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2013 Schedule of Events
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Friday, April 26
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Friday 6:00 PM
The Firehouse Center
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Opening Ceremony—Imagination Soars!
Honoring Matthew Quick
The opening night ceremonies celebrating this year's theme, Imagination Soars! will honor Massachusetts author Matthew Quick, whose Silver Linings Playbook earned eight Oscar nominations, highlighting mental health issues and injecting them into our national dialogue. The author of three Young Adult novels acclaimed for their humor, sensitivity and willingness to tackle difficult subjects, Quick knows firsthand the cathartic, healing powers of writing, especially for kids. Please join us for a fascinating discussion as Matthew Quick talks to Newburyport High English chairman Tom Abrams, some of his students, and the audience about the joys and challenges of the writing life.
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Friday 7:30 PM
Nicholson Hall
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Join us for Dinner with the Authors!
Tickets $50.00 at the door or online
Buffet, cash bar and 50/50 raffle.
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Saturday, April 27
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Poetry
Saturday 8:30 AM
Central Congregational Church Social Hall
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Coffee with the Poets
Coffee with the Poets kicks off the eighth Newburyport Literary Festival with the traditional blend of coffee, tea and poetry. This event will feature readings of new works by four members of Newburyport's distinguished Powow River Poets—Michael Cantor, David Davis, Rhina Espaillat and Don Kimball. Book signing will follow the readings: Join us!
Presenters: Michael Cantor, David Davis, Rhina Espaillat, Don Kimball
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Nonfiction
Saturday 9:00 AM
Firehouse Center
for the Arts
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Da Vinci’s Ghost
Everybody knows the image, but nobody knows its story. In 1490, Leonardo da Vinci produced his iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square: Vitruvian Man. Today the image appears on everything from coffee cups and T-shirts to corporate logos and spacecraft, and has become the world’s most famous cultural icon. In Da Vinci’s Ghost, Toby Lester tells the picture’s story, weaving together a saga of people and ideas that sheds surprising new light on the life and work of Leonardo, one of history’s most fascinating figures.
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NonFiction
Saturday 9:00 AM
Old South Church
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The Power of Family, The Power of Words
Mira Bartok and Carolyn Roy-Bornstein discuss their memoirs, Mira's about growing up with a mentally ill mother as seen through the prism of her own traumatic brain injury, and Carolyn's about her son's traumatic brain injury, suffered at the hands of a drunk driver, and her own journey as a pediatrician-mom. Both memoirs celebrate the healing power of love and the triumph of the written word.
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Fiction
Saturday 9:00 AM
Old South Church
– Social Hall
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The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D by Nichole Bernier
Summer vacation on Great Rock Island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who’d lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth's journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother Kate thought she knew. Join Nichole Bernier for a reading from her debut novel.
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Fiction
Saturday 9:00 AM
Unitarian Universalist Church
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Necessary Evils: A Conversation about the Writing Life
with Mystery Authors Linda Barnes and Barbara Shapiro
What does it take to write a novel? Months or even years of hard work, of course. But there are other challenges in the writing life. Join mystery authors Linda Barnes and Barbara Shapiro as they discuss the creative process, their latest novels, and how their friendship helps them navigate the “necessary evils” of writing and publishing.
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Fiction
Saturday 9:00 AM
Newburyport
Art Association
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Myfanwy Collins reads from I Am Holding Your Hand
A woman has sex with her dead mother's husband. A child sleeps in a makeshift nest. A sister betrays a sister. A woman takes on the persona of a dead prostitute. All are in search of something that eludes them: an acknowledgement of a shared past, the fulfillment of a secret desire, a tenuous connection made whole. In I Am Holding Your Hand, a variety of tender, stark and sometimes very lost souls discover a reason to live through their capacity to see beauty in the everyday. And instead of coming to conclusions, they discover a way to begin again.
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Fiction
Saturday 9:00 AM
The Book Rack
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Sneak Preview: The Realm of Last Chances by Steve Yarbrough
The New York Times Book Review says “Steve Yarbrough writes with quiet compassion…[about] what it means to be an American, and all the unexpected—and often unwarranted—sacrifices that identity might entail.” Join Steve as he reads from his forthcoming novel, The Realm of Last Chances, which will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in the summer of 2013.
