August

August 31 (Thursday): Awkwafina, rap artist and actress
Conversation — 4:15 p.m., Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center
Awkwafina (AKA Nora Lum) is a multi-talented rap artist, comedian, actress, and author who graduated from UAlbany with a B.A. in Journalism in 2011. She will appear in the upcoming film adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, and play a member of the all-female heist team in OCEAN'S EIGHT, alongside Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, and Helena Bonham Carter. Formerly a host of MTV’s Girl Code Live, she has also published Awkwafina’s NYC (2015), a travel guide to the hidden gems of the city. Steve Barnes, one of Awkwafina’s former professors at UAlbany, and senior writer, restaurant critic, and author of the “Table Hopping” blog for the Times Union will conduct an on-stage interview with her. Read more.
Cosponsored by UAlbany’s Student Association and University Auxiliary Services

September

Telling Your Story: The Art of Memoir
September 7 (Thursday): James Hart, writer, poet, and activist
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Reading — 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Huxley Theatre,
NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany
James Hart is the author of a powerful new memoir Lucky Jim (2017), an account of his violent childhood, marriage to pop singer superstar Carly Simon, coming to terms with his gay sexuality, and his drug and alcohol addiction and subsequent recovery. William Kennedy said, “Jim writes with candor and clarity, drenching it…with woe and wit and wonderful revelation.” Hart will be joined by several community writers and UAlbany students, who will read short passages of autobiography to further explore the art of memoir. The evening will be hosted by celebrated memoir coach, Marion Roach Smith, author of The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life (2011). Read more.
Cosponsored by the New York State Office of Cultural Education and the Friends of the New York State Library

September 8 (Friday): BACKPACK FULL OF CASH
Film screening with commentary by director/producer Sarah Mondale and producer/editor Vera Aronow — 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue,
Downtown Campus
Directed by Sarah Mondale (United States, 2017, 96 minutes, color)
Narrated by Matt Damon, this feature-length documentary explores the growing privatization of public schools and the resulting impact on America’s most vulnerable children. Filmed in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Nashville, and other cities, it takes viewers through the tumultuous 2013-14 school year, exploring the world of education “reform” and its effects on public education. Read more.

Sarah Mondale is president and co-director of Stone Lantern Films, and a former public school teacher in New York. She directed and co-produced the award-winning PBS series School: The Story of American Public Education (2001); the PBS primetime films Marcel Proust: A Writer’s Life and Asylum, which was nominated for an Emmy award. She also co-directed and co-produced Megamall (2010), which has screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad.

Vera Aronow is an accomplished producer and director. Recent works include co-directing and producing the feature-length documentary, Megamall (2010), about suburban development in the age of sprawl, produced with Stone Lantern Films and now available on Video On Demand.

Sponsored with UAlbany’s Dept.of History and Documentary Studies Program; United University Professions, and School of Education

Spoken Word Poetry Celebration
September 14 (Thursday): Tyehimba Jess, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Reading — 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center
Tyehimba Jess is a major contemporary poet whose work serves as a bridge between “slam poetry” and other American verse traditions. His first collection, leadbelly (2005), an exploration of the blues musician Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter’s life, was chosen for the National Poetry Series by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. His second collection Olio (2016), which celebrates the unrecorded and largely unknown Black musicians and orators of the 19th and early 20th centuries, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it “encyclopedic, ingenious, and abundant….” UAlbany students will join Jess on stage in the evening to perform their own spoken word poetry. Read More.
Cosponsored by UAlbany’s Student Association, Division of Student Life, and The Writing Center of the English Department

October

Photo: Babak Salari

October 3, (Tuesday): Madeleine Thien and Peter Ho Davies, award-winning novelists
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany
Madeleine Thien is celebrated for fiction that explores the surprising histories of people living in the Chinese Diaspora. Set in both Canada and China, her newest novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016), received Canada’s highest literary honor, the Governor General’s Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Dogs at the Perimeter, her acclaimed 2012 novel about a Canadian survivor of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, will be re-released in a new U.S. edition in October 2017.

Peter Ho Davies’ new novel, The Fortunes (2016), examines the diverse experiences of four Chinese-Americans over the course of the previous century. Joyce Carol Oates called it, “A prophetic work, with passages of surpassing beauty… a boldly imagined work of fiction….” The Fortunes received the Anisfield-Wolf Award and Chautauqua Prize, and was named a Best Book of 2016 by NPR, Publishers Weekly, Indie Next, and the New York Times. Born in Britain to Welsh and Chinese parents, Davies is also the author of the novel The Welsh Girl (2007), which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Cosponsored by the New York State Office of Cultural Education and the Friends of the New York State Library Read More.

