Richard Price is the author of seven novels, which convincingly portray the grit and despair of the inner-city. His most recent books include the best-sellers Samaritan (2003), a crime drama about a former TV writer who returns to teach in the inner city neighborhood of his youth, which was chosen for the Read This! Book Club on "Good Morning America," Freedomland (1998), and Clockers (1992), which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Price has also written numerous screenplays including Sea of Love, Ransom, and The Color of Money, which will be shown on Friday, January 23rd at 7:30 p.m. in Page Hall.

British writer Ross King is the best-selling author of the nonfiction works Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (2003), the story behind the frescoed ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and Brunelleschi's Dome (2000), the story of the construction of the enormous dome of Florence's Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral. He has also published two novels, Ex-Libris (1998), and Domino (1996, 2003). Cosponsored by the University Art Museum.

Jackie Roberts, playwright-in-residence, is the author of Lick o' the Knife, a modern comedy that pays homage to the blood and thunder of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. A professor of Drama and Literature at the University of San Diego, Roberts is also an actress who performs regularly with San Diego-area theatre companies. Her television appearances have included The Steve Harvey Show, The West Wing, and ER. Cosponsored by the Departments of Theatre and English, the Futterer-Gould Award, Diversity & Affirmative Action, and the New York State Writers Institute.

Surgeon-turned-author Richard Selzer and Kathryn G. Maes, Chair of the Department of Theatre, Film, and Video Production at the UColorado at Denver, have adapted some of Selzer's stories for the stage. Troy native Richard Selzer has published several short story and essay collections including Rituals of Surgery (1973), his first collection of short stories, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery (1976), Confessions of a Knife (1979), a collection of which are surgical memoirs, Letters to a Young Doctor (1982), Taking the World in for Repairs (1986), Imagine a Woman (1990), Down from Troy (1992),and The Doctor Stories (1998). Making use of a vast store of information and experiences from his medical career, Selzer's tales of the sick and diseased, while often startling and shocking, are filled with compassion and a certain awe for the mystery of the human body. Cosponsored by the NYS Writers Institute and Department of Theatre.

Michael Ashkin is a sculptor living in Brooklyn, New York. Focusing on issues surrounding environmental degradation, Ashkin creates lifelike models of desolated postindustrial landscapes. Built to scale and meticulous in detail, the constructions manage to look vast and unending despite their miniature format. Ashkin's work has been shown at major galleries such as Andre Rosen (New York), Leo Castelli (New York), White Columns (New York) and is currently on view at the Frieze Art Fair (London). Sponsored by the University Art Museum as part of their Art & Culture Talks.

The Musicians of Ma'alwyck celebrate Black History Month with guest reader Leonard Slade, Jr. Under the direction of Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, violinist Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, guitarist Sten Isachsen and cellist Petia Kassarova present a tribute to black composers with selections by Ulysses Kay, Harry Burleight, Adolphus Hailstork, Leo Brouwer and others. The program includes African, Cuban, and European black composers, as well as African-American composers. Poet Leonard Slade will read his own works and selections by other black poets. Slade is Chair of the Africana Studies Department and author of eleven poetry volumes including For the Love of Freedom (2001), Neglecting the Flowers (1997), and Pure Light (1996). Cosponsored by the Musicians of Ma'alwyck and the Departments of Music and Africana Studies.

Nelson George, considered one of the foremost commentators on black culture of his generation, is an accomplished screenwriter, documentarian, critic, and author of seven award-winning nonfiction books, most recently Post-Soul Nation (2004), an examination of the splintering of African-American culture in the 1980s, Hip-Hop America (1998), Blackface: Reflections on African-Americans and the Movies (1994), Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball (1992), and the Death of Rhythm and Blues (1988). Nelson's published novels are: Show & Tell, Seduced, and the Blackboard bestsellers Urban Romance and One Woman Short. George served as black music editor for Billboard and wrote the "Native Son" column for The Village Voice.

Mark Kurlansky, journalist and popular historian, is known for his bestselling "niche histories," including his most recent work 1968 (2004), a look at the cultural and political history of that world-changing year, Salt: A World History (2002), and Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997). Other books include The Basque History of the World (1999), and A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (1994). Kurlansky recently published his first fiction collection, The White Man in the Tree (2000), and edited Choice Cuts (2002), an anthology of great food writing.

