Beacon LitFest in the News!
PROGRAM
Danielle Trussoni with Special Guest Will Shortz
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Laura Sims in conversation with Emily MortImer
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June 17 PROGRAM:
SPECIAL GUESTS:
Special Guest: Will Shortz will join Danielle Trussoni to discuss puzzle research and his contributions to her novel. Will Shortz has been the puzzle master for NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” since its inception in 1987, and crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times since 1993. He is also the editor of Games Magazine, director of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and the subject of the award-winning documentary film Wordplay.
Special Guest: Emily Mortimer will be featured with Laura Sims to discuss the adaptation of her novel Looker with Ms. Mortimer's company King Bee Productions in partnership with eOne. Emily Mortimer is an award-winning actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. Mortimer is currently co-writing a script with Noah Baumbach, writing and directing a feature film for A24, and adapting the E.M. Forster novel A Room With A View with Moonage and Pathe Pictures.
11am-11:10am
Opening Remarks:
Theresa Kraft, Howland Cultural Center's President; and Beacon LitFest Committee: Shane Killoran, Ruth Danon, Hannah Brooks
11:15am-12:15pm
Nonfiction
Donna Minkowitz is the author of Growing Up Golem, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the Judy Grahn nonfiction award. Her first book was Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters with the Right Taught Me About Sex, God, and Fury. Her distinguished journalism has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, New York Magazine, Salon, and The Village Voice, where she was a columnist for seven years. She is the curator of LitLit, a monthly open mic event at The Howland Cultural Center.
Jamie Price Ph.D is the Director of the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute and is the author of The Call and Spiritualizing Politics Without Politicizing Religion: The Example of Sargent Shriver. He is the Founding Director of the Insight Conflict Resolution Program in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. He serves on the board of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and writes articles and essays for a range of scholarly and popular publications focused on reconciliation and peacebuilding.
Ginger Strand is the author of one novel and three books of narrative nonfiction, most recently The Brothers Vonnegut. Her essays, many of them dealing with environmental issues, have appeared in Harper’s, Tin House, the New York Times, and Orion, among others. She is the librettist for the opera Artemesia, which premiered in 2022 and just won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Prize--the largest vocal music award in the US.
12:30pm-1:30pm
Poetry
Indran Amirthanayagam is a multi-lingual Sri-Lankan-America poet, diplomat, essayist, and translator in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. He has published twenty-two poetry books, the most recent of which is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant, and his work is widely anthologized. An editor, publisher, and curator, he publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.
Martine Bellen is the author of nine books of poetry. Her tenth book, An Anatomy of Curiosity, was published March 2023 (MadHat Press). Bellen is a contributing editor of the literary journal Conjunctions. In addition to her work as a poet, teacher, and editor, Bellen is the librettist for several operas, among them Ah! Opera No-Opera, a pioneering collective work with co-creators from around the world.
Patricia Spears Jones is poet, playwright, anthologist, educator, cultural activist and the winner of the prestigious 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. She is author of The Beloved Community, in 2023 (Copper Canyon Press); A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and nine other poetry volumes. She edited THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin Inauguration Day Hat and Ordinary Women: An Anthology of New York City Women Poets. She has taught at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, 92Y; Poets House, Community of Writers, Truro Center for the Arts, Fine Arts Work Center, Gemini Ink, Brooklyn Poets, Hugo House, Hurston-Wright, and as faculty at Hollins University, Adelphi University, CUNY, and Barnard College. She is organizer of the American Poets Congress and is a Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Black Earth Institute.
1:30pm-2:30pm
Lunch Break (can preorder regular or vegan)
2:45pm-3:45pm
Drama
Nigel Gearing is a dramatist and translator whose work has been produced in the UK, USA, and Europe. He is author of numerous plays and stage adaptations, including Dickens in America, The Queen of Spades, and Blue Heart Afternoon. His stage adaptation of Le Grand Meaulnes has been produced in the UK, the USA and at Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, Palestine. He has written numerous plays and adaptations for BBC Radio and has collaborated on film scenarios including Ascendancy and Intimacy, both of which won Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival.
Charlotte Meehan is Artistic Director of the award winning Boston-based multimedia theatre company, Sleeping Weazel and Playwright-in-Residence and Mary Heuser Chair in the Arts at Wheaton College (MA). Sleeping Weazel has recently premiered her multimedia play, Cleanliness, Godliness, and Madness: A User’s Guide. Previous stage works have been presented in Providence at Perishable Theatre, in Bristol (UK), and in New York at Dixon Place, the Flea Theater, La MaMa, Bleecker Street Theatre, and Pratt Institute, among others. She is currently developing a dance/theatre work, Everyday Life and Other Odds and Ends (or, What To Do When the World Falls Apart).
4:00pm-5:00pm
Fiction
Laura Sims is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Looker, now in development for television with Emily Mortimer’s King Bee Productions and eOne. An award winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Electric Lit, Gulf Coast, and more. Her second novel, How Can I Help You, which Publishers Weekly has called "[a] brilliant slice of psychological suspense” and “[an] unforgettable thriller,; is forthcoming from Putnam in July 2023.
Danielle Trussoni is a New York Times, USA Today, and Sunday Times Top 10 bestselling novelist. Her novels include The Ancestor and The Angelopolis Series. She has been a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction jurist and writes the "Dark Matters"; column for the New York Times Book Review. She created the Writerly, a weekly podcast about the art and business of writing. Her newest novel, The Puzzle Master, scheduled for release in June 2023 by Random House, has already won the 2023 Prix Bête Noire des Libraires in France and is an IndieNext pick of the American Booksellers Association.
5:30pm-6:30pm
Meet and Greet
Book signing and social hour with conversation, music and refreshments.
