Maureen Dowd, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist known for witty, tart-tongued commentary on political affairs, will make this rare public appearance. An equal opportunity offender, Dowd is famous for attacking hypocrisy, ridiculing stupidity, making fun of verbal blunders, and pointing out fashion "no-nos" among Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, populists, elitists, feminists and evangelicals. She received the Pulitzer Prize (1999) for "distinguished commentary" for her coverage of the Clinton sex scandals. Her merciless observations, which spared neither President Clinton nor his accusers, made Dowd a national media celebrity. Other prizes include the 1992 Breakthrough Award from Women, Men and Media at Columbia Univ in 1991, and a Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications in 1994. Dowd was named one of Glamour's Women of the Year for 1996 and won the Damon Runyon award in 2000 for outstanding contributions to journalism. A selection of Dowd's columns will be published in book form. Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk (Aug 2004) is a collection that focuses on both the previous and current Bush administrations.

Nick Flynn is the acclaimed author of two books of poetry. Some Ether (2000), a collection of 48 free verse narratives about the poet's painful childhood and suicidal mother, received the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award and the "Discovery" / The Nation Award, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book, Blind Huber (2002), is a celebration in poetry of the life of honeybees, and an homage to Francis Huber, the blind 18th century Swiss naturalist. Flynn's provocatively titled new memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (September 2004), tells the tragic story of his homeless father, a former bank robber, con artist, and self-styled poet. Earlier this year, The New Yorker acquired serial publication rights to the memoir.

Chuck Palahniuk is a prolific author who explores, in outrageous and comic fashion, America's apparent love of violence. No writer divides critics more sharply. While some view him as a literary nihilist- a man hell-bent on killing the novel as a reputable art form- others view him as a brilliant social satirist and the most important literary innovator of his generation. Palahniuk achieved broad recognition with the publication of Fight Club (1996), a bizarre, violent novel about a secret organization of men who engage in bloody fistfights for enjoyment, catharsis and personal salvation. The cult bestseller was made into a 1999 film starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. His most recent novel is Diary (2003), a twisted fable about "tortured artists" and the meaning of art. Palahniuk's other novels include Lullaby (2002), Choke (2001), Survivor (1999), and Invisible Monsters (1999). Palahniuk's newest book is Stranger Than Fiction (2004), his first collection of nonfiction. The book features 23 pieces in which he explores such topics as a demolition derby, rock star Marilyn Manson, Olympic wrestling, life aboard a submarine, and his father's murder.

Ursula Hegi, who was born and raised in post-war Dusseldorf, Germany, before emigrating to the U.S. as a teenager, explores German and German-American identity in the 20th century in both her fiction and nonfiction. Her compelling 1994 novel, Stones from the River, tells the story of a dwarf named Trudi who endeavors to hide and save Jews in a small German town during the Nazi Holocaust. Nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1994, the novel became a national bestseller in 1997 after being an Oprah's Book Club selection. Her newest novel is Sacred Time, the story of a troubled Italian-American family living in the Bronx in the 1950s. Hegi's other books include the novels, The Vision of Emma Blau (2000), Salt Dancers (1995), Floating in My Mother's Palm (1990), and Intrusions (1981), as well as the nonfiction book, Tearing the Silence: Being German in America (1997).

Dave Eggers is the author of the memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), which chronicles his experience at the age of 21, losing both his parents from cancer within a span of five weeks and become parent to his seven-year-old brother. The book quickly became a New York Times bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and was named Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and Time. You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002), Eggers' first novel, is the story of two young Americans who travel around the world handing out money to very poor people. His latest book is How We Are Hungry (August 2004), a collection of short stories. Eggers is also the editor of The Best American NonRequired Reading, 2002 and 2003, anthologies of offbeat magazine and webzine pieces, and the founding editor of the literary quarterly and publishing house McSweeney's.

Peter Sheridan is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, and film director. Together with his brother, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jim Sheridan, Peter Sheridan helped found the Project Arts Centre, Dublin's leading avant-garde theater. Well known for his work in contemporary Irish theatre, Peter Sheridan's best-known plays include "The Liberty Suit," set in a detention center for juvenile delinquents, and "Emigrants," a story of poor Irish laborers in 19th century England. He also adapted and directed the film, Borstal Boy (2000), based on the autobiography of Irish poet and political activist Brendan Behan. Sheridan is the author of two memoirs, Forty-seven Roses (2002) and 44: Dublin Made Me (1999); both feature tales of his boisterous Dublin boyhood and his parents' troubled marriage. Peter Sheridan's new first novel is Every Inch of Her (2004), the story of Philo, an obese, unconventional and loving mother of five, who takes refuge from her abusive husband in a Dublin convent, and who transforms the lives of everyone she meets.

