Events
« February 11, 2010 - March 13, 2010 »
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02 / 11
Start: 7:00 pm
Join Porter Square Books for an evening of mystery. The readers will be:
Nancy Gardner developed a passion for writing crime fiction after retiring from technology education. Her short story, “Death By Soup,” won honorable mention in the 2006 Mystery/Suspense Contest sponsored by the New England Writers’ Network’s quarterly magazine. Another short story, “Birthday Bash,” was published in the Summer 2007 issue of the Mouth Full of Bullets. She’s currently working on a novel, introducing widowed witch and herbalist, Lily McLeod, who exposes a killer, stops a plot threatening homeless women, and learns to
rely on others, all during the madness of Halloween season in current-day Salem,
Massachusetts. Before retirement Nancy wrote a number of professional articles
for various education and business publications.
Award-winning
investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is currently on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate,
where she's broken big stories for the past 24 years. Her stories have resulted
in new laws, people sent to prison, homes removed from foreclosure, and millions
of dollars in refunds and restitution for
consumers. Along with
her 26 EMMYs, Hank’s also won dozens of other journalism honors. Her first
mysteries, Prime Time (which won
the prestigious Agatha Award for Best First Novel, was a double RITA nominee for
Best First Book and Best Romantic Suspense Novel, and a Reviewers' Choice Award
Winner) and Face Time (Book Sense
Notable Book), were best sellers. The newest in the series are Air Time, is already on several best-seller lists.
Vincent
H. O’Neil brings a wealth of life experience to his writing. The list of his
many different jobs includes army paratrooper, private consultant, risk
manager, advertiser, and librarian. After writing in his spare time for many
years, he won the St. Martin’s Press Malice
Domestic Writing Competition in 2005. His award-winning debut novel,
Murder in Exile, is the first in
a series of mystery novels featuring the character Frank Cole. The sequel to Murder in Exile, Reduced Circumstances, was released by
St. Martin's Press in 2007. The third book in
the Frank Cole/Exile
series, Exile Trust, was
published in 2008.
Mike Wiecek
lives outside of Boston, at home with the kids. He has traveled
widely in Asia and worked many different jobs,
mostly in finance. His stories have won a Shamus and two Derringers; he was a
finalist for PWA’s Best First PI novel. His novel, Exit Strategy, was
short-listed for the ITW Thriller Award.
Attorney Kate Flora is the author of eleven books. Her dynamic character, Thea Kozak,
returned in 2008 in Stalking
Death. Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder
in Maine, co-written with a career
police officer, was a 2007 Edgar nominee. The story has been filmed for Court
TV, Psychic Investigators, and two other TV shows. She has gone in a new
direction with two gritty police procedurals; Playing God and
The Angel of Knowlton Park. Flora’s stories have appeared in
the Level Best anthologies, in Sisters on The Case, an anthology edited by Sara
Paretsky, and in Per Se, an anthology of fiction. Flora teaches writing for Grub Street in
Boston. She is a
partner in Level Best Books, which publishes yearly anthologies of crime stories
by New England writers.
Ruth
McCarthy is a partner and editor in Level Best Books. Her short mysteries have
appeared in several anthologies. She has received honorable mentions in Alfred
Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and New England Writers Network Magazine for her
flash fiction. She won the 2009 Derringer Award for Best Flash Story for “No
Flowers for Stacey,” published in Deadfall.
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02 / 12
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02 / 13
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02 / 14
Start: 1:00 pm
End: 3:00 pm
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Like to knit, quilt, felt, bead, crochet, or
practice some other handicraft. Keep the cold off and join us in our free heat for Knit
One, Read Too, On the second Sunday of each month from 1 to 3 p.m. we host an in-store handwork session for
knitters, quilters, crocheters, and other handwork enthusiasts.
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02 / 15
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02 / 16
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02 / 17
Start: 7:00 pm
"Philipp Meyer's American Rust is written with considerable
dramatic intensity and pace. It manages an emotional accuracy, a deep
and detailed conviction in its depiction of character. It also captures
a sense of a menacing society, a wider world in the throes of decay and
self-destruction."