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Fiction
Saturday 9:00 AM
Jabberwocky Bookshop
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Maryanne O'Hara reads from Cascade
Desdemona Hart Spaulding was an up-and-coming Boston artist when she married in haste and settled in the small, once-fashionable theater town of Cascade to provide a home for her dying father. Now Cascade is on the short list to be flooded to provide water for Boston, and Dez’s discontent is complicated by her growing attraction to a fellow artist. When tragic events unfold, Dez is forced to make difficult choices. Must she keep her promises? Is it morally possible to set herself free?
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Children / Grades 2-6
Saturday 9:00 AM
Children's Room, Newburyport
Public Library
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Clay Creations Sculpting Workshop
For more than 20 years, Newburyport artist Ann McCrea has engaged children in CLAY•WORKS programs designed to enliven reading themes. As McCrea reads her Sophia, the Spotted Turtle, based on MacArthur “genius” award winner David Carroll's The Year of the Turtle and Swampwalker, kids will hear how Sophia emerges from hibernation, uses the sun to refuel her energy, hunts for food in a vernal pool, plays the mating game with two rival males, then provides for the next generation as she digs to bury her eggs. After a brief sculpting demonstration, kids will create their own terra cotta clay turtles which they can later paint at home.
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Poetry
Saturday 10:00 AM
Central Congregational Church Social Hall
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The Poetry of Rafael Campo and January O'Neil
Many people, from some Native American cultures to the ancient Greeks, joined performative language and healing. Rafael Campo's reading will explore this age-old connection, as he shares poems from his experience as a physician that ask us to be present in confronting affliction and human suffering.
January O'Neil, curently Executive Director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, will read from her first poetry collection, Underlife. Her poems encounter the extraordinary in the ordinary, and have earned warm praise from fellow poets such as Natasha Trethewey.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 10:00 AM
Firehouse Center
for the Arts
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Instant: The Story of Polaroid
Founded in 1937, Polaroid has been described as the Apple of its day. Polaroid was on the cutting edge of technology and consumer design for half a century, and few companies have loomed as large in greater Boston. Join author Christopher Bonanos for a lively discussion about Polaroid’s remarkable history: From its first instant camera in 1948, its rise in popularity and adoption by artists such as Ansel Adams and Andy Warhol, its decline into bankruptcy in the late 1990s, and its unlikely resurrection in the digital age.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 10:00 AM
C A N C E L L E D
Old South Church
Social Hall
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The $60,000 Dog – My Life With Animals
The $60,000 Dog is Lauren Slater’s intimate manifesto on the unique, invaluable, and often essential contributions animals make to our lives. As a psychologist, reporter, and amateur naturalist, she draws us into stories about her passion for animals, which are so much more than pets. Without apology, she describes her intense love for the animals in her life, arguing that the works of Darwin and other evolutionary biologists prove that when it comes to worth, animals are equal—and in some senses even superior—to human beings.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 10:00 AM
Newburyport
Art Association
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Accidental Immigrants and the Search for Home
The effect of immigration on individual lives is far reaching. Those who stay permanently in an adopted country go through a continual process of learning about both their new country and themselves. In conversation with journalist Dyke Hendrickson (Franco-Americans of Maine, Quiet Presence: Stories of Franco-Americans of New England), anthropologist and author Carol Kelley will discuss how immigrants find a sense of belonging, identity and home. Kelley’s research is based on the life stories of four women who emigrated from and moved to a variety of countries, including New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Canada, Iran, France and the United States. Though different in many aspects, the women’s stories illustrate the similarities inherent in any experience of transition and adjustment - and also show how understanding immigrant life can give insights into the transitions we all face as we go through our adult lives.
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Fiction
Saturday 10:00 AM
The Book Rack
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John Harrison Smolens reads from Quarantine
The year is 1796, and a trading ship arrives in the vibrant trading town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. But it's a ghost ship--her entire crew has been decimated by a virulent fever which sweeps through the harbor town, and Newburyport's residents start to fall ill and die with alarming haste. Isolation leads to the darker side of human nature in John Harrison Smolens’s latest novel.
Presenter: John Harrison Smolens
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Fiction
Saturday 10:00 AM
Jabberwocky Bookshop
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Lisa Genova reads from Love Anthony
Olivia Donatelli’s dream of a “normal” life was shattered when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. He didn’t speak. He hated to be touched. He almost never made eye contact. And just as Olivia was starting to realize that happiness and autism could coexist, Anthony was gone. Now she’s alone on Nantucket, desperate to find meaning in her son’s short life, when a chance encounter with another woman brings Anthony alive again in a most unexpected way. In a piercing story about motherhood, autism, and love, Lisa Genova offers us two unforgettable women who discover the small but exuberant voice that helps them both find the answers they need.
