Novelist Francesca Segal to speak at BU

Award-winning author Francesca Segal will speak at BU on Thursday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. in McCormick Center, room 2303.

Her talk is titled “Tea and Sympathy: On Being a British, Jewish, Woman Writer.” Earlier in the day, Segal will conduct a question-and-answer session in Warren Student Services Center, room 004, from 3:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

 Segal joined her father, Eric Segal, author of the classic “Love Story,” as an accomplished novelist in 2013 when she published her debut novel, “The Innocents.” The book’s awards include the Costa First Novel Award, National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Betty Trask Award. As a journalist, Segal’s work has appeared in Granta, Newsweek, The Guardian, The Financial Times and Vogue UK and Vogue US. Information about Segal and her novel can be found at www.francescasegal.com.

Miscellanea: Economics, Edith Wharton, Poetry + Jazz

Economics

A Harvard University