Colm Toibin author of Brooklyn and The Master
“Novelists spend entire careers trying to write even one classic
book. Philipp Meyer has accomplished that feat on his first attempt. American Rust might one day be recognized as one of our great American novels.”
The Dayton Daily News
Philipp Meyer grew up in Baltimore, dropped out of high school, and got
his GED when he was sixteen. After spending several years volunteering
at a trauma center in downtown Baltimore, he attended Cornell
University, where he studied English. Since graduating, Meyer has
worked as a derivatives trader at UBS, a construction worker, and an
EMT, among other jobs. His writing has been published in McSweeney's, The Iowa Review, Salon.com, and New Stories from the South.
From 2005 to 2008 Meyer was a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers
in Austin, Texas. He splits his time between Texas and upstate New York.
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02 / 18
Start: 7:00 pm
In 1968, Safiya Bukhari witnessed an NYPD officer harassing a Black
Panther for selling the organization’s newspaper on a Harlem street
corner. The young pre-med student felt compelled to intervene in
defense of the Panther’s First Amendment right; she ended up handcuffed
and thrown into the back of a police car.
The War Before traces Bukhari’s lifelong commitment as an
advocate for the rights of the oppressed. Following her journey from
middle-class student to Black Panther to political prisoner, these
writings provide an intimate view of a woman wrestling with the issues
of her time—the troubled legacy of the Panthers, misogyny in the
movement, her decision to convert to Islam, the incarceration of out
spoken radicals, and the families left behind. Her account unfolds with
immediacy and passion, showing how the struggles of social justice
movements have paved the way for the progress of today.
Laura Whitehorn has been a political activist since the 1960s. She
spent 14 years in prison for the Resistance Conspiracy case. Released
in 1999, she lives in New York City. She is now a senior editor at POZ magazine.
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02 / 19
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02 / 20
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02 / 21
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02 / 22
Start: 7:00 pm
"[Joe Hill is] a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction."
Washington Post
"[He is] one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent years."
Publishers Weekly
The author of the critically acclaimed Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill is a
two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a past recipient of the
Ray Bradbury Fellowship. His stories have appeared in a variety of
journals and Year’s Best collections. He calls New England home.
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02 / 23
Start: 7:00 pm
Join Porter Square Books for an evening with contributors to The Guantanamo Lawyers.
The Guantanamo Lawyers contains over one hundred personal narratives
from attorneys who have represented detainees held at "GTMO" as well as
at other overseas prisons, from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to
secret CIA jails or "black sites." Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan
Hafetz--themselves lawyers for detainees--collected stories that cover
virtually every facet of Guantanamo, and the litigation it sparked.
Together, these moving, powerful voices create a historical record of
Guantanamo's legal, human, and moral failings, and provide a window
into America's catastrophic effort to create a prison beyond the law.
The readers for this event will be:
Mark Denbeaux is a professor at Seton Hall Law School, where he also
directs the Center for Policy and Research.
Jonathan Hafetz is an attorney with the National Security Project of the
American Civil Liberties Union and has litigated several post-9/11
detention cases.
Steve Oleskey is a partner at WilmerHale in the Litigation/Controversy
Department, and a member of the Business Trial Group. He joined the firm
in 1968 when he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. Mr. Oleskey
focuses his practice on complex civil litigation and appellate matters,
with a particular emphasis on real estate related litigation.
Melissa
Hoffer is a lawyer specializing in environmental law. She is currently
the New Hampshire Advocacy Center Director for the Conservation Law
Foundation.
Jerry Cohen, Burns & Levinson LLP, who has represented two detainees from Algeria and one from Palestine.
Rheba Rutkowski, Bingham McCutchen LLP, who has represented Uighur detainees.