Presenter: Lisa Genova
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Children
Middle Grades
Saturday 10:00 AM
Program Room, Newburyport
Public Library
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Imagine It So: The Art of Digitized Illustrations
Technology wizard/author David Biedrzycki's program gives kids an exciting glimpse into the process he uses to imagine and develop ideas into stories. Kids will be fascinated to see how Biedrzycki creates almost all of his work digitally, nurturing ideas that start with drawings, then adding words as the magical process begins. It's a visually fun, fast-moving program geared to engage and inspire creativity. Featured will be Biedrzycki's Me and My Dragon, Ace Lacewing Bug Detective, and a peek at Bear Alert, due out next January.
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Children
Ages 3 - 7
Saturday 10:30 AM
Children's Room, Newburyport
Public Library
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The Name Game
Bring young listeners to hear author Jane Sutton read her engaging picture book Don't Call Me Sidney, about an earnest, big-hearted pig who decides to become a poet. Dismayed that the only rhyme for his name is kidney, Sidney changes his name to the more lyrical Joe, with amusing consequences. Post reading, Jane will lead her young audience in fun, interactive rhyming activities.
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Poetry
Saturday 11:00 AM
Central Congregational Church Social Hall
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The Poetry of John Ridland and David Slavitt
John Ridland will read from his new book, Happy in an Ordinary Thing, in which the emphasis is on happy and ordinary, and how the first is usually tinged with its opposite, and the second, in poems, needs a twist to be rightly perceived. He will also read selections from his new translation of the Middle English masterpiece, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and one or two translations from Hungarian.
David Slavitt will read poems from his forthcoming volume, Civil Wars; from his most recent poetry collection, The Seven Deadly Sins; and from his translations, which include The Sonnets and Shorter Poems of Francesco Petrarch; and Three Greenlandic Poets.
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Fiction
Saturday 11:00 AM
Firehouse Center
for the Arts
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This is How You Lose Her: Junot Díaz
Pulitzer prize winner Junot Díaz reads from his stunning new collection of stories about love and longing. Told from the point of view of New Jersey Dominicans, This is How You Lose Her is steeped in the language and the rhythms of working-class latino life.
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Fiction
Saturday 11:00 AM
Old South Church
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Historical Fiction Beyond Royalty: Artists and Musicians Can Be Bestsellers, too
The three panelists have featured the arts in their historical novels rather than the traditional royalty, politics and wars. They will explore the difficulties of researching artistic icons of a bygone era and how much their own arts life experience, if any, weighed in their decision to focus on Mozart and Monet (Stephanie Cowell) Liszt and Haydn (Susanne Dunlap), and the fictional Massachusetts artist Dez and her love of Shakespeare (Maryanne O'Hara).
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Nonfiction
Saturday 11:00 AM
Old South Church – Social Hall
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Too Good to Be True: A Memoir
In the early 1970s, when Benjamin Anastas was three, he found himself in his mother’s fringe-therapy group in Massachusetts with a sign around his neck: “Too Good to Be True.” The phrase haunted him throughout his life, even after his 1999 novel, An Underachiever’s Diary, brought him the literary acclaim he’d been seeking. Too Good to Be True is his deeply moving memoir of fathers and sons, crushing debt and infidelity—and the first, cautious steps taken toward piecing a life back together.
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Fiction
Saturday 11:00 AM
Unitarian Universalist Church
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Sustaining Momentum: The Art of the Short Story
“If I had more time, I would have written less,” is a variation on a popular quote. Short stories must build characters, describe setting, and create plot within a few brief pages—all without losing the reader’s interest. Join three masters of the craft for an insightful discussion about the exacting art of the short story.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 11:00 AM
Newburyport
Art Association
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On the Trail of Newburyport
Local author and preservationist Ghlee Woodworth (Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, Oak Hill Cemetery) and Boston Globe correspondent Joel Brown (Essex Coastal Byway Guide) will discuss the new Clipper Heritage Trail in Newburyport, how the city fits into the Essex Coastal Scenic Byway, and the ways that our local history shapes our future.
