Writers Institute season includes talks by Harding, Alvarez
Historical and political insiders, celebrated novelists, dramatic readings, film screenings and the 4th annual Albany Film Festival highlight the New York State Writers Institute’s spring season.
Fresh off its 40th anniversary year, the institute will welcome playwrights, authors and film professionals from various backgrounds and expertise.
“We have always placed a premium on presenting the highest literary quality, discovering new and diverse voices, and challenging our audiences with conversations about difficult subjects in a spirit of tolerance and respect,” said Paul Grondahl, Opalka Endowed Director of the institute. “Our blockbuster season celebrates the 180th anniversary of the founding of the University at Albany featuring superstars such as Paul Harding, Alice McDermott, Tracy Kidder, Lydia Davis, Julia Alverez, Elizabeth Benedict and Tracy K. Smith, former U.S. Poet
Laureate of the United States.”
Harding, a Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist, will kick off the season on Jan. 25 with a conversation on his newest novel, “This Other Eden.” Already gaining critical acclaim, it is based on the true story of a multiracial community that battled intolerance from their bastion off Maine’s coast. Harding is also known for “Tinkers,” which won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2010.
In the narrative realm, Alvarez, a poet and fiction writer who also inspired a Mattel Barbie in her honor, will have a conversation and reading on April 18 of “The Cemetery of Untold Stories,” to be released in April. Smith, the 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate, will be the guest speaker for the 2024 Annual McKinney Contest on April 19. Activist and author Alice Green and Amy Godine, an Adirondack historian, will jointly present a program on “Black Life in the North Woods” on March 14. David Wallace-Wells, a New York
Sam Harding