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02 / 24
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02 / 25
Start: 7:00 pm
"Goldstein,
philosopher and writer, continues her many-faceted inquiry into the
nature of genius and the intersection between religion and science,
returning to fiction and ramping up her gifts for radiant humor and the
transmutation of metaphysics, mathematics, and Jewish mysticism into
narrative gold…Goldstein is entrancing…in
this elegant yet uproarious novel about the darkness of isolation and
the light of learning, the beauty of numbers and the chaos of emotions,
the ‘longing for spiritual purity’ and love in all its wildness."
Booklist, starred review
"Irreverent
and witty, Goldstein seamlessly weaves philosophy into this lively and
colorful chronicle of intellectual and emotional struggles."
Publisher's Weekly, starred review
Rebecca Goldstein’s novels include The Mind-Body Problem and Mazel. She was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (the “genius prize”) in 1996 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. Her most recent book, Betraying Spinoza, won the 2006 Koret International Jewish Prize.
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02 / 26
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02 / 27
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02 / 28
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03 / 1
Start: 7:00 pm
We are pleased to host a series of readings by poets from the Workshop for Published Poets. Reading on March 1 are the following poets:
Geraldine
Zetzel is a longtime resident of Cambridge and Westport Point, MA.
Her earlier career was in teaching, teacher training and child
advocacy. Currently she leads a course in Contemporary Poetry at the
Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement. In addition to her new
collection, Mapping the Sands, she is the author of two
chapbooks, Near Enough to Hear the Words and With Both
Hands.
Originally
from South Africa, Freddy Frankel earned an advanced degree in
psychiatry from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg
before migrating to the U.S. in 1962. He has been on the faculty of
Harvard Medical School since 1969, Professor Emeritus of psychiatry
since 1997, and served as psychiatrist in chief at Beth Israel Hospital
Boston from 1986 to 1997. Now retired from active practice, he has
shifted his focus to poetry, attending poetry classes at the Harvard
Extension School and studying with Barbara Helfgott Hyett. His
chapbook, Hottentot Venus, was published by Pudding House
Publications, and his book, In a Stone's Hollow, was published by
Fairweather. He was awarded the Robert Penn Warren First Award of New
England Writers in 2003. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cape Codder, Concho River Review, Ibbetson Street, Lalitamba, The
Larcom Review, Moment, Ship of Fools, The Tusculum Review, and in the
anthologies The Mercy of Tides, Rough Places Plain, and New
England Writers 2003.
Nita
Penfold is a graduate of Lesley University's Masters of Arts in
Writing program. Her poetry is widely published in anthologies, most
recently in the Charters & Charters textbook, Literature &
Its Writers (4th ed.). Her first full-length book, They Stand Up
in Broken Shells (www.lulu.com/nitapenfold)
won the 2006 Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Award
and her poem, “Stigmata,” won the 2005 Judith Siegel Pierson Award from
Wayne State University. Pudding House Publications has published two
chapbooks of her poetry, Mile-High Blue-Sky Pie and The Woman
With the Wild-Grown Hair. Nita edited the anthology, Hunger
Enough: Living Spiritually in a Consumer Society. She works as
adjunct faculty for Andover Newton Theological School in spirituality
and the arts and as a religious educator and Spirit Play trainer.
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03 / 2
Start: 7:00 pm
"Piver has managed
to perform an extraordinary task, namely, inspire a person to want to
love again. She knows how to repair the shattered soul, using her
personal experience as well as the wisdom of great saints, poets, and
cultural elders."
Caroline Myss, author of Entering the Castle
"This
is a wonderful book. Full of wisdom, humanity, and humor. And it
abounds with helpful exercises to turn pain into wisdom. It is helpful
even if you are not (right now) sick with disappointment, betrayal or
heartache."
Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones
Susan Piver is the bestselling author of The Hard Questions: 100
Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do," and the award winning
How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. A graduate of a Buddhist
seminary, she wrote the relationships column for Body & Soul
magazine, is the meditation expert and constributor at drweil.com, and
is a frequent guest on network television, including The Oprah
Winfrey Show, Today, and The Tyra Banks Show.