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Fiction
Saturday 11:00 AM
The Book Rack
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Linda Barnes reads from The Perfect Ghost
In this standalone novel from the author of the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, Linda Barnes introduces Em Moore. Fearful and shy to the point of agoraphobic, Em is the writing half of the successful celebrity-biography team, T.E. Blakemore. Her charismatic partner, Teddy Blake, does the interviewing, the negotiating, and the public glad-handing. But when Teddy dies in a car accident, the only way Em can cope with his loss is to finish their current project – an “autobiography” of the renowned and reclusive film director Garrett Malcolm. She soon senses trouble between Malcolm and one of his former stars, and she hears whispers of skeletons in the Malcolm family closet. When the police begin looking into the accident that killed Teddy, Em’s control on her life – tenuous at best – is threatened.
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Fiction
Saturday 11:00 AM
Jabberwocky Bookshop
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Bill Roorbach's Life Among Giants
David “Lizard” Hochmeyer’s future seems all but assured until his parents are mysteriously murdered, leaving Lizard and his older sister, Kate, adrift and alone. Sylphide, the world’s greatest ballerina, lives across the pond from their Connecticut home, in a mansion the size of a museum, and it turns out that her rock star husband’s own disasters have intersected with Lizard’s—and Kate’s—in the most intimate and surprising ways.
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Children
Ages 9-13
Saturday 11:00 AM
Program Room, Newburyport
Public Library
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Fantasy and the Power of Place
Christine Brodien-Jones is the author of middle-grade fantasy novels The Owl Keeper (2010), The Scorpions of Zahir (2012) and the forthcoming The Glass Puzzle (July 2013). The Scorpions of Zahir, called “a wild ride indeed” by Kirkus, has been compared to Indiana Jones (Booklist) and Treasure Island (VOYA). Fantasy fans will enjoy joining Brodien-Jones as she leads readers on a fantastic trip through her imagination, illustrating how her ideas take flight and become books.
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Children
Grades K-3
Saturday 11:30 AM
Program Room, Newburyport
Public Library
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Set Imaginations Moving
Storyteller Irene Smalls awakens the brain and illustrates the imagination. Young audience members will have fun playing a 1950s street game, taking a walk, and singing songs. Presenting highlights from her books Irene and the Big Fine Nickel, Jonathan and His Mommy,The Johnankus and Dawn and the Round To-it, Smalls' infectious rhythms will get feet, young and old, dancing to the beat of the Jonkonnu finale celebration.
Presenter: Irene Smalls
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Poetry
Saturday 1:00 PM
Central Congregational Church Social Hall
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The Poetry of Freddy Frankel and Afaa Michael Weaver
Freddy Frankel will read from In a Stone's Hollow, his book dealing with South Africa (his birthplace) and World War II; from his book, Wrestling Angels, which deals with biblical and historical figures; and poems from a current manuscript focussed on aging.
Afaa Michael Weaver will read from his new book, The Government of Nature, and from The Wisconsin Project, an unpublished chapbook-length manuscript.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 1:00 PM
Firehouse Center
for the Arts
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Temperament: How Music Became A Battleground For The Great Minds Of Western Civilization
In his groundbreaking book, writer, pianist, and composer Stuart Isacoff recounts fierce battles over music that engaged philosophers, popes, scientists, musicians, and artists—including such thinkers as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, and Sir Isaac Newton—across many centuries. At the center of these fights was a fundamental question: Does God have rules governing how we should select the notes of our musical scale? On one side were those who insisted that Mother Nature instructs us in the ways of musical harmony; on the other, rebels—like Galileo’s father, Vincenzo—who risked the ire of powerful authorities by asserting that such issues were simply a matter of subjective taste. The New York Times Book Review declared: “Isacoff untangles the complexities of this issue with the aplomb of a virtuoso pianist playing scales.”
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Nonfiction
Saturday 1:00 PM
Old South Church
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The Best American Essays
Essays appear in magazines, newspapers, and blogs. But how does an essay differ from other forms of writing? What makes a good essay topic? Join contributors to The Best American Essays series as they examine this often misunderstood genre.
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Poetry
Saturday 1:00 PM
Old South Church – Social Hall
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Annual Youth Poetry Slam
All ages are invited to witness the fast-paced competition of the Youth Poetry Slam, an annual tradition drawn straight from the heart of Chicago's Green Mill. Defined as “the art of competitive performance poetry," this modern oral tradition gives poets a limited amount of time to impress judges selected from the audience, while other audience members are strongly encouraged to participate by cheering, whistling, or mildly heckling the hosts or judges. Adults and kids alike learn the power of a single word, line, or figure of speech when spoken aloud: Parents of young listeners should keep in mind that slam can be a spontaneous and uncensored art form. Youth poets ages 14-20 should bring at least two poems to sign up and compete in this open slam! Unaffiliated audience members may be invited to judge the event. Hosted by Boston Poetry SlamMaster Simone Beaubien.
