Area residents typically think of the John Burroughs Association as a local not-for-profit organization that maintains Slabsides and the surrounding nature sanctuary and trails in West Park. But the Association also has a national profile as a respected conferrer of annual literary awards in the genre of nature writing, helping to keep alive the primary profession of the great 19th-century naturalist himself.
Reading at Oblong Books on Tuesday, March 27: The novel, like much of this SUNY-New Paltz professor’s work, has a Gothic flavor, including a Victorian-era insane asylum inspired in part by the Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie.
Speakers include columnists E.J. Dionne Jr. and Bobby Herbert, documentarian Lynn Novick and journalist Jeff Greenfield.
March 22-25: Author panels, readings, parties, workshops and more.
Saturday, March 24: “An Evening with Colm Tóibín” should be a treat. His novels are quiet and intense, but in person, Tóibín is warm and gregarious, cracking jokes and telling stories, able to speak at length and with insight about both the sublime possibilities of fiction and the nitty-gritty of the writing process.
Saturday, March 24: This year’s Woodstock Bookfest will feature the world premiere of Lost Dreams, a collaboration between the late writer John Hersey and his son Baird, a composer who lives in West Shokan.
The story begins on a Ridge in rural Ulster County, the smell of pine in the air and vultures circling above as a boy fires a BB gun at a girl tied to a tree while another boy watches.
Feb. 16: Geared toward “middle grade” readers — third grade through middle school, depending on their reading level, Ellis says — the book is the first in a fantasy adventure series collectively titled The Karakesh Chronicles and projected to run to five volumes.
Feb. 2: Omega Institute co-founder Elizabeth Lesser, who wrote a book about donating bone marrow to treat her sister’s lymphoma, said that despite all the associated trauma, “It’s a magical, mystical experience, giving another person part of your body to help them live. There’s something profound and mysterious about it.”
According to Castle, the germ of the idea for the story came from Rabbi Jonathan Kligler’s moving eulogy for New Paltz High School student Maya Gold, in which he urged local teens, “Look out for each other. Be brave. Risk losing a friend in order to help them.”