October 17 (Tuesday): Claire Messud, novelist
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Claire Messud, major contemporary fiction writer, is the author of the new novel, The Burning Girl (2017), the story of two girlhood best friends as they navigate adolescence, divergent lives, and painful adult realities. Publishers Weekly praised the novel for its “sophisticated intelligence and elegant prose…” calling it “haunting and emotionally gripping.”

Messud’s previous novels are The Woman Upstairs (2013), an international bestseller; The Emperor’s Children (2006), a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post “Best Book of the Year”; and When the World Was Steady (1995), a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist. Read More

October 30 (Monday): Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Doug Wright wrote the book for the hit 2017 Broadway musical, War Paint, the recipient of four Tony Award nominations. Starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, the musical presents the rivalry between cosmetics empire-builders Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein. Wright received the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play for his 2003 one-person play, I Am My Own Wife. His other plays include Posterity (2015), Unwrap Your Candy (2001), and Quills (1995). Wright also wrote the book for the Broadway musicals, Hands on a Hardbody (2013), The Little Mermaid (2007), and Grey Gardens (2006), nominated for ten Tony Awards. Read more.
Cosponsored by UAlbany’s Theatre Program

NOVEMBER

November 1 (Wednesday): Griffin Theatre Company performance of Ghosts of War
Performance — 7:30 p.m., Main Theatre, Performing Arts Center
Advance tickets: $15 general public / $10 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff
Day of show tickets: $20 general public / $15 students, seniors & UAlbany faculty-staff
Chicago’s Griffin Theatre Company adapted Capital Region native and UAlbany alumnus Ryan Smithson’s book of the same name for the stage. The patriotism following 9/11, the author’s experience of enlisting in the Army at the age of 17, the disciplinary harshness of basic training, and the stress of combat are explored in this unflinchingly honest portrayal of the war in Iraq.
Post-show discussion with author Ryan Smithson
Presented in collaboration with the Performing Arts Center and UAlbany’s English Department. Funding support provided by University Auxiliary Services, The University at Albany Foundation, and the Hampton Inn.

November 3 (Friday): screening in a conversation about the rewards and perils of serving on an ambulance corps. BRINGING OUT THE DEAD
Film screening with commentary by former paramedic Joe Connelly, on whose novel the film is based, and members of UAlbany’s Five Quad Volunteer Ambulance Service — 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Martin Scorsese (United States, 1999, 121 minutes, color)
Starring Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman
Based on the bestselling autobiographical novel of the same name by Joe Connelly, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD follows a burned-out Manhattan ambulance paramedic working the graveyard shift at the height of the crack epidemic in the early 1990s as he is haunted by the ghosts of the people he couldn’t save. Student volunteers of UAlbany’s award-winning Five Quad Ambulance Service will join Connelly immediately following the screening in a conversation about the rewards and perils of serving on an ambulance corps. Read more.
Cosponsored by UAlbany School of Criminal Justice’s Crime, History, and Public Memory Film Series

A CELEBRATION OF THE NEW YORKER CARTOONS

Photo: Bill Hayes

November 9 (Thursday): Roz Chast, The New Yorker cartoonist, and Robert Mankoff, The New Yorker cartoon editor
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany
Roz Chast has published more than a thousand cartoons in The New Yorker since 1978. Her frantic and disheveled characters have become icons of American humor. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times said, “Roz Chast feels—and draws—our pain. Our neurotic worries and genuine fears, our mundane and existential anxieties, our daydreams, nightmares, insecurities and guilty regrets.” Her 2014 memoir in cartoons about caring for her aging parents, Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, spent more than 100 weeks at #1 on The New York Times Bestseller List. Her new book of cartoons is Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York (2017).

Robert "Bob" Mankoff, cartoonist and influential cartoon editor for The New Yorker, submitted more than 500 of his own cartoons to that publication before getting his first acceptance in 1977. He became cartoon editor in 1997, and is credited with nurturing a new generation of talent before retiring this past April. He currently serves as the Humor and Cartoon Editor at Esquire. He is the author of the memoir, How About Never—Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons (2014), which The New York Times reviewer called, "lucid, illuminating, and encouraging." Read more.
Cosponsored by the New York State Office of Cultural Education and the Friends of the New York State Library