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Fiction
Saturday 1:00 PM
Unitarian Universalist Church
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Sneak Preview: Dirty Love with Andre Dubus III
Be one of the first to hear Andre Dubus III read from his upcoming book, Dirty Love, a collection of linked novellas due out in the fall of 2013.
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Fiction
Saturday 1:00 PM
Newburyport
Art Association
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Sara J. Henry reads from A Cold and Lonely Place
Freelance writer Troy Chance is snapping photos of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace when the ice-cutting machine falls silent. Encased in the ice is the shadowy outline of a body—a man she knows. One of her roommates falls under suspicion, and the media descends. Troy's assigned to write an in-depth feature on the dead man, who turns out to be the privileged son of a wealthy Connecticut family who had been playing at a blue collar life in this Adirondack village. In this sequel to Learning to Swim, Troy embarks on a powerful emotional journey as she discovers the damage wrought by long-hidden secrets.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 1:00 PM
The Book Rack
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Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man
In Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man, bestselling author Jay Atkinson describes his thirty-five year odyssey in the sport: From his rough and rowdy days at the University of Florida, through the intrigue of various foreign tours, club championships, and all star selections, up to his current stint with the Vandals Rugby Club out of Los Angeles. Jay has suffered three broken ribs, a detached retina, a fractured cheekbone and orbital bone, four deadened teeth, and a dislocated ankle. Join him to find out why he believes it was all worth it!
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Nonfiction
Saturday 1:00 PM
Jabberwocky Bookshop
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The Choke Artist: Confessions of a Chronic Underachiever
In this brutally honest collection of often cringe-inducing episodes, David Yoo perfectly captures the cycle of failure and fear from childhood through adulthood. Whether he's wearing four layers of clothing to artificially beef up his slim frame, routinely testing highlighters against his forearm to see if he indeed has yellow skin, or preemptively sabotaging promising relationships to avoid being compared to former boyfriends, Yoo celebrates and skewers the insecurities of anxious people everywhere.
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Young Adult
Ages 12+
Saturday 1:00 PM
Program Room, Newburyport Public Library
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Calling All Horse Lovers
Join author Linda Snow McLoon as she discusses the first two books in the Brookmeade Young Riders series, Crown Prince and Crown Prince Challenged. McLoon will chronicle her background in the horse world, sharing interesting anecdotes about the special horses in her life through an illustrated Power Point presentation. Members of youth horse organizations such as the U.S. Pony Club and horse 4-H clubs, along with all horse lovers, won't want to miss this.
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Poetry
Saturday 2:00 PM
Central Congregational Church Social Hall
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The Poetry of Charles Coe and Mimi White
Sometimes, the lives of those closest to us offer the greatest mysteries. Please join Charles Coe as he reads from and discusses his just-released volume, All Sins Forgiven: Poems for My Parents.
Mimi White will read from her recently-published haibun, Memory Won't Save Me, which has been nominated for a Pushcart Award. She will then open the room up to a Q/A about the haibun form, and how she found it the perfect form for writing about the loss of her father.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 2:30 PM
Firehouse Center
for the Arts
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The Best Food Writing
In her Introduction to the Best Food Writing 2012, series editor Holly Hughes notes: “When it comes to food, our entire society seems to be a battleground these days. Americans were once known as a nation of slapdash, thoughtless eaters; now it almost seems we think about nothing else. On the one hand, we obsess over food as entertainment, fetishizing ‘decadent’ desserts and all-you-can-eat buffets and trophy high-end dining. On the other, we relentlessly worry about nutrition, health, and the environmental impact of what we eat.”
Join Holly and contributors to the series as they discuss how food writers have become more and more indispensable as guides to this shifting gastronomic landscape.
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Nonfiction
Saturday 2:30 PM
Old South Church
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The Writer's Perspective: An Honest Conversation About Mental Health
Matthew Quick and Evan Roskos write honest, empathetic and funny Young Adult novels dealing with the complex issues surrounding mental health in America today.