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03 / 3
Start: 7:00 pm
"The human thirst
for the transcendent, the numinous—even the ecstatic—is too universal
and too important to be entrusted to the cultish and the archaic and
the superstitious. In this honest and serious book of self-examination
and critical scrutiny, Stephen Batchelor adds the universe of Buddhism
to the many fields in which received truth and blind faith are now
giving way to ethical and scientific humanism, in which lies our only
real hope."
Christopher Hitchens
Stephen Batchelor is a former monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions and the author of books including Alone with Others, The Faith to Doubt, The Awakening of the West, Buddhism Without Beliefs, and Living with the Devil. He lives with his wife, Martine, in southwestern France and lectures and conducts meditation retreats throughout the world.
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03 / 4
Start: 5:00 pm
End: 6:45 pm
Please Join Porter Square Books and PEN/New England for Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore at Upstairs on the Square.
Jane Kamensky
is the Harry S. Truman Professor of American Civilization and Chair of
the Department of History at Brandeis University. Kamensky is the
author of The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation and America's First Banking Collapse, a finalist for the 2009 George Washington Book Prize. Her other publications include Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England; and The Colonial Mosaic: American Women, 1600-1760.
Jill Lepore
is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard
University and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She
is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History and winner of the New York City Book Prize.
Please note: this is an off-site event to be held at Upstairs on the Square in Cambridge, MA.
About PEN New England
PEN (Poets/Playwrights,
Essayists/Editors, Novelists) New England is an organization of
published authors, aspiring writers, and all who love the written
word. Our mission is to advance the cause of literature in New England
and defend free expression everywhere. PEN New England is a branch of
PEN American Center, and part of International PEN, the oldest
international literary organization and also the oldest human rights
organization in the world.
Start: 7:00 pm
"Dani Shapiro
takes readers on an intense journey in search of meaning and peace. Her
story of hope is eloquently told and unflinchingly honest."
Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle
"I
was immensely moved by this elegant book, which reminded me all over
again that all of us...must buck up our courage and face down the big
spiritual questions of life, death, love, loss, and surrender.
Dani Shapiro proves all those questions gracefully and honestly,
avoiding overly simple conclusions while steadfastly exploring her own
complicated relationship to faith and doubt."
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
Dani Shapiro's most recent books include the novels Black & White
and Family History and the bestselling memoir Slow Motion. Her short
stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Tin House,
Elle, Vogue, Ploughshares, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others.
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03 / 5
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03 / 6
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03 / 7
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03 / 8
Start: 7:00 pm
Join Porter Square Books for an evening with contributors to Sisters: An Anthology.
"The stories, poems, and memoirs in the new anthology Sisters call forth sweetness and light, fury and a fierce devotion"
The Boston Globe
"The book makes clear that sisters don’t outgrow their bond…Once a sister, always one."
People Magazine
Readers will include:
Julia Glass is the author of three novels: the National Book
Award-winning Three Junes, The Whole World
Over, and I See You Everywhere.
She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including
the Tobias Wolff Award.
Jan Freeman
is the director and founder of Paris Press. She is the author of
three books of poetry, Simon Says
(nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Hyena, Autumn Sequence, and a new manuscript,
Blue Structure. She lives in Ashfield, MA.
Barbara Greenberg is a poet and fiction writer. She is the author of four
books, including What Nell Knows
and Late Life Happiness. She is
affiliated with the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
Marthya Paffrath is a singer, writer, and composer. She is the principal drummer and
percussionist for LIBANA, the acclaimed world music ensemble, and directs the
International Music and Dance Program at the Cambridge Friends School.
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03 / 9
Start: 7:00 pm
"An eye-opening
look into the little-known world of gene banks and crop breeding, and a
poignant reminder that the real guardians of our food security are not
armies or transnational corporations, but a handful of tireless
scientists who have labored for decades to keep us one step ahead of
famine."