Jon Lee Anderson, foreign correspondent for The New Yorker, is widely hailed for his sensitive and nuanced coverage of military conflicts in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa. His newest book is The Fall of Baghdad (2004), an eye-opening firsthand account of everyday life, violence and social turmoil in Iraq before, during and after the U. S.-led invasion. The book also features profiles of Iraqis from all walks of life, and provides an insider�s view of Western media coverage of the war. Anderson�s other books include The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan (2002), Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (1997), and Guerillas (1992). Anderson has also profiled Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Saddam Hussein, and examined the literary influence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Cosponsored by the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center.

Rita Dove served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, the youngest poet and first African American to be so honored. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Thomas and Beulah (1986), a collection of poems loosely based on the lives of her maternal grandparents. Among her many prizes Dove has received the Lavan Younger Poets Award of the Academy of American Poets, the NAACP Great American Artist Award, and the Literary Lion medal of the New York Public Library. Her 1999 book of poetry, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other collections include Mother Love (1995), Grace Notes (1989), Museum (1983), and The Yellow House on the Corner (1980). Dove's newest collection, her first in five years, is American Smooth (Sept 2004), a portrait of American culture in all of its grandeur and diversity. She is the editor of Best American Poetry 2000, and from January 2000-2002 she wrote a weekly column, "Poet's Choice," for The Washington Post.

Tracy Kidder is widely regarded by readers, writers, teachers, and critics as a master of the nonfiction form. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Soul of a New Machine (1981, updated and reissued 1997), a brilliant, pioneering study of a new "computer culture" that had just begun to emerge in the late 1970s. Two of Kidder's books have been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award: Among Schoolchildren (1989), about the experiences of a fifth grade teacher, and House (1985), a story of one couple's adventures and misadventures building a first family home. More recent bestsellers have included Home Town (1999), a close study of everyday life in Northampton, Massachusetts and Old Friends (1993), about a year in the life of a nursing home. Kidder's newest book is Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003), the story of Paul Farmer, an infectious disease specialist, anthropologist, and medical reformer, who is best-known for founding a charity hospital in rural Haiti. Since his first article for The Atlantic in July 1973, he has written on railroads, energy, architecture, the environment, and more. He has been a contributing editor of The Atlantic since 1981.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and science writer, is the author of the new book, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Evolution (with Donald Goldsmith, 2004), which is the companion volume to the PBS television series, "NOVA: Origins." This four-part series is scheduled to air on local PBS affiliate WMHT in late September. The book draws upon biology and geology, as well as astrophysics, to explain our current understanding of the Universe. The Director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, Tyson is renowned for his ability to explain his complex field to the general public. Tyson's other books include The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist (2000), and One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos (with Charles Liu and Robert Irion, 2000). Since 1995, Tyson has authored the monthly "Universe" column in Natural History magazine. He is also a longtime author of the "Ask Merlin" feature in Star Date magazine, a publication of the NPR radio show. Some of Tyson's "Ask Merlin" essays have been collected in the books, Just Visiting This Planet (1998) and Merlin's Tour of the Universe (1989). Cosponsored by WMHT -TV and the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center

Francisco Goldman, Guatemalan-American fiction writer and journalist, is the author of three acclaimed novels about cultural and political conflict in the Americas. Goldman's newest book is The Divine Husband (September 2004), a kaleidoscopic novel set in Central America in the 19th century. Replete with political intrigue and rich historical detail, the novel follows the loves and adventures of Mar�a de las Nieves Moran, a former novice nun who is romantically entangled with real-life revolutionary Jos� Mart�. Goldman's first novel, The Long Night of White Chickens (1994), received the Sue Kaufman Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His second novel, The Ordinary Seaman (1996), was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. As a journalist, Goldman has covered the politics of Central America for Harper's, The New Yorker, The New York Times and The New York Review of Books.

Neil LaBute, playwright, screenwriter, and film director, is one of America's most talked-about and controversial dramatists. Known for the sharpness of his work, and for his characters' loss of moral compass, LaBute believes, as he has said in a recent London Telegraph interview, "Great good can come from showing great evil." In 1997, LaBute captured national attention with the release of the independent film, In the Company of Men, based on his 1992 stage play of the same name. The film earned the Filmmakers' Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival and was named "Best First Film" by the New York Film Critics Circle. Other films include The Shape of Things (2003), Possession (2002), Nurse Betty (2000), which received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and Your Friends and Neighbors (1998). His plays include "Merge" (2003), "The Mercy Seat" (2002), "The Distance from Here" (2002), and "bash: latter-day plays" (1999). In October 2004, LaBute will publish his first book of short stories, Seconds of Pleasure.