Matthew Quick's Silver Linings Playbook spawned an Academy Award nominated movie. Kirkus hails Evan Roskos' new novel, Dr. Bird's Advice For Sad Poets saying, “Self-deprecating humor abounds in this debut novel that pulls no punches about the experience of depression and anxiety...” Please join their conversation on the role of mental health (or lack of) in their lives and books. They'll highlight the therapeutic value of writing (or creating art) and the importance of dialoguing with friends who understand. The ideal take-away is this: If you're dealing with depression, anxiety, and/or any other mental health related issue, you're not alone. Using their friendship and work as examples, Quick and Roskos offer solid steps you can take to improve your life.
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Fiction
Saturday 2:30 PM
Unitarian Universalist Church
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What's Wrong with the Real World? A Fantastic Conversation About Fantasy
Fantasy is hot. So what explains the rise of this genre -- be it pure swords and sorcery epics about hobbits and quests, or some fantasy/science fictional/dystopian/steampunk hybrid? What elements go into a believable, make-believe universe? And what's so wrong with the real world, anyway? Join Ethan Gilsdorf author of the award-winning travel memoir pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, and Max Gladstone author of the magical-urban-fantasy-legal-thriller Three Parts Dead, in conversation to discuss the ascendancy of all things fantasy -- from Tolkien to Harry Potter, along with associated topics such as gaming, balrogs, the genre divide, and dice collections. Discussion, reading and Q&A.
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Fiction
Saturday 2:30 PM
Newburyport
Art Association
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Joan Wickersham reads from The News from Spain:
Seven Variations on a Love Story
In these seven beautifully wrought variations on a theme, a series of characters trace and retrace eternal yet ever-changing patterns of love and longing, connection and loss. The stories range over centuries and continents—from 18th-century Vienna, where Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte are collaborating on their operas, to America in the 1940s, where a love triangle unfolds among a doctor, a journalist, and the president’s wife. Wickersham shows how we never really know what’s in someone else’s heart, or in our own; how we continually try to explain others and to console ourselves; and how love, like storytelling, is ultimately a work of the imagination.
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Fiction
Saturday 2:30 PM
The Book Rack
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William Landay reads from Defending Jacob
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student. Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe and The Kansas City Star all called Defending Jacob one of the best books of 2012.
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Fiction
Saturday 2:30 PM
Jabberwocky Bookshop
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Peter Orner reads from Love and Shame and Love
Covering four generations of the Popper family, Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us. A comic and sorrowful tapestry of memory of connection and disconnection, Love and Shame and Love explores the universals with stunning originality and wisdom. Orner is also the author of Esther Stories newly re-issued this month with a foreword by Marilynne Robinson.
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Poetry
Saturday 3:00 PM
Central Congregational Church Social Hall
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Sparring with the Sun: Poets and the Ways We Think about Poetry in the Late Days of Modernism
Jan Schreiber argues convincingly that the strongest and most lasting poems were written in meter, rather than the free verse that dominated the scene for much of the period. With fresh looks at the work of Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Howard Nemerov, Anthony Hecht, W. D. Snodgrass, and Richard Wilbur, Jan Schreiber give readers new insights into the strategies poets use to fuse sound and sense together in memorable ways. Join Jan for an engaging discussion of the functions of poetry in a diverse, contentious, and changing society.
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Fiction
Saturday 4:00 PM
The Book Rack
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Barbara Shapiro reads from The Art Forger
In 1990, thirteen works of art worth over $500 million today were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history. In The Art Forger, a struggling young artist named Claire Roth agrees to forge a painting—one of the Degas masterpieces stolen from the Gardner Museum—in exchange for a one-woman show in a renowned gallery. But when the long-missing Degas painting—the one that had been hanging for 100 years at the Gardner—is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery.
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Fiction
Saturday 4:00 PM
Jabberwocky Bookshop
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Alan Lightman reads from Mr g: A Novel About the Creation
Alan Lightman, the internationally bestselling author of Einstein's Dreams, presents Mr g, a celebration of the highs and lows of existence, on the grandest possible scale: the story of Creation, as told by God. Before time existed, Mr g woke up from a nap and decided to create the universe. He creates time, space, and matter. Soon follow stars, planets, animate matter, consciousness, and intelligent beings with moral dilemmas. But the creation of space and time has unintended consequences, including the arrival of Belhor, a clever and devious rival. As Mr g’s favorite universe grows, he discovers how an act of creation can change everything in the world—including the creator himself.
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Saturday 7:00 PM
Firehouse Center
for the Arts
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Closing Ceremony
Sue Little and Friends: The Future of the Book
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