Students Get the Spotlight at Parsons Art and Design Festival
This weekend, Parsons The New School for Design kicked off its inaugural "Parsons Festival 2011," which showcases the work of its burgeoning student designers, filmmakers, architects, and other...
View ArticleTalk to Me: The PEN World Voices Festival Takes on Corporate Publishing
While PEN is often at the forefront of debates and initiatives to do with the more obvious forms of oppression against writers — isolation, censorship, imprisonment — it is also ready to tackle the...
View ArticleShakespearean Sages: Peter Brook and Michael Boyd in Conversation
Peter Brook was a legendary director with the Royal Shakespeare Company (R.S.C.) in the 1960s and 1970s; Michael Boyd is the current Artistic Director. The two were recently brought together in the...
View ArticleThe Word as Sword: Reza Aslan at Poet's House
As the Middle East continues to feel the tremors of revolution from all across the landscape, Dr. Reza Aslan’s book “Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East” offers a timely...
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Does It All End Here? Searching for Harry Potter's Successor
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” raked in $158.4 million domestically over the weekend, breaking records which "The Dark Knight" had held, according to Warner Bros. Although the movie's...
View Article'Speak the Speech I Pray You': Directors Weigh in on Bringing Shakespeare to...
The second of four panel discussions held in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) residency at The Park Avenue Armory focused on “Directing Shakespeare." David Farr, the RSC's associate...
View ArticleBorders Could Close Book Stores as soon as Friday
It looks like the final chapter for Borders, the Michigan-based big-box book, music and media seller. The company could begin closing its remaining 399 stores, five of which are in New York City, as...
View ArticleFirst New York Poetry Festival Takes Over Governors Island
The First Annual New York Poetry Festival takes place this weekend in and among the green lawns, rows of London Plane trees and historic brick houses of Governors Island. More than 130 poets from...
View ArticleGot Overdue Fines at City Library Branches? Forget About It.
Forgot to return a library book or DVD? Got library fines that you are reluctant to pay? The solution is here. Programs at libraries in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island are helping...
View ArticleTitan Books to Publish Mickey Spillane Crime Novels
Gumshoe fans got some good news this week. Titan Books has plans to publish three unfinished Mickey Spillane crime novels, all of them starring the hard-boiled vigilante P.I. Mike Hammer.Spillane, who...
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New Brooklyn Writers Join Old Hands at Fort Greene Park Lit Fest
On Saturday, some 30 young writers will read poetry and fiction alongside well-known Brooklyn writers at Fort Greene Park's monument. The younger set, aged 7 to 17, have been working with the New York...
View ArticleThe Truth, in Many Languages, Comes to Governor's Island
8/26/11 UPDATE: Governors Island will be closed on Saturday and Sunday due to Hurricane Irene, and all programs and exhibits have been cancelled, including The Cause Collective’s “The Truth Is I Am...
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WNYC's Guide to 9/11 Arts Events
GoThis month, cultural institutions around the city are paying respect to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks through literature, visual arts, theater, dance, music, and film....
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WNYC's Picks for the Brooklyn Book Festival
More than 260 authors and panelists will be in downtown Brooklyn on Sunday for the sixth annual Brooklyn Book Festival. Panels are devoted to a wide range of topics during the day-long free fest....
View ArticleCity Libraries Want Young Readers to Turn Over a New Leaf
Benevolence is the latest thing young patrons can check out with their library cards.A program called the "New Chapter" that started on Thursday will forgive fines on overdue library books for patrons...
View ArticleAllen Ginsberg's 'Kaddish' Gets the One-Man Show Treatment
Fifty years ago, the beat poet Allen Ginsberg published "Kaddish." The 1961 poem is about Ginsberg coming of age in Paterson, New Jersey and his troubled relationship with his mentally ill mother.A new...
View ArticleNew York's Comic Con Kicks Off in Manhattan, Superheroes and All
New York Comic Con kicked off at the Javits Center on Thursday, and fans were out in full force.Only those with four-day VIP passes and industry professionals, including writers and artists, had access...