Maxine Hong Kingston's books The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and China Men (1980), winner of the National Book Award, are widely regarded as classics of the new American canon, and cornerstones of the multicultural curriculum. Critics praise Kingston for inventing a magical variety of prose that seamlessly blends myth and fact in its exploration of Chinese-American identity. Kingston's long-awaited new book is The Fifth Book of Peace (2003), which grows out of the ashes of a novel-in-progress that was destroyed when a brush fire consumed her Oakland home in 1991. The new book serves a variety of functions: It retells the story of the lost novel (The Fourth Book of Peace) which was about a Chinese-American poet who evades the Vietnam draft. It recounts Kingston's experiences amid the worst wildfire in California history. It relates her research on the Three Lost Books of Peace, Chinese works that, according to legend, contain the secrets of world peace. And, finally, it calls for the creation of a new literature of peace.

Jessica Hagedorn is celebrated for her bold, energetic, and tragicomic examinations of Filipino and Filipino-American experience in a wide variety of genres, including fiction, theater, poetry and performance art. Her first novel Dogeaters (1990), an angry tale of social injustice and economic inequity in the Phillipines, was nominated for the National Book Award, and received the American Book Award of the Before Columbus Foundation. Hagedorn also earned the American Book Award for her 1981 collection of poetry and short fiction, Pet Food and Tropical Apparitions. Other books include the poetry/prose collections Danger and Beauty (1993), and Dangerous Music (1975), and the novel The Gangster of Love (1996). Hagedorn's newest novel is Dream Jungle (2003), a tale of indigenous tribes people and Hollywood movie-makers set in a remote rain forest in the Phillipines.

Music by Inti-Illimani with Poetry Readings by David Yezzi (substituting for Ilan Stavans)
Inti-Illimani, one of Latin America's leading music ensembles, performs a special one-night concert to celebrate the centennial anniversary of Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-73). The evening brings the passionate poetry of Neruda, recited by Mexican-American writer and translator Ilan Stavans, together with the music of Inti-Illimani. Now in its 37th year, Inti-Illimani combines powerful vocal choruses with exquisite guitar work, delicate Andean flutes, scintillating percussion, and the music of dozens of indigenous Latin American instruments.
David Yezzi's books include the poetry collections "Sad Is Eros" (Aralia Press) and "The Hidden Model," (TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press). He has edited a compendium of American poetry titled, "The Zoo Anthology of Younger Poets," for Zoo Press. Mr. Yezzi is an associate editor of "Parnassus: Poetry in Review" and Director of the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Cosponsored with the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

Joseph Persico, best-selling historian and biographer, is the author of several acclaimed books about American military conflicts, espionage programs, and political figures. His newest book is 11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour: Armistice Day, 1918 (2004), the story of the final hours of World War I. The book details how Allied commanders, in pursuit of military glory, sacrificed the lives of thousands of soldiers in senseless attacks on enemy positions, though fully aware that Germany had already surrendered. Persico's previous books include My Enemy, My Brother: Men and Days of Gettysburg (1977), Piercing the Reich (1979), The Imperial Rockefeller (1982), Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial (1994), and Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (2001). Persico also co-authored Colin Powell's bestselling autobiography, My American Journey (1995). He was also chief speech writer for Governor Nelson Rockefeller for eight years. A graduate of UAlbany and Guilderland resident, Persico served on the commission that oversaw the design of the new National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, and penned the words that appear on the monument, "Here we mark the price of freedom." Cosponsored by the NYS Library, Friends of the NYS Library, and the NY Council for the Humanities

Roddy Doyle , novelist, humorist and screenwriter, is one of the major figures of contemporary Irish literature. He is best known for his "Barrytown trilogy" of novels: The Commitments (1989), The Snapper (1990), and The Van (1991), about a raucous, working-class family, the Rabbittes of North Dublin. All three novels were made into acclaimed motion pictures featuring scripts by the author. In 1993, Doyle received the Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious literary award, for the novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Two volumes of Doyle's newest trilogy, "The Last Roundup," include A Star Called Henry (1999), and the newly published Oh, Play That Thing (2004). The first volume recounts the violence-filled youth of Henry Smart, an IRA terrorist, at the beginning of the last century. The second volume tells of Henry's adventures among mobsters and jazz musicians in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties. Doyle is also the author of Rory & Ita (2002), a memoir of his parents told largely in their own words.