Rowan Jacobsen, author of Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis
"Susan
Dworkin has found a delightful way to tell the alarming story of the
fragility of the global wheat crop. She leads us expertly and
enthusiastically into Bent Skovmand's strange, infrequently penetrated
domain of plant breeding and international seed banks, a world in which
unsung scientists search and save exotic plant germplasm to protect the
staffs of life against pests, plagues, and corporate raiders."
Peter Pringle, author of Food Inc.
Susan Dworkin has written several biographies, including The Nazi
Officer's Wife (with Edith Hahn Beer), and her articles have appeared
in Ms., Cosmopolitan, and numerous magazines. Her fascination with
agriculture dates from early stints at the United States Department of
Agriculture and as a journalist covering aid programs in the Middle
East.
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03 / 10
Start: 7:00 pm
Head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the district
attorney's office in Manhattan for decades, Linda Fairstein is
America's most visible legal expert on sexual assault and domestic
violence-which is why she writes some of the most compelling crime
thrillers of our time and why her Alexandra Cooper series has been
topping bestseller list for more than a decade. Fans turn to Fairstein
for ripped-from-the-headline crimes, cutting-edge investigations, and
vindication for victims. Linda Fairstein brings readers inside a world
of which they can't get enough, but one they hope to never see in real
life.
And for her twelfth novel, Fairstein takes Alexandra Cooper inside a world she'd rather not see.
Linda Fairstein, one of America's foremost legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, ran the Sex
Crimes Unit of the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan for more
than two decades. Her first novel, Final Jeopardy, which introduced the
character of Alexandra Cooper, was published in 1996 to critical and
commercial acclaim. Her nonfiction book, Sexual Violence, was a New
York Times Notable Book in 1994. She is the author of numerous other
mystery novels including Entombed, Death Dance, Killer Heat, and Lethal
Legacy.
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03 / 11
Start: 7:00 pm
See the development and evolution of Harvard
over the last century in this pictorial recollection of key events,
landmark structure, generous benefactors, and the dedicated presidents
who created the legacy. Nearly 200 photographs reproduced in vivid
black-and-white, written and captioned by Dana Bonstrom, revisit the
storied past of one of the world's premier universities.
A
natural companion to the college annual of every alum, Historic Photos
of Harvard University belongs in the library of every graduate and all
those devoted to America's favorite ivy-league school.
Dana Bonstrom, Harvard College Class of 1977, is a writer, book
designer, and photographer. His recent works include: editor and
co-translator of C.P. Cavafy, The Canon: The Original One Hundred and
Fifty Four Poems; co-author of Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures: The
Japanese Ninja Surprise; and librettist of Pinocchio's Adventures in
Funland, The Piper's Tale, and Gwendolyn Gets Her Wish.
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03 / 12
Start: 7:00 pm
"An engaging, informative study tracking the small beginnings of a
literary giant and his magnum opus...Stavans enlightens us, not just
about one literary figure, but about the culture and history of a whole
hemisphere... Stavans is a magical writer himself."
Julia Alvarez author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies
"In his compelling narrative of Garcia Marquez before the phenomenon of One Hundred Years of Solitude,
Ilan Stavans takes us on a fascinating guided tour of the great man's
world from childhood to maturity, along the way, collecting the objects
and the subjects, the beetles and the battles, all that would
eventually coalesce into the vision of plenitude contained in one of
the most influential novels in modern literary history."
Judith Oriz Cofer author of The Latin Deli
Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American
and Latino Culture and Five College Fortieth Anniversary Professor at
Amherst College. His books include The Hispanic Condition, On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic's Journey. He has edited the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, and, most recently, the anthology Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing.
He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a
Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile's Presidential Medal, and the Jewish Book
Award. Stavans's work, translated into a dozen languages, has been
adapted to the stage and screen, including the movie My Mexican Shivah. He also hosted the syndicated PBS television show Conversations with Ilan Stavans.
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03 / 13
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