Discussion on the art of journalism and current issues within the field.
Jack Hitt is a contributing writer for Harper's, GQ and Lingua Franca. He also writes for The New York Times Magazine, Outside and Mother Jones. In 1990, he received the Livingston Award for national coverage. His books include Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim�s Route into Spain(1994, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-671-75818-7) and In a Word: Dictionary (1992). He contributes frequently to NPR's "This American Life."
Marion Roach is a science journalist, former New York Times staff writer, and contributor to NPR's "All Things Considered." Her 1983 article about her mother's struggle with Alzheimer's disease remains one of the most reprinted articles in the New York Times Magazine's history. She is co-author (with Dr. Michael Baden) of the book, Dead Reckoning: The New Science of Catching Killers (2001), an entertaining and informative examination of the latest breakthroughs in forensic pathology, and the author of Another Name for Madness (1985). Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Newsday, American Health, and Prevention. A resident of Troy, she served as host of the 1996 WMHT/PBS documentary, Historic Views of the Collar City.
Gary Taubes writes about science, medicine and health for The Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine, Discover, Esquire, GQ and Technology Review. A three-time winner of the National Association of Science Writers award, Taubes currently serves as contributing correspondent for Science. His books include Bad Science: The Short Life and Hard Times of Cold Fusion (1992) and Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit and the Ultimate Experiment (1988).

Rick Moody, fiction writer and editor, is the author of three novels, two story collections and a memoir. His first novel, Garden State (1991) won the Pushcart Press Editors Choice Award. He gained national recognition with the publication of his second novel, The Ice Storm (1994), which was adapted into a movie in 1997. His most recent works include the memoir The Black Veil (2002) and the story collection Demonology (2000). Moody has also written essays for two books featuring the photography of Gregory Crewdson, Twilight (2002), and Hover (1998) and on contemporary artists Roy Lichtenstein and Fred Tomaselli. Cosponsored with the University Art Museum.

Ellen Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist whose articles on contemporary American life have appeared in more than 400 newspapers for over 25 years. Her columns appear weekly in the Albany Times Union and the Schenectady Daily Gazette. She is also the author of six collections of her essays, the most recent of which is Paper Trail (February 2004), the nonfiction book Turning Points (1979, Doubleday) which detailed the effect of the changing roles of women on the family, and co-author of I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives (2000, Simon & Schuster).

ZZ Packer is the author of the short story collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2002), whose title story was included in The New Yorker's Debut Fiction issue in 2000. She attended Yale University and the Writing Seminar at Johns Hopkins University, The Writers' Workshop at Iowa University and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her work has also appeared in Seventeen, Harper's, Story magazine and in The Best American Short Stories (2000), Ploughshares and has been anthologized in 25 and Under: Fiction.

New York State Author/State Poet Awards Ceremony and Reading
In conjunction with the Governor's Office, the NYS Writers Institute will award the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction Writers and the Walt Whitman citation of Merit for Poets for 2004-2006 to authors whose career achievements make them deserving of New York State's highest literary honors. The out-going State Author is Kurt Vonnegut; the out-going State Poet is John Ashbery.
Russell Banks's writing career spans five decades and has published five short story collections, nine novels, and four poetry collections. His fiction captures the expereinces of working class people who live in the Northeast, and often deals with issues of family conflict, addiction, econimic hardship, and racism.
Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate for two consecutive terms (2001-2203), is one of America's best-loved and best-selling poets. His readings are usually standing room only, and his audience--enhanced tremendously by his appearances on National Public Radio--includes people of all backgrounds and age groups. Author of seven collections, his poems are enjoyed by critics and readers alike for their plain language, friendly tone, intelligent humor, and profound observation about the meaning of everyday life.