Madison Smartt Bell's remarkable fiction is frequently preoccupied with race relations between black and white, both past and present. By the age of forty, Bell had published no fewer than nine critically acclaimed novels, including Ten Indians (1996), All Souls' Rising (1995), Save Me, Joe Louis (1993), Doctor Sleep (1991), Straight Cut (1986), Waiting for the End of the World (1985), and The Washington Square Ensemble (1983). All Souls' Rising, the first in a trilogy of novels about the blood-soaked Haitian War of Independence (1791-1804), was a finalist for the National Book Award. On the strength of that novel, critic Harold Bloom proclaimed Bell, "as remarkable a historical novelist as we have in this country." Bell's second installment in the "Haitian trilogy," Master of the Crossroads (2000), follows the rise to power of fabled revolutionary and former slave, Toussaint L'Ouverture. The third and final book in the trilogy, The Stone That the Builder Refused, will be published in November 2004.

For many years, radio station WGY in Schenectady, New York--one of the first radio stations in the U.S.--broadcasted the locally-written and produced radio program, The FBI in Action. Working with one of the original scripts and students from the University at Albany Theatre Department, we will present a production of this radio broadcast complete with sound effects created by two women who originally provided them in the 1940s. This event is cosponsored by the Researching New York 2004 Conference on New York State History, the UAlbany Dept of History, and the NY State Archives Partnership Trust.

Sharon Olds, a prize-winning and popular poet, is acclaimed for her use of raw, plain-spoken language and startling images to convey truths about domestic and political violence, sexuality, family relationships, and the body. Olds received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lamont Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets for her second collection, The Dead and the Living (1984). The Father (1992) a series of poems about the loss of her father to cancer, was a finalist for the National Book Critic Circle Award. In 1998, Olds received the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit and served as New York State Poet from 1998-2000. Her 2002 collection, The Unswept Room, was short-listed for the National Book Award. Other collections include Blood, Tin, Straw (1999), The Wellspring (1996), and The Gold Cell (1987). In 2002, Olds received an Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets for "distinguished poetic achievement at mid-career." Her newest collection is Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2000 (2004).
Edward Hirsch is the author of the national bestseller, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a book that features brilliant examples of world poetry, and countless tips and words of advice about getting the most out of reading poetry. Renowned as both poet and teacher, Hirsch is the winner of numerous major prizes for his own poetry, including a MacArthur "genius grant," and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. Hirsch's first collection, For the Sleepwalkers (1981) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His second collection, Wild Gratitude (1986), received that prize in 1987. Other collections include On Love (1998), Earthy Measures (1994), and The Night Parade (1989). Hirsch's most recent collection is Lay Back the Darkness (2003), a meditation on life and death at middle age. A professor at the University of Houston for seventeen years, Hirsch currently serves as President of the Guggenheim Foundation.

Joseph Ellis, historian, is widely praised for his ability to bring fresh insight to the well-known lives of the leaders of the American Revolution. Ellis received the National Book Award for his 1997 biography, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, a discerning, balanced portrait of an enigmatic president. In 2001, Ellis received the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (2000), a work that presents intimate, analytical studies of eight larger-than-life figures, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr and James Madison. Other notable books include The Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993), and After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture (1979). Ellis's newest book is His Excellency: George Washington (2004), a penetrating, biography of the nearly-crowned first president. The new book will receive a monumental first printing of 500,000 copies. Cosponsored by the NYS Library and the Friends of the NYS Library

Geoff Dyer, newly appointed Writer-in-Residence in UAlbany's Department of English, blends truthful observations, subjective impressions, scholarly research, and laugh-out-loud humor to create pieces of writing that frequently challenge the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction. The Daily Telegraph called him, "quite possibly the best living writer in Britain." A native of England, Dyer received the Somerset Maugham Award of the British Society of Authors for his 1991 book, But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz, a collection of eight mediations on the lives and works of American jazz musicians. Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence (1998), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, is a meditation on the nature of "writer's block," and a fascinating chronicle of Dyer's failed attempt to write a new literary biography of Lawrence. Humorist Steve Martin called it, "the funniest book I have ever read." Paris Trance (1998), a novel of young, latter-day expatriates killing time in the French capital, was favorably compared by critics to the works of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Dyer's newest book is Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do It (2003), a collection of travel pieces that received the W. H. Smith "People's Choice" Book Award in England.