|
The celebration of the 20th anniversary of the New York State Writers Institute is underway
 |
| |
Dave Barry |
| |
|
UAlbany is showcasing the best of the literary arts during The Writing Semester, and all are invited to join the celebration. Pulitzer Prize winners Ellen Goodman, Dave Barry and a host of nationally known poets, authors, screenwriters, playwrights and journalists will be on campus to lecture, read, perform and participate in seminars and panel discussions. This special semester-long series of events is dedicated to the anniversary of the New York State Writers Institute, which has made its home at UAlbany for the past twenty years.
Founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and Executive Director, William Kennedy, the Institute brings some of the world�s best writers to the UAlbany campus. He founded the institute with part of a fellowship he received from the MacArthur Foundation that was matched by the University. In 1984, then Governor Mario M. Cuomo signed legislation creating the Institute. �Over the course of 20 years we have hosted over 600 artists, among them six Nobel Prize winners and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners, and have screened more than 500 films. And as long as artists continue to write and be heard, we will continue to showcase the very best that the literary arts have to offer,� said Kennedy.
 |
| |
Ellen Goodman |
�We not only give audiences a chance to hear readings by many of the world�s best authors, we also create an environment in which that audience can question, explore, and learn,� said Institute Director Donald Faulkner. �I guess you could say that we�ve fostered the �literary milieu� that we were charged to create.�
The idea for a theme semester that centered on the NYS Writers Institute was conceived by Kennedy and College of Arts and Sciences dean, Joan Wick-Pelletier.
�We wanted to feature and celebrate all sorts of writing � fiction, poetry, expository writing, journalism, film, criticism, theatre, text for music � all the elements that are integral to the curriculum of the College of Arts and Sciences,� said Wick-Pelletier. �We have a large and ever-increasing number of students who come to the University to take course in creative and journalistic writing. The Writing Semester is sure to spur them on.�
Besides visits by Goodman and Barry, The Writing Semester includes a dramatic adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Richard Russo�s novel Mohawk, the designation of the state author and state poet, readings by writers Richard Price, Iris Chang and Edwidge Danticat, and much more.
For more information about the New York State Writers Institute and The Writing Semester go to: www.albany.edu/writers-inst/writingsemester.html.
Recent Features: |
