An Evening Without...Giving Voice to the Excluded
Presented by The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts & PEN New England
Tuesday, March 13, 2007, from 7 - 8:30 PM
First Church
129 Main Street
Northampton, MA
Some of this country's best known writers and an actor will be reading from the works of writers and activists who had, at one time or another, been barred from or pushed out of the United States because of their views or perceived associations.
Participating in this event honoring the First Amendment will be:
- Charles Coe, author of the volume of poetry Picnic on the Moon
- Martín Espada, author of 8 books of poetry including the recent Republic of Poetry
- Cathi Hanauer, author of My Sister's Bones, Sweet Ruin and editor of The Bitch in the House
- Dan Jones, author of After Lucy and editor of The Bastard on the Couch
- Elinor Lipman, author of 8 novels, most recently My Latest Grievance
- Robert Merullo, author of 6 books including Revere Beach Boulevard and Golfing with God
- Lesléa Newman, author of 50 books including Jailbait and Heather has Two Mommies
- Floyd Patterson II, musician and actor in one-man play about the life of Paul Robeson
- Pat Schneider, author of 9 books including Writing Alone & With Others and Another River
- Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of 5 novels among them Lily of the Valley and 2 memoirs
- Barry Werth, author of 31 Days, The Scarlet Professor, Billion-Dollar Molecule and Damages
- Jane Yolen, author of over 280 children's books, works of fantasy and science fiction
Two emcees will weave the readings and film clips into a tapestry of First Amendment betrayal that tells the story of how fear was used to subvert the Bill of Rights from the post World War I Palmer Raids to the post 9/11 "war on terror." They are Robert Meeropol, founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, who will also be reading from his memoir, An Execution in the Family, and Nancy Murray of the ACLU of Massachusetts.
The event is being organized by the ACLU of Massachusetts and PEN New England. Sponsors are the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Rosenberg Fund for Children, the Broadside Bookshop, the Odyssey Bookshop and WHMP-AM Radio.
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
For more information, contact Nancy Murray (617) 482 3170 x 314 or Bill Newman (413) 584 7331.
Readings by Three Mystery Writers at the Hotel Marlowe
In Honor of WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
PEN New England invites you to a reading by
Three Mystery Writers
Susan Conant, Barbara Neely & Jane Langton
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
6:15 to 7:30 p.m.
During the Hotel Marlowe's Wine Hour
5:00 – 6:15 p.m.
Susan Conant graduated from Radcliffe College and holds a doctorate in human development from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her first dog lovers' mystery, A New Leash on Death, was published in 1990; and her seventeenth, Gaits of Heaven, in 2006. Susan is a six-time winner of the Dog Writers Association of America's Maxwell Award. Her first cat mystery, Scratch the Surface, was published in 2005. She and her daughter, Jessica Conant-Park, are collaborating on a new series of chick-lit culinary mysteries, the first of which, Steamed, was published in March of 2006. Susan and her husband live near Boston with an Alaskan malamute and two Chartreux cats.
Barbara Neely is a novelist, short story writer, and author of the popular Blanche White mystery novels. The first book in this series, Blanche on the Lam, won the Agatha, the Macavity, and the Anthony—three of the four major mystery awards for best first novel—as well as the Go On Girl! Book Club award for a debut novel. The subsequent books in the series, BLANCHE AMONG The Talented Tenth, Blanche Cleans Up and Blanche Passes Go have also received critical acclaim from both fans and literary critics. Books in the Blanche White series have been taught in courses at universities as varied as Howard University, Northwestern, Bryn Mawr, Old Dominion, Boston College, Appalachian State University, Washington State University and Guttenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Books in the series have been translated into French, German and Japanese and Neely's short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, magazines, university texts, and journals.
Jane Langton's mystery novels include Steeplechase, The Deserter, Murder at Gettysbury, and Murder at Monticello. She writes about her hero and heroine, Homer and Mary Kelly, who have stumbled on the bodies of expired people in far flung places that Langton herself wished to visit—Florence, Venice and Oxford—as well as down-home neighborhoods like Monticello and Gettysburg. Most of her eighteen novels are illustrated with Langton's own drawings of the real places where the fictional events happen: one has ten prints by M. C. Escher, and two include nineteenth-century photographs. Usually some majestic presence—Thoreau, Mrs. Jack Gardner, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin—hovers over the action. Langton is the author of several children’s books as well.
Porter Square Books will be selling books at this reading.
The Hotel Marlowe is located at 25 Edwin H. Land Boulevard, Cambridge. Inexpensive parking is available in the Cambridgeside Galleria garage with direct entry into the hotel from Levels A and C. The hotel is closest to the Lechmere T-stop, and is within walking distance of Charles and Kendall Square.
For more information call 617-824-8820 or e-mail pen_ne@lesley.edu
Discovery Evening 2007
SAVE THE DATE
Monday, March 5, 2007 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM
The Radcliffe Institute
Cambridge, MA
(The Gymnasium Building in Radcliffe Yard)
PEN New England invites you to a celebration of new writers at our Annual Discovery Evening
Helen Elaine Lee introduces Trent Masiki
Steven Cramer introduces Beth Woodcome
Lise Haines introduces Paul Yoon
Dan Tobin introduces Todd Hearon
Champagne reception to follow.