The First Annual Capital Region Creative Writing Conference
An all-day conference featuring intensive workshops in many genres including poetry, fiction, screenwriting, song lyrics, and self-publishing/book arts. Also panel discussions about multi-media and creative writing, slam and performance poetry and on building literary communities, an open mike, and informal opportunities for networking and mingling. Presented by The Writing Center at UAlbany, in collaboration with the English Dept and several area colleges. All area undergraduate creative writers are welcome.

Katy Siegel is a contributing editor of Artforum and teaches contemporary art history and criticism at Hunter College, CUNY. She is the co-author of Art & Money, forthcoming from Thames & Hudson, as well as an edited volume of Sidney Tillim's art critical writings, forthcoming from Routledge. Seigel is also the author of numerous articles and catalogues essays on contemporary art. Sponsored by the University Art Museum as part of their Art & Culture Talks.

W. Langdon Brown's adaptation of Richard Russo's novel Mohawk will be presented as a staged reading. Mohawk (1986) is Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo's first novel about a town set on the wrong side of the tracks and the hard-luck lives of its citizens. Brown, Director of Graduate Studies, UAlbany Department of Theatre, has directed plays in professional theatres in New York City and London including the world premiere of his translation of Le System Ribadier by Feydeau. His university and college directing credits include the world premiere of John and Elizabeth Fuller's Not Just a Love Story, and the American premiere of Ladies in Waiting by Canadian playwright Ellen Fox, among numerous others. Cosponsored by the Department of Theatre.

Paul Auster, novelist, memoirist, poet and screenwriter, captured a wide audience with his best-selling "New York Trilogy" of post-modern detective novels, including City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986), and The Locked Room (1987). Celebrated for rich prose and inventive plots, Auster's novels also include The Music of Chance (1990), Leviathan (1992), Timbuktu (1999), The Book of Illusions (2002), and most recently Oracle Night (2003). Recent books include Collected Poems (2004), and the best-selling True Tales of American Life (editor, 2002) of the NPR National Story Project. Auster's film collaborations with Wayne Wang have included Smoke (1995), Blue in the Face (1995), and The Center of the World (2001).

All in the Timing Sketches
David Ives' collection of six fast-paced and wickedly funny sketches twists and skewers reality in ways that will astound and amaze. Sponsored by the Department of Theatre. For tickets call the Performing Arts Center Box Office at (518) 442-3997.

Janice Galloway, Scottish fiction writer, is the author of three award-winning novels: Clara, winner of the 2002 Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award; Foreign Parts, which won the 1994 McVitie's Prize; and The Trick is to Keep Breathing, which won the 1990 MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year Award. Galloway will read from Clara, a fictional portrait of 19th-century pianist Clara Schumann, wife of composer Robert. The reading will be interspersed with music of the Schumanns performed by The Musicians of Ma'alwyck. This ensemble, in residence at both UAlbany and the Schuyler Mansion, a NY State Historical Site, has performed by invitation for TV producer Norman Lear. Cosponsored by the New York State Writers Institute, The Musicians of Ma'alwyck and the NY State Museum.

Digital Expression displays the vitality and artistic creativity on the UAlbany campus showcasing music, digital art, dance, and multimedia by students and faculty from the Music, Art, and Theatre Departments. Cosponsored by the Departments of Music, Art and Theatre. For tickets and directions call the PAC Box Office at 518-442-3997.

Russell Shorto, journalist and nonfiction writer, discusses his latest book The Island at the Center of the World (March 2004), the story of Dutch Manhattan and the crucial role the Dutch played in the shaping of America. Material from the collection of the New York State Library and the New York State Archives relating to the early settlement of New Amsterdam will also be on display. Shorto is also the author of Gospel Truth (1998), about the search for the historical Jesus, and Saints and Madmen: Psychiatry Opens Its Doors to Spirituality (1999). Shorto also writes regularly for the New York Times Magazine. Cosponsored by the New York State Writers Institute, the NYS Library, and Friends of the NYS Library. Registration advised: call 486-4815.

Facts and Fiction: Stories and Histories in Recent Art
Artist, critic and curator Robert Storr is Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. As a curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York from 1990-2002, Storr organized numerous shows including retrospectives on Gerhard Richter, Chuck Close, Tony Smith, and Bruce Nauman. He is the co-curator of "Max Beckmann" an exhibition on view at MOMA QNS through the end of October 2004. Sponsored by the University Art Museum as part of their Art & Culture Talks.