The Creative Life Series Created and produced by the New York State Writers Institute, University Art Museum, and UAlbany Performing Arts Center in collaboration with WAMC Northeast Public Radio, this series features leading figures from a variety of artistic disciplines in conversation with WAMC’s “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue about their creative inspiration, craft, and careers. Photo: Rania Matar November 10 (Friday): Lois Lowry, award-winning children’s author Conversation — 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus Lois Lowry, leading voice of children’s literature, is the author of more than 30 books. She is known for work that explores such complex issues as racism, terminal illness, murder, and the Holocaust. She received the Newbery Medal for both The Giver (1993), about a futuristic utopian world, and Number the Stars (1989), a historical novel set in Nazi-occupied Denmark. Lowry wrote three companion novels to The Giver, including Gathering Blue (2000), Messenger (2004), and Son (2012). A film adaptation of The Giver, starring Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep, was released in 2014. In 2007 Lowry received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her lasting contribution to young adult literature. Read more. Major support for The Creative Life is provided by The University at Albany Foundation with additional support from the UAlbany Alumni Association, College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Provost and University Auxiliary Services.

November 13 (Monday): Russell Shorto, author and journalist
Reading/Discussion — 7:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center
In his epic new book, Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom, author and historian Russell Shorto takes us back to the founding of the American nation, drawing on diaries, letters and autobiographies to explore six lives that cast the era in a fresh new light. These stories include an African man who freed himself and his family from slavery, a rebellious young woman who abandoned her abusive husband to chart her own course, and a certain Mr. Washington, who was admired for his social graces but harshly criticized for his often-disastrous military strategy.

Through these lives we understand that the revolution was fought over the meaning of individual freedom, a philosophical idea that became a force for violent change. A powerful narrative and a brilliant defense of American values, Revolution Song makes the compelling case that the American Revolution is still being fought today and that its ideals are worth defending.

A book signing will follow the lecture. Books can be purchased at the event. Registration is recommended for this event. Please call (518) 486-3694 to reserve a seat. Read more.

This program is organized by the New York State Office of Cultural Education, with additional support by the New York State Writers Institute.

November 16 (Thursday): John Freeman Gill, journalist and novelist
Reading/Discussion — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
John Freeman Gill, The New York Times contributor, is the author of the debut novel The Gargoyle Hunters (2017), a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers Pick.” A deeply emotional story of a father and son and the obsession that drives their relationship, the novel solves the mystery of a brazen and seemingly impossible architectural heist. In a review of the book author Colum McCann said Gill “strips the mask off New York City in this poignant, incisive, irreverent novel about fatherhood, art, obsession, creation, and destruction. … a wonderful, compelling debut.” Gill, an expert on historical architecture, writes “Edifice Complex,” a monthly column in Avenue that explores the biographies of historic New York City buildings and their occupants. Read more.

John Freeman Gill’s presentation is a featured public event of the University at Albany History Department’s annual Researching New York Conference and is cosponsored by the New York State Writers Institute. Further information on the entire Researching New York Conference is available at www.nystatehistory.org.

November 30 (Thursday): Hisham Matar, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Hisham Matar, Libyan-American novelist and nonfiction writer, received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography for his memoir, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between, an account of the author’s return to the Libya of his family’s origin, and his search for his missing father, a political activist who disappeared during the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. Michiko Kakutani said in The New York Times that Matar “writes with both a novelist’s eye for physical and emotional detail, and a reporter’s tactile sense of place and time.” His 2007 novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and his 2011 novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, was named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian and Chicago Tribune. Read more.

DECEMBER

December 1 (Friday): The Art of Still Photography on the Movie Set
Discussion with photographer Phillip Caruso — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall,
135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Phillip Caruso, one of the most sought-after still photographers in the motion picture industry, is known for his extensive work with Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Zemeckis, Terry Gilliam, and other leading directors. Caruso also served as actor Robert De Niro’s personal photographer for 18 films. Caruso’s challenge as a photographer is to tell a film’s story in the singular images that appear on movie posters and in the media. In 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society of Camera Operators. Read more.

December 7 (Thursday): Nic Stone, young adult author
Reading — 7:00 p.m., Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, Albany
Nic Stone is the author of the debut young adult novel Dear Martin (2017), which is loosely inspired by a series of true events involving the shooting deaths of unarmed African-American teenagers. Shaken by a personal run-in with the police, the book’s main character starts a journal to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in an attempt to determine if King’s teaching remains relevant in the modern world. YA superstar Jason Reynolds called the book, “"Raw and gripping....  An undeniably real feast of fury and forgiveness."
Cosponsored by Albany High School, the New York State Office of Cultural Education, and the Friends of the New York State Library. Read more.