Writers & Books last year named “The Distance Between Us,” a novel by award-winning author Reyna Grande, as the selection for its 2018 Rochester Reads program. In her memoir, Grande recounts her harrowing experience as a child living in Mexico in extreme poverty and her journey to the United States as an illegal immigrant. Grande […]
Literature
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Rochester Reads announces 2018 selection
Writers & Books today announced “The Distance Between Us” by award-winning novelist Reyna Grande as the selection for the 2018 Rochester Reads program. Grande will be in Rochester March 28 to March 30, 2018, to participate in readings, book signings, and other appearances at various locations in Rochester and the surrounding region. Through her 2012 […]
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Open Letter Books finishes 2016 strong
The last few weeks of December set Open Letter Books up for a great 2017. In mid-December, The National Endowment of the Arts awarded the small literary translation press an Art Works grant of $40,000. This was the largest amount awarded to any Rochester organization this cycle — BOA Editions and George Eastman Museum each […]
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Debut Novel Series 2016 selections announced
Writers & Books today announced the selections for its annual Debut Novel Series. This year, the literary organization has arranged for both authors to visit Rochester simultaneously on November 3 and 4, when Garth Greenwell and Hannah Tennant-Moore will partake in a number of joint readings, discussions, and signings. Each of the featured books are […]
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Writers & Books names new executive director
Writers & Books today announced the selection of its new executive director following a nation-wide search. Writer and literary translator Kyle Semmel, most recently of Bethesda, Maryland, will take the position on May 16. “We were looking for someone with a real passion for literature, because you can’t really do this job without that,” says […]
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Rochester Reads features ‘Queen of the Fall’
Sonja Livingston’s second novel, “Queen of the Fall: A Memoir of Girls and Goddesses,” is this year’s selection for Writers & Books’ annual “If All of Rochester Reads the Same Book…” city-wide challenge. Livingston is currently visiting Rochester on a reading tour. An interview with the author can be found here. The work is an […]
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Writers & Books starts a new chapter
Founder and director Joe Flaherty retires as the literary organization celebrates 35
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BOA Editions celebrates 40 years
BOA Editions’ story began much like that of other creative endeavors: When an intrepid individual identified a lack of opportunity, he went out and created it himself. One of the longest running independent presses in the nation, BOA was founded on July 4, 1976 by Al Poulin Jr., who was a Brockport professor at the […]
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‘The Wonder Garden’ examines the wild, wild suburbs
In her debut novel, “The Wonder Garden,” author Lauren Acampora’s imagination plumbs the messy, complicated inner lives of the residents of an affluent New England suburb. Through the book’s 13 short stories, Acampora deftly interweaves the lives of many individuals as they navigate shifts in relationships and the place of their personal hopes and dreams […]
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Found in translation
Storytelling is and always will be a powerful expression of humanity’s ability to reflect upon itself and to connect the disparate parts of its whole. And though slippery tongues divide us more firmly than they ought, language persists as a barrier to our education about one another, and ourselves. Imagine a world in which important […]
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Scripted
In her book, “The Poitier Effect: Racial Melodrama and Fantasies of Reconciliation,” Sharon Willis, a University of Rochester professor of Art and Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies, provides a comprehensive, deft analysis of respectability politics by using the films of Sidney Poitier — and their enduring effect on our depiction of racial reconciliation — as […]
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Swapping stories
Writers & Books this week will present a series of events with debut novelist Boris Fishman, whose critically-acclaimed, witty and moving novel, “A Replacement Life” draws on his own life experiences as an immigrant from the former USSR, and a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor. The grandmother of Fishman’s young protagonist, Slava Gelman, has just […]
