p.m. in the Standish Room, Science Library on the uptown campus. The events are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute, and are free and open to the public.

PROFILE
The Writers Institute will host a joint presentation by two noteworthy writers with local ties: fiction writer and former UAlbany graduate student Angela Pneuman, and Times Union journalist and memoirist Amy Biancolli.

Former Ph.D. graduate and Presidential Fellow at UAlbany, Kentucky native Angela Pneuman is widely hailed as an exciting new voice in Southern literature. Her first novel, Lay It On My Heart (2014), recounts the challenges that confront a Kentucky girl after her “prophet” father is committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Rebecca Wells, author of the bestselling Ya-Ya Sisterhood novels, said in advance praise, “I know the voices of Southern girls, and when they sing true, my heart expands. Angela Pneuman is a flute.” The reviewer for O., the Oprah Magazine, said, “This first novel will knock you sideways with its Southern charm and quiet humanity,” and the San Francisco Chronicle reviewer called it, “[A] marvelous dark and comic debut novel…,” and said, “Pneuman is a master of dark comedy, and the grimmer the material, the funnier it becomes in her twisted but capable hands.”

Pneuman’s first story collection, Home Remedies (2007), explored the conflicted interior lives of evangelical Christians, particularly young girls on the brink of adulthood. Author Lorrie Moore said in praise, “Angela Pneuman must surely be one of the most gifted young writers around.” A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Pneuman has twice been published in Best American Short Stories (2012 and 2004). Her work has also appeared in the New England Review, Iowa Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other literary magazines. She is also the recipient of the inaugural Alice Hoffman Prize awarded by the literary journal, Ploughshares. She currently lives in California where she teaches fiction writing at Stanford University and works as a copywriter in the wine industry.

Amy Biancolli is currently an arts writer and columnist for the Albany Times Union, where she previously worked from 1992-2000. From 2004-2012 she served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle, where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association.

Her new book, Figuring Sh!t Out: Love, Laughter, Suicide and Survival (2014), is a memoir about the suicide of her husband, Christopher D. Ringwald, notable Albany journalist and author. A frank exploration of incomprehensible tragedy and its aftermath (including its impact on the couple’s three children), the book recounts Biancolli’s efforts to find meaning and even humor in the urgent responsibilities of day-to-day life.

Biancolli’s two previous books include Fritz Kreisler: Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy (2003), a biography of the Viennese violinist and composer (1875-1962); and House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year, awarded by the Albany Public Library in 2004. Biancolli also wrote the play, Kreisler’s Long Sleep (2008), which had a staged reading at the Capital Repertory Theatre as part of its “Biggest Little International Play Festival.” She blogs regularly on her website, figuringshitout.net.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.