SPECIAL GUESTS:
Special Guest: Will Shortz will join Danielle Trussoni to discuss puzzle research and his contributions to her novel. Will Shortz has been the puzzle master for NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” since its inception in 1987, and crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times since 1993. He is also the editor of Games Magazine, director of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and the subject of the award-winning documentary film Wordplay.
Special Guest: Emily Mortimer will be featured with Laura Sims to discuss the adaptation of her novel Looker with Ms. Mortimer's company King Bee Productions in partnership with eOne. Emily Mortimer is an award-winning actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. Mortimer is currently co-writing a script with Noah Baumbach, writing and directing a feature film for A24, and adapting the E.M. Forster novel A Room With A View with Moonage and Pathe Pictures.
11am-11:10am
Opening Remarks:
Theresa Kraft, Howland Cultural Center's President; and Beacon LitFest Committee: Shane Killoran, Ruth Danon, Hannah Brooks
11:15am-12:15pm
Nonfiction
Donna Minkowitz is the author of Growing Up Golem, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the Judy Grahn nonfiction award. Her first book was Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters with the Right Taught Me About Sex, God, and Fury. Her distinguished journalism has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, New York Magazine, Salon, and The Village Voice, where she was a columnist for seven years. She is the curator of LitLit, a monthly open mic event at The Howland Cultural Center.
Jamie Price Ph.D is the Director of the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute and is the author of The Call and Spiritualizing Politics Without Politicizing Religion: The Example of Sargent Shriver. He is the Founding Director of the Insight Conflict Resolution Program in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. He serves on the board of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and writes articles and essays for a range of scholarly and popular publications focused on reconciliation and peacebuilding.
Ginger Strand is the author of one novel and three books of narrative nonfiction, most recently The Brothers Vonnegut. Her essays, many of them dealing with environmental issues, have appeared in Harper’s, Tin House, the New York Times, and Orion, among others. She is the librettist for the opera Artemesia, which premiered in 2022 and just won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Prize--the largest vocal music award in the US.
12:30pm-1:30pm
Poetry
Indran Amirthanayagam is a multi-lingual Sri-Lankan-America poet, diplomat, essayist, and translator in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. He has published twenty-two poetry books, the most recent of which is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant, and his work is widely anthologized. An editor, publisher, and curator, he publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.
Martine Bellen is the author of nine books of poetry. Her tenth book, An Anatomy of Curiosity, was published March 2023 (MadHat Press). Bellen is a contributing editor of the literary journal Conjunctions. In addition to her work as a poet, teacher, and editor, Bellen is the librettist for several operas, among them Ah! Opera No-Opera, a pioneering collective work with co-creators from around the world.
Patricia Spears Jones is poet, playwright, anthologist, educator, cultural activist and the winner of the prestigious 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. She is author of The Beloved Community, in 2023 (Copper Canyon Press); A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and nine other poetry volumes. She edited THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin Inauguration Day Hat and Ordinary Women: An Anthology of New York City Women Poets. She has taught at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, 92Y; Poets House, Community of Writers, Truro Center for the Arts, Fine Arts Work Center, Gemini Ink, Brooklyn Poets, Hugo House, Hurston-Wright, and as faculty at Hollins University, Adelphi University, CUNY, and Barnard College. She is organizer of the American Poets Congress and is a Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Black Earth Institute.
1:30pm-2:30pm
Lunch Break (can preorder regular or vegan)
2:45pm-3:45pm
Drama
Nigel Gearing is a dramatist and translator whose work has been produced in the UK, USA, and Europe. He is author of numerous plays and stage adaptations, including Dickens in America, The Queen of Spades, and Blue Heart Afternoon. His stage adaptation of Le Grand Meaulnes has been produced in the UK, the USA and at Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, Palestine. He has written numerous plays and adaptations for BBC Radio and has collaborated on film scenarios including Ascendancy and Intimacy, both of which won Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival.
Charlotte Meehan is Artistic Director of the award winning Boston-based multimedia theatre company, Sleeping Weazel and Playwright-in-Residence and Mary Heuser Chair in the Arts at Wheaton College (MA). Sleeping Weazel has recently premiered her multimedia play, Cleanliness, Godliness, and Madness: A User’s Guide. Previous stage works have been presented in Providence at Perishable Theatre, in Bristol (UK), and in New York at Dixon Place, the Flea Theater, La MaMa, Bleecker Street Theatre, and Pratt Institute, among others. She is currently developing a dance/theatre work, Everyday Life and Other Odds and Ends (or, What To Do When the World Falls Apart).
4:00pm-5:00pm
Fiction
Laura Sims is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Looker, now in development for television with Emily Mortimer’s King Bee Productions and eOne. An award winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Electric Lit, Gulf Coast, and more. Her second novel, How Can I Help You, which Publishers Weekly has called "[a] brilliant slice of psychological suspense” and “[an] unforgettable thriller,; is forthcoming from Putnam in July 2023.
Danielle Trussoni is a New York Times, USA Today, and Sunday Times Top 10 bestselling novelist. Her novels include The Ancestor and The Angelopolis Series. She has been a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction jurist and writes the "Dark Matters"; column for the New York Times Book Review. She created the Writerly, a weekly podcast about the art and business of writing. Her newest novel, The Puzzle Master, scheduled for release in June 2023 by Random House, has already won the 2023 Prix Bête Noire des Libraires in France and is an IndieNext pick of the American Booksellers Association.
5:30pm-6:30pm
Meet and Greet
Book signing and social hour with conversation, music and refreshments.
Donna Minkowitz
|
Jamie Price Ph.D
|
Ginger Strand
|
Indran Amirthanayagam
|
Martine Bellen
|
Patricia Spears Jones
|
Nigel Gearing
|
Charlotte Meehan
|
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