Dave Baron has reported on science, medicine, technology, and the environment for National Public Radio for more than 15 years. His work has received numerous honors including three journalism awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Baron will discuss his recent book The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature (2003), which explores the advance of mountain lions into areas of human habitat in Boulder, Colorado, and the conflicts that arise when humans attempt to coexist with wildlife. Sponsored by the Science Library.

"Covering the Grave: Murder on the Eighteenth-Century Frontier"
Alan Taylor is an historian and award-winning author whose books focus on early American and colonial history. He is the author of William Cooper's Town (1995), a biography of the land developer and political leader, and a study of Cooperstown, New York, founded by Cooper. The book won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for American History as well as the Bancroft and Beveridge prizes. His other works include American Colonies (2001) and Liberty Men and Great Proprietors (1990). Taylor is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis. Sponsored by the Department of History.

Barbara Smith, African-American feminist editor and essayist, whose work focuses on the social and economic conditions of and prejudices against women of color, is the founder of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. She is the author of The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom (1998) and has edited three publications including Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983). Cosponsored by the Departments of Women's Studies, Africana Studies, English, School of Social Welfare, Pride Alliance, ASUBA, and the New York State Writers Institute.

Ruth Ozeki, fiction writer and filmmaker, is the author most recently of All Over Creation (2003), a humorous novel about potato farmers, eco-saboteurs, globalization and genetically modified food crops. Her earlier novel, My Year of Meats (1998), a brilliant burlesque of the meat and media industries in the U.S. and Japan, received the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize and the Special Jury Prize of the World Cookbook Awards in Versailles, France. Cosponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center.
Ozeki's documentary film, Halving the Bones, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, will be screened on Friday, March 26th at 7:30 p.m. in Page Hall.

10 Brecht Poems is a sharp, humorous two-woman work of performance poetry starring Tannis Kowalchuk and Leese Walker. A co-production of the NaCl Theatre and the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, 10 Brecht Poems employs physical theatre, song and visual arts to give expression to trenchant anti-war poems by German playwright and social critic Bertolt Brecht.

Journalist Iris Chang is the bestselling author of The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997), an account of the terrible events that took place in the Chinese city of Nanking under Japanese occupation. The book spent more than four months on the New York Times bestseller list. Chang will read from and discuss her latest book The Chinese in America (March 2004), an engrossing narrative history of more than 150 years of Chinese immigration. Cosponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center.

Danielle Jones, poet and multimedia artist, creates texts that play with graphic, electronic, and physical forms. Her projects not only merge poetry and architecture, virtual and material, aesthetic and experimental, but also push the possibilities and blur the boundaries of each of these areas. Jones often collaborates on her various projects with her husband Kreg, who is an architect. She is completing a Ph.D. in English at UAlbany. Among her awards is the Phyllis Hurd Liston Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets for the poem "A Cosmology," and she was commissioned to write the poem "To Show the Existence of Unreal, Subjective Space" for a M.C. Escher exhibition at the Hiraklidon Museum in Athens, Greece. Future venues include presenting her poetry at the Craft, Critique and Culture Conference at UIowa and her electronic poetry will be featured in the forthcoming edition of The Little Magazine. Kreg Jones works for John G. Waite and Associates Architects--one of the premier design firms for restoration and preservation artchitecture.

24th Annual Phi Alpha Theta Distinguished Lecture in History
Bonnie Smith is a prize-winning historian whose work emphasizes the lives of ordinary individuals, particularly women. Her books include Gendering Disability (with Beth Hutchison, 2004), Imperialism (2000), The Gender of History (1998), Confessions of a Concierge (1985), and Ladies of the Leisure Class (1981). She also is editor of the five volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History (2005). Sponsored by the Department of History.

The University Chorale and University Chamber Singers perform in this annual event with accompanist Gordon Hibberd under the direction of David Janower. Sponsored by the Department of Music. For tickets call the Performing Arts Center Box Office at (518) 442-3997.

Elizabeth Rosner is the author of the debut novel The Speed of Light (2001), which received the 2002 Harold U. Ribalow Prize and was selected for the Hadassah National Book Club in 2003. Her prize-winning short fiction and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals. Much of her writing explores the impact of her parents' experiences as holocaust survivors on her own life. Sponsored by The Center for Jewish Studies.

Marisol is a wild, hallucinogenic riff on hope and despair in the Big Apple, by playwright Jose Rivera. Rivera mixes gritty reality with bold flights of fantasy to create an unforgettable theatrical landscape. Sponsored by the Department of Theatre. For tickets call the Performing Arts Center Box Office at (518) 442-3997.

HumaniTech*: Humanities, Technology, Science, & the Nexus of Discourse Conference
A series of panel discussions, lectures, and exhibits on the topics Writing and Technology, Aesthetics and Visual Culture, Applied Technology and the Human Subject, Games, Play and New Media, among others. Full schedule TBA. For information contact Mary Valentis at 518-442-4082. Sponsored by HumaniTech*.

Haitian-American fiction writer, Edwidge Danticat will read from her most recent story The Dew Breaker (March, 2004), the tale of a quiet man from Haiti, a former state torturer, now living a "respectable" life in Brooklyn, New York. Danticat received the American Book Award for her novel The Farming of Bones (1998). Her first short story collection krik? krak! (1995) earned her a National Book Award nomination. Her other novels are Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) and The Farming of Bones, which won the American Book Award. Cosponsored by Fonkoze Albany and the French Studies Program in conjunction with the ongoing celebration of the Bicentennial of Haitian Independence.

Noted American theatre historian Mary C. Henderson, a member of the Tony Award committee for her twelfth season, will speak on "Confessions of a Tony Nominator: Two Decades of New York Theatre." Henderson is the author most recently of Mielziner: Master of Modern Stage Design (2001), an illustrated biography of celebrated stage designer Jo Mielziner. Her previous books include Broadway Ballyhoo: The American Theatre Seen in Posters, Photographs, Magazines, Caricatures and Programs (1989), The City and the Theatre, New York Playhouses from Bowling Green to Times Square, and Theatre in America: Two Hundred Years of Plays, Players and Productions (1986, revised 1996). The Burian Lecture is cosponsored by the Theatre Department and is funded by the Jarka and Grayce Susan Burian Endowment.

Eugene K. Garber is a Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of English at the University at Albany. He has published two collections of fiction: Metaphysical Tales, winner of the 1981 Associated Writing Programs Award for Short Fiction, and The Historian, winner of TriQuarterly's 1992 William Goyen Prize for Fiction. He is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for Arts, the National Endowment for Humanities, the New York State Council for the Arts, and the Fulbright Foundation. His fiction has been anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction, Best American Short Stories, and The Paris Review Anthology, among others. Garber will read from his latest collection of short stories Beasts in Their Wisdom (2004). Eugene Garber was Acting Associate Director of the NYS Writers Institute from 9/94 to 9/95.

Crossing the BLVD is a multimedia presentation based on the book Crossing the BLVD: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens in a New America, by Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan. Using slides, sound, storytelling, and character monologues, Lehrer and Sloan reveal the voices and images of people who live in Queens, New York, the most ethnically diverse locality in the U.S. Sponsored by Capital Voices~Capital Lives, a Talking History Project, and the Department of History.

Irish-born poet Eamon Grennan is the author of nine collections of poetry including Still Life With Waterfall (2002), Relations: New & Selected Poems (1998), So It Goes (1995),and As If it Matters (1991). His poems, which have won numerous awards and honors, most recently the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, often blend Irish remembrances and American experiences. Grennan is the Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Professor of English at Vassar College and is Poet-in-Residence at the New York State Writers Institute for Spring 2004.

Dave Barry is one of America's most popular humor columnists. His satirical observations on daily life in middle-class America earned him the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Based at the Miami Herald, his column has been syndicated in more than 150 newspapers nationwide since 1986. He has also published over 20 books including the best-sellers Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), and Dave Barry Turns Forty (1990). Barry writes about various major issues relating to the international economy, the future of democracy, the social infrastructure and exploding toilets.