Arts & Sciences faculty will participate in this year’s Community Arts Partnership’s Spring Writes Literary Festival, taking place in downtown Ithaca May 3-6. The festival features literary-themed events, including panels and workshops geared towards emerging and established writers, as well as events for the general public such as readings, performances, play readings, and performances. This is the festival’s ninth year showcasing Finger Lakes Region writers.
Saturday, May 5
1:15 - 2:30pm @ Tompkins County Public Library, Borg Warner Room West
Panel: Telling Stories of...: The Narrative Impulse in Nonfiction
For some, a story in nonfiction is solely the province of memoir. But for nonfiction writers whose subject matter explores ideas, events, phenomena and historical experience, story is often where the author finds her subject, and the subject finds its audience. In this panel, writers will discuss how the impulse to narrative shapes these writers' craft and work, and the distinct challenges and features of narratives in nonfiction. Robert Danberg moderates a discussion with nonfiction authors Aaron Sachs, Cornell professor of history, Amy Reading, and Rachel Dickinson, and questions from the audience.
3:00 - 4:00pm @ Tompkins County Public Library, Borg Warner West
Reading: Writers affiliated with Stone Canoe
Published by the YMCA's Downtown Writers Center in Syracuse, Stone Canoe is the only literary journal dedicated to artists and writers with ties to Upstate NY. Several contributors from this year's issue (#12) will share work from the journal as part of this group reading, including David Guaspari, Brenna Fitzgerald, and Barrett Bowlin; Cynthia Robinson, Cornell's Mary Donlon Alger Professor of Medieval and Islamic Art in the Department of the History of Art, will read from her new novel, "Birds of Wonder."
Day 4: Sunday, May 6
3:30 - 5:00pm @ Buffalo Street Books
Panel/Reading: Poetry in a Time of Crisis: Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology
In a time of environmental and social crisis, poets are staging an intervention. Come celebrate the ground-breaking Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology (University of Georgia Press), in a reading and discussion with editor Melissa Tuckey and contributor Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Cornell assistant professor of English. Ghost Fishing is the first anthology to focus solely on poetry with an eco-justice bent. A culturally diverse collection entering a field where nature poetry anthologies have historically lacked diversity, this book presents a rich terrain of contemporary environmental poetry with roots in many cultural traditions. A discussion follows the reading and the book will be for sale for those who want signed copies.
