James Lasdun

REACHING OUT - SPRING 2012
Each semester the Writers Institute sponsors residencies of varying lengths by authors who have distinguished themselves both for their writing and their teaching. In tandem with these residencies free writing workshops are offered on a competitive basis to members of the community.

The Art of the Short Story Fiction Workshop
Offered by Writers Institute Fellow James Lasdun

New York State Writers Institute Fellow James Lasdun will conduct a writing workshop on the short story during the spring 2012 semester aimed at answering the question, What is the essential nature of the short story? Combining a close reading of classic short stories with an equally detailed attention to students’ work, this workshop will examine the peculiar mysteries of narrative economy and structural inventiveness that distinguish this most artful of literary forms. Each student will be expected to contribute two to four stories over the course of the workshop. Authors whose work will be studied will include Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, and Flannery O’Connor, as well as writers who will be appearing in the Institute’s Spring 2012 Visiting Writers Series.

The workshop is scheduled for eight Tuesday nights (February 21, 28, March 6, 20, April 10, 17, 24, May 1) from 6 to 9 p.m. In addition, individual student conferences will be scheduled. The class will take place on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. This workshop is offered for non-credit, free of charge for non-University students. Enrollment will be limited to ten to twelve students. To be considered, submit manuscripts to the Writers Institute according to the guidelines listed below. Due to the volume of manuscripts received from previous workshops, we must insist that you follow the guidelines exactly.

Guidelines for The Art of the Short Story Writing Workshop

  1. All manuscripts must be typewritten, double-spaced.

  2. All submissions must include a separate cover sheet with name, home address, work and home telephone numbers, and e-mail address.

  3. Submit 5–20 pages of fiction writing—a short story, part of a short story, or part of a novel. Include a brief statement (50–100 words) describing your interest in the short story and what you hope to learn by participating in this workshop. To insure a blind selection process, do not put your name on any of these pages.

  4. Be sure to keep a copy of your work as your manuscript will not be returned to you.

  5. University at Albany English Department graduate students are eligible to apply for this workshop. Auditing is not allowed.

  6. Manuscripts delivered in person will be accepted up until 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 1, 2012. Mailed manuscripts must be postmarked no later than Thursday, January 26, 2012. No faxes or e-mails.

  7. Notification of acceptance will be by Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Please do not call regarding the status of your manuscript. We regret that neither Mr. Lasdun nor the Institute can comment on manuscripts by writers not selected.

  8. Mail manuscripts to: Lasdun Short Story Workshop
    New York State Writers Institute    , University at Albany, SL 320
    1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY  12222

Writing About Science and Technology Nonfiction Workshop
Offered by Writers Institute Fellow James Lasdun

New York State Writers Institute Fellow James Lasdun will conduct a nonfiction workshop during the spring 2012 semester that will focus on writing about science and technology. Advances in science and technology have enormous impacts on our lives. The need to understand them is more urgent than ever and yet how can these often highly esoteric matters be made comprehensible to the general public?

This is a newly designed nonfiction workshop for people interested in writing about science and technology for a non-specialist audience. Discussion will focus on participants' own work, with attention paid to style, structure, angle of approach and other aspects of composition. We will also read a number of contemporary and historical texts in order to explore the many ways in which other writers have conveyed the excitements and complexities of science to lay readers. Authors examined will include Oliver Sacks, Richard Dawkins, Dava Sobel, and Natalie Angier.
 
The workshop is scheduled for eight Monday nights (March 19, 26, April 9, 16, 23, 30, May 7, 14) from 6 to 9 p.m. The class will take place on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. This workshop is offered for non-credit, free of charge for non-University students. Enrollment will be limited to ten to twelve students. To be considered, submit manuscripts to the Writers Institute according to the guidelines listed below. Due to the volume of manuscripts received from previous workshops, we must insist that you follow the guidelines exactly.

Guidelines for Writing About Science and Technology Nonfiction Workshop

  1. All manuscripts must be typewritten, double-spaced.

  2. All submissions must include a separate cover sheet with name, home address, work and home telephone numbers, and e-mail address.

  3. Submit 5–15 pages of any nonfiction writing outside of the traditional memoir frame. Include a brief statement (50–100 words) describing your interest in science and technology writing and what you hope to learn by participating in this workshop. To ensure a blind selection process, do not put your name on any of these pages.

  4. Be sure to keep a copy of your work as your manuscript will not be returned to you.

  5. University at Albany English Department graduate students are eligible to apply for this workshop. Auditing is not allowed.

  6. Manuscripts delivered in person will be accepted up until 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 22, 2012. Mailed manuscripts must be postmarked no later than Friday, February 17, 2012. No faxes or e-mails.

  7. Notification of acceptance will be by March 12, 2012. Please do not call regarding the status of your manuscript. We regret that neither Mr. Lasdun nor the Institute can comment on manuscripts by writers not selected.

  8. Mail manuscripts to: Lasdun Nonfiction Workshop
    New York State Writers Institute    , University at Albany, SL 320
    1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY  12222                                                                        

ualbany

CONTACT INFORMATION
Science Library, SL 320 | University at Albany, NY 12222 | Phone 518-442-5620 | Fax 518-442-5621 | email writers@uamail.edu

PREVIOUS WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE

James Lasdun
James Lasdun is a fiction writer, poet, and screenwriter. Born and raised in England, Lasdun has received awards and critical praise for his work on both sides of the Atlantic. Critic James Wood has said, “James Lasdun seems to me to be one of the secret gardens of English writing . . . When we read him we know what language is for.”

Lasdun’s recent short story, “An Anxious Man,” received the 2006 United Kingdom National Short Story Prize. His newest collection, It’s Beginning to Hurt: Stories, published in 2009, was one of “The Atlantic Monthly” top five books of 2009. In sharply evoked settings that range from the wilds of Northern Greece to the beaches of Cape Cod, these intensely dramatic tales chart the metamorphoses of their characters as they fall prey to the full range of human passions.

Lasdun first came to public attention with the publication of his story collection, The Silver Age (1985), published in the U. S. as Delirium Eclipse and Other Stories (1986). The collection earned him the Dylan Thomas Award. The Washington Post Book World called it “the most auspicious first collection of stories to come out of England” since the mid-1970s. Lasdun is also the author of The Siege and Other Stories (1999). The title story of that collection was the basis of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1998 film, Besieged.
Lasdun’s most recent novel is Seven Lies (2005), a political thriller about a former East German who, by a series of darkly comic and dangerous maneuvers, invents a perfect life for himself in the United States; inevitably, that life begins to unravel. Seven Lies was short-listed for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and long-listed for the Booker Prize. The Guardian reviewer called it, “a marvel — exciting, atmospheric and the best summation to date of what it felt like to grow up on the other side of the wall.”

Lasdun’s first novel, The Horned Man (2002), was a New York Times Notable Book and an Economist Best Book of the Year. The novel, which succeeds in being both comic and terrifying at once, is the story of a professor persecuted by a secret enemy, or perhaps by his own paranoid delusions. The London Sunday Times called it an “enormously inventive, superbly written novel [that] puts more seasoned authors in the shade.” The Washington Post called it, “unputdownable… a masterpiece of chilling mesmerizing control.”

Lasdun’s most recent poetry collection, Landscape with Chainsaw (2001), was short-listed for the T. S. Eliot Prize, and took first prize in the London Times Literary Supplement Poetry Competition.

He is also the author of two travel guides with his wife, Pia Davis, Walking and Eating in Provence (2008) and Walking and Eating in Tuscany and Umbria (1997).

Lasdun’s screenwriting credits also deserve mention. With director Jonathan Nossiter, Lasdun shared the Screenwriting Award for Sunday at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival (Sunday also received the Grand Jury Prize). Again with director Jonathan Nossiter, Lasdun co-wrote the screenplay of Signs and Wonders (2002) an “emotional thriller” about an American living in Athens who falls in love again with his wife after having an affair with another woman.

A Writing Fellow at the New York State Writers Institute, Lasdun has taught at a number of American universities, including the University at Albany, Columbia, Princeton, and The New School.