View ArticleJoan Didion Explores the Death of a Daughter in 'Blue Nights'
Joan Didion's latest book, "Blue Nights," explores the death of her 39-year old adopted daughter Quintana. It's an event, “I hadn't dealt with it at any level, and I needed to,” she told WNYC's Leonard...
View ArticleRent Reduction Allows St. Mark's Bookshop to Stay Open
The financially struggling St. Mark's Bookshop in the East Village will stay open after its landlord, Cooper Union, agreed to reduce its rent by 12.5 percent and forgive $7,500 in back rent. "We are...
View ArticleLydia Davis and Eliot Weinberger Have High School Reunion at KGB Bar
Two famed poets, essayists and translators — Lydia Davis and Eliot Weinberger — recently read from new work at the True Story: Non-Fiction reading series at the KGB Bar in the East Village.Davis ("The...
View ArticleLovely Bones: Celebrating Anne Sexton at the Cornelia Street Café
The poet Anne Sexton took her own life in 1974, but had she lived, this year would have marked her 83rd birthday. Reason enough, thought the actor Paul Hecht, to organize an elegant tribute to her at...
View ArticleConnected by a 'River of Smoke': Amitav Ghosh and Jonathan Spence at The Asia...
The Asia Society inaugurated its new Asian Arts & Ideas series this month with “The ‘Chindia’ Dialogues,” a three-day forum that examined the confluence of the world’s two most powerful developing...
View ArticleNY Public Library Chief Pleads Guilty to Driving While Intoxicated, Loses...
The president of the New York Public Library, Anthony Marx, pleaded guilty Friday to driving while intoxicated during an appearance in Manhattan Criminal Court.Judge Jennifer G. Schecter removed Marx's...
View ArticleTalk to Me: Behaving Badly at Happy Ending
The Happy Ending Music and Reading series has formed a partnership with the arts colony Yaddo located in Saratoga Springs, New York, to present programs featuring writers who have been Yaddo fellows....
View ArticleThe Fire in Him: John Hurt Sets Krapp's Record Straight
If there is a lesson to be learned from the post-curtain talk between John Hurt — who has just finished a limited run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater in Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape”...
View ArticleThe Big Readers of Staten Island
On a recent Saturday afternoon, dozens of locals gathered at a library in Richmondtown, Staten Island, to read Mark Twain together.Some came in 19th-century garb. A fifth-grader dressed up as Twain...
View ArticleAuthors Conjure Up 'Strange Places' in Readings at Happy Ending
The theme for the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series at Joe's Pub in March was Strange Places. Listen to the extraordinary — and absurd — environments that authors Jessica Anthony, Amelia Gray and...
View ArticleStrand Bookstore, Workers Tussle Over Contract
The owners and workers of the legendary Strand Bookstore are in a contract dispute, tussling over the implementation of a two-tier wage system, employee’s healthcare contributions and other...
View ArticleThe Jane Hotel's Connection to the Titanic Draws a Crowd
New York City has no shortage of sites that have a direct connection to the Titanic. (See our handy map of some of them below.)One such landmark is the Jane Hotel, formerly known as the American...
View Article2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners
The list of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winners is out. Among this year's winners were the late Manning Marable for his book on Malcolm X, Brooklyn poet Tracy Smith and Kevin Puts for his "Silent Night"...
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Yellow Cabs Receive Poetic Infusion
Starting Thursday, yellow taxi passengers will find something new in the back of their cabs. It's not a stranger's cell phone. It's a poem.Poems like “Graduation,” by Dorothea Tanning and “Noche de...
View ArticleBloomberg Gives Writers Inaugural NYC Literary Awards
Paul Auster, Robert Caro and Walter Dean Myers are among the writers who will get new literary awards from Mayor Michael Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion on Thursday night.The 2012 NYC Literary Honors are...
View ArticleMike is Blooming Out All Over
Just for the record, the man who wrote, “April is the cruelest month” — this was before April was “National Poetry Month” — T.S. Eliot, was then a bank clerk. Chaucer was a civil servant and Wallace...
View ArticleMorrison, Dylan Among Medal of Freedom Recipients
A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, the first female secretary of state, a former astronaut and a musical pioneer are among this year's recipients of the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian...
View Article`Where Wild Things Are' Author Maurice Sendak Dies
Maurice Sendak, the children's book author and illustrator who saw the sometimes-dark side of childhood in books like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "In the Night Kitchen," died early Tuesday. He was...
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Who Will Rule Britannia? Patrick Jephson Weighs in at Bonham’s
Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 86th birthday on April 21, and the entire Commonwealth is preparing to honor her on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee on June 5.So a look at the future of the...
View ArticleDoctorow, Atwood and Amis on America and its Role in Global Political Culture
One of the highlights of this year's PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature was a talk between writers E.L. Doctorow, Margaret Atwood and Martin Amis. New York Times chief film critic...
View ArticleLibrary Reps Poised to Fight $100M in Cuts
Representatives from the city’s three library systems will testify before the City Council Monday about how the mayor’s proposed $100 million in cuts would impact patrons. The New York Public Library,...
View ArticleLibrary Presidents Urge City Council to Restore Funds
The New York City Council met Monday morning to discuss Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed $100 million in budget cuts to the city's three library systems.Presidents from the Queens Library, Brooklyn...
View ArticleJennifer Egan on How to Create Your Own Rules at PEN
Earlier in May, Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief for the Slate group, and author Jennifer Egan discussed Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, genre-busting novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, and her writing...
View ArticleGetting Your Irish On at the PEN World Voices Festival
Comparisons are invidious, but Hugo Hamilton is clearly a successor to the late Frank McCourt, author of the celebrated “Angela’s Ashes,” in the tradition of Irish memoir. Hamilton read from his book,...
View ArticleHistorian David McCullough, Composer Steve Reich to be Honored at Awards...
Writer and historian David McCullough and contemporary music composer Steve Reich will receive the academy's most significant prizes — gold medals for distinguished achievements in biography and music...
View ArticleRushdie Talk on Censorship Wraps Up PEN Festival
The 2012 PEN World Voices Festival ended with a talk about censorship at the Cooper Union by novelist Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses).After the speech, the PEN festival founder...
View ArticleA Reporter's Perspective on War at PEN World Voices
The PEN America Center’s organizational focus is the effect of world events on the safety and freedom of expression of writers, so the topic of war naturally looms large in its cultural consciousness....
View ArticleRay Bradbury, Author of 'Fahrenheit 451,' Dies
Ray Bradbury, the science fiction-fantasy master who transformed his childhood dreams and Cold War fears into telepathic Martians, lovesick sea monsters, and, in uncanny detail, the high-tech,...
View ArticleFighting Words: Churchill's Granddaughter Offers a Model for Leadership
“If you are going to go through hell, keep going.” This is just one of the many robust adages coined by Sir Winston Churchill during World War II.A new exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum...
View ArticleRemembering Sendak at the Met
The life of artist and children's book author Maurice Sendak was celebrated at a memorial service at the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum on Tuesday. He died last month at the...
View ArticleWatch | A Celebration of Bloomsday
James Joyce fans celebrate Bloomsday on Saturday. Bloomsday commemorates the anniversary of June 16, 1904 — the date on which Joyce's epic novel, Ulysses, was set — and was named after the novel’s...
View Article'Encyclopedia Brown' Author Sobol Dies at 87
Donald J. Sobol, author of the popular "Encyclopedia Brown" series of children's mysteries, has died. He was 87.Sobol died in Miami from natural causes July 11, with his wife Rose by his side, his son...
View ArticleA Trilogy About the End of the World
The Last Policeman trilogy imagines what we would all do if we knew the world would end in six months. Brooke speaks with the author, Ben Winters, about how the media might inform Earth's final days.
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