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Writing Symposium

Literary Itinerary by Carole Flynn

2010 Author Events: Appearances, Readings, Book Signings, and Lectures in Connecticut (and a few noteworthy author appearances nearby in Massachusetts)

JANUARY 
Listings compiled by Carole Flynn

T.C. BOYLE: Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010.  RJ Julia Bookstore, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT.  7:00 pm.  Join T. Coraghessan Boyle, the prolific author of twenty books of fiction, including After the Plague, Drop City, The Inner Circle, Tooth and Claw, The Human Fly, Talk Talk, and most recently, The Women. Boyle has been a member of the English Dept. at the University of Southern California since 1978. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, The Paris Review, GQ, Granta and McSweeney's; he has been the recipient of numerous literary awards.  His will discuss his newest book, Wild Child.  A feral child, a catastrophic mudslide, and a cloned Afghan are just a few of the subjects of this collection of short stories. Tickets for this event are $5 which can be used toward the purchase of the book through RJ Julia. For more information: http://www.rjjulia.com

T.C. Boyle's website: http://www.tcboyle.com/

FEBRUARY 
Listings compiled by Carole Flynn

FARAI CHIDEYA: Monday, Feb. 1, 2010.  Yale University, Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall Street, Room 2008, 4:00 pm.  Free.  "A Conversation with Farai Chideya."  Farai’s work includes television political commentary for networks and shows including CNN, MSNBC, BET, and HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Her goal is to tell the stories of how national politics affects real people.  An experienced field reporter, Chideya covered the devastation in the Gulf following Hurricane Katrina. She knows what it means to get the story from those living it. She often revisits those she profiles to update readers, viewers, or listeners. To Farai, it’s just as important to see what happens to people in the long run as it is to cover breaking news. Chideya has written for Time, O, Vibe, and Glamour. Chideya was formerly the host of NPR’s award-winning national daily radio show "News and Notes" from 2006-2009. Farai Chideya's website: http://www.faraichideya.com/meet-farai/ 

DANI SHAPIRO: Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010.  RJ Julia Bookstore, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT.  7:00 pm.  Join Dani Shapiro author of Playing with Fire, Fugitive Blue, Picturing the Wreck, Black & White, Family History: A Novel, and the best-selling memoir Slow Motion.  Dani will discuss her latest memoir, Devotion.  Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, Elle, Bookforum, Oprah, Ploughshares, and have been broadcast on National Public Radio. She is a contributing editor at Travel & Leisure and guest editor of Best New American Voices 2010.  Tickets for this event are $5 which can be used toward the purchase of the book through RJ Julia. For more information: http://www.rjjulia.com

Dani Shapiro's website: http://danishapiro.com/

COLUM McCANN:  Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010.  Fairfield University, Barone Campus Center, Oak Room, 1073 N. Benson Rd., Fairfield, CT.  7:00 pm. McCann is the 2009 National Book Award Winner for his best-selling novel Let The Great World Spin which weaves together a panoramic array of disparate stories and voices.  Inspired by Phillipe Petit's infamous real-life tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in 1974, Let the Great World Spin opens with this moment of unfathomable risk and beauty and from there spins together the lives of the searching and lonely people scattered below, 110 stories back down on the ground.  McCann is the author of two collections of short stories and five novels including Dancer and Zoli. In 2003, McCann was named Esquire Magazine's "Writer of the Year." He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. His short film "Everything in this Country Must" was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005. McCann's fiction has been published in the New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and GQ. Born in Dublin, McCann began his career as a journalist with The Irish Press. McCann teaches at Hunter College in New York in the Creative Writing program. Colum's appearance inlcudes a reading and book-signing as part of the University's Inspired Writer/Distinguished Author Series. Free.  Reservations are suggested and can be made by calling 203-254-4110.  For more information: http://www.fairfield.edu/students/notice.html?id=1321&TB_iframe=true

AMY BLOOM: Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010, Westport Public Library, McManus Room, 20 Jesup Road, Westport, CT. 7:30 pm.  Free.  Author Amy Bloom will discuss her new book, a collection of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. Love, in its many forms and complexities, weaves through this collection by this New York Times bestselling author of Away. Bloom's new work of interconnected stories illuminates the mysteries of passion, family, and friendship. Trained as a social worker, Bloom has practiced psychotherapy and is currently a part-time lecturer of Creative Writing at the department of English at Yale University. Bloom is co-writer and co-executive producer of the Lifetime Television network show, State of Mind, which takes a look at the professional lives of psychiatrists. Bloom has been nominated for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In addition to novels, Bloom has written articles in periodicals including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, Slate, and Salon.com. Her short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories and several other anthologies. For more info: www.westportlibrary.org

Amy Bloom's website: http://www.amybloom.com

EUGENE ROBINSON: Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010. Quinnipiac University, Alumni Hall, 275 Mount Carmel Avenue, Hamden, CT. 7:00 pm. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eugene Robinson, who earned the industry's most prestigious award for his Washington Post commentary on the 2008 presidential race, will deliver the address, "We're Someplace We've Never Been: Race, Diversity and the New America." Robinson has ascended to reporting excellence and has been shattering racial barriers throughout his impressive career.  During his 25-years at the Post, Robinson has served as a city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor and assistant managing editor for the Post's Style section. He also writes a twice-weekly column for the Post about American society.  As news broke over the past quarter century, Robinson was involved in reporting it.  Robinson has written books about race in Brazil and music in Cuba. He has covered a heavyweight championship fight, witnessed riots in Philadelphia, and a murder trial deep within the Amazon. He has sat with presidents, dictators, and the Queen of England just to name a few of his legendary encounters. For tickets/more information: call 203-582-8652.

Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/eugene+robinson/

ANNE FARROW: Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010, Hartford History Center at the Hartford Public Library (Downtown Branch), Third Floor, 500 Main Street, Hartford, CT. 2:00-3:30 pm.  Meet Anne Farrow, veteran journalist and co-author of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery. Nominated several times for the Pulitzer Prize, she is now an editor for the Encyclopedia of Connecticut History Online, a project of the Connecticut Humanities Council, the Office of the State Historian, and a consortium of Connecticut libraries and museums. She is at work on a new book about slavery and New England memory, based on the log of an 18th century New London slave ship.  Contact www.hplct.org/ for more info.

National Public Radio Link to Complicity: http://forum-network.org/lecture/complicity-how-north-profited-slavery

LIZ WELCH: Wed., Feb. 17th, 2010.  Fairfield Public Library (Woods Branch), 1147 Fairfield Woods Road, Fairfield, CT.  7:00 pm.  Free. Liz Wood discusses her memoir The Kids are All Right. Told in four voices, this book deals with four siblings loss, first losing their parents at young ages, and then losing one another as each was sent to live with different families. Set in the 1980s in Bedford, New York, this a story about resiliency and the strength of sibling love. Told in the four voices of the Welch kids, this book has been unanimously acclaimed by People Magazine, O Magazine, and Kirkus. For more info: www.fairfieldpubliclibrary.org

Liz Welch's website: http://lizwelch.com/

WALLACE STEVENS TRIBUTE: Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010.  Anchor Bar's Mermaid Room, 272 College St., New Haven, CT. Time: TBD. A Tribute to Wallace Stevens with work by poets including Richard Deming.  This event is part of The Ordinary Evening Readers' Series where drinkers and teetotallers alike are welcome for an evening of readings by writers of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Please join us for what the New Haven Independent called "one of those unofficial civic ventures that make New Haven such a vibrant place."

JAMES McGRATH MORRIS: Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010.  RJ Julia Bookstore, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT.  7:00 pm.  Renowned author James McGrath Morris will discuss Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power–a look at how Joseph Pulitzer impacted history. Morris will be introduced by Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize winner, for The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher. Tickets for this event are $5 which may be used toward the purchase of his book through RJ Julia. For more information: http://www.rjjulia.com

James McGrath Morris's website: http://www.jamesmcgrathmorris.com/

CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY: Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010.  Yale University, Branford College, 74 High Street, Branford Common Room, New Haven, CT.  7:00 pm.  Buckley, an American political satirist, is the author of several novels including God Is My Broker, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat a First Lady, Wet Work, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, Supreme Courtship, and, most recently, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, the story of coming to grips with the loss of his famous parents, William F. Buckley Jr. and Patricia Buckley.  Free.  For more details: http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/colleges/branford/

Christopher Buckley's website: http://www.twelvebooks.com/books/losing_mum_pup.asp

MARCH

Listings compiled by Carole Flynn

GERRI HIRSHEY: March 9, 2010.  Borders Books, 470 Lewis Ave, Meriden, CT.  7:00 pm.  A discussion and signing of: Trust the Dog: Rebuilding Lives with Teamwork from Man's Best Friend.  This book is a collaborative effort of The Fidelco Guide Foundation staff. Explore the profound and awe-inspiring relationship between guide dogs and the people who thrive with their help. Seasoned writer Gerri Hirshey reveals the world of these unique German Shepherds, how they are trained and raised, and the indescribable impact they've had on so many lives. The Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation is New England's only guide dog school and is dedicated to promoting increased independence for men and women who are blind.

JEFF SHESOL: Wednesday, March 24, 2010. Wesport Public Library, McManus Room, 20 Jesup Road, Westport, CT. Noon.  Free.  Jeff Shesol, a former speechwriter to President Bill Clinton and the author of Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud That Defined a Decade, will discuss his new book, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. “Once in a generation a groundbreaking book comes along to provide a major reinterpretation of a familiar historical event. Sheshol tells the story of FDR's court packing plan as it has never been told before. This is a stunning work of history.” — Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals.  For more info: www.westportlibrary.org
 

APRIL 
Listings compiled by Carole Flynn

JOHN TIERNEY: Wednesday, April 7, 2010.  Yale University, Calhoun College, 434 College Street, New Haven, CT.  7:00 pm.  Free. Join John Tierney who writes a science column, Findings, for the New York Times. Tierney wrote The Big City column which ran in the Times Magazine from 1994 to 2002. He wrote the Political Points column during the 2004 campaign and then wrote a column for the Op-Ed page. He is the author of The Best-Case Scenario Handbook, which explains, among other things, how to deal with a broken ATM spewing cash, how to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and even how to cope with a polite teenage child. Tierney is also the co-author, with Christopher Buckley, of the comic novel, God Is My Broker: A Monk Tycoon Reveals the 7 ½ Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth. A parody of self-help books, it has been translated for editions in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.  Prior to joining the Times, Mr. Tierney was a contributing editor to Discover and Health magazines. His reporting took him to six continents, and he published articles in The Atlantic, Esquire, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Reason, Rolling Stone, Washington Monthly, Playboy, Outside, Reader’s Digest, National Geographic Traveler, Vogue, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.  Tierney has won awards from American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics and the New York Publishers Association.

DAVID RHODES: Tuesday, April 13, 2010. West Hartford Town Hall Auditorium, 50 South Main Street, West Hartford, CT.  7:00 pm.  Rhodes was hailed as one of the best writers of his generation.  He published three novels in his twenties. Then, tragedy struck. Paralyzed in a motorcycle accident, he dropped off the map for 30 years. Four years ago, a young fan tracked him down, found he was still writing, and David Rhodes was rediscovered. He will read from his extraordinary new novel, Driftless.  Free. Sponsored by the Friends of the West Hartford Public Library. No reservations required for this annual Herbert Hoffman Memorial Author Lecture. Also featured, West Hartford Poet Laureate Dennis Barone. For more info: www.westhartfordlibrary.org

CHRIS BOHJALIAN: Tuesday, April 13, 2010.  Mandell Jewish Community Center, 335 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CT. 7:30 pm. $30. Chris Bohjalian is the critically acclaimed author of eleven novels including Skeleton at the Feast, a World War II love story and New York Times bestseller, as was The Double Bind, Before You Know Kindness, The Law of Similars, and Midwives. Secrets of Eden will be published in February 2010. Mr. Bohjalian won the 2002 New England Book Award.  Midwives was a New York Times bestseller, an Oprah Book Club selection, a Publishers Weekly "Best Book," and a New England Booksellers Association Discovery pick. His work has been translated into over 25 languages. Midwives and Past the Bleachers have been adapted for feature films.  Inspired by the actual diary of a friend's grandmother and research and interviews with Holocaust survivors, Skeletons at the Feast re-creates the crucible of Nazi Germany in its death throes and fills it with unforgettable characters. Order tickets via email: thejcc@mandelljcc.org.  

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS & JOHN F. HAUGHT:  Wednesday, April 21, 2010.  Fairfield University, Quick Center for the Arts, 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT.  8:00 pm.  Join Christopher Hitchens, journalist, literary critic, and author of God is Not Great and John F. Haught, a Senior Fellow at Woodstock Theological Center of Georgetown University for a lively discussion: "To Believe or Not to Believe."  Tickets: $45; available at www.quickcenter.com

ROBERT KRULWICH:  April 2010--date & time TBD.  Yale University, New Haven, CT.  Free. Join co-host of NPR's "Radio Lab" and correspondent for NPR's "Science Unit," Robert Krulwich as he discusses: "Saddam Hussein's Secret Octopus and other Tales of Science."  Appearing regularly on Nightline and ABC News, he also reports for ABC World News Tonight, Prime Time Live and Good Morning America.  His specialty is explaining complex news--economics, technology, and science--in a style that is clear, compelling and entertaining. A three-time Emmy Award-winner, he has explored the structure of DNA with a banana; on radio he created an Italian opera, “Ratto Interesso,” to explain how the Federal Reserve regulates interest rates; and he has pioneered the use of new animation on ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight to illustrate such things as price fluctuations in the housing market. He is a correspondent on the PBS investigative series, Frontline. His ABC Special on Barbie, a cultural history of the world famous doll, won an Emmy. In 1974, Krulwich covered the Watergate Hearings for Pacifica Radio and he was Washington bureau chief for Rolling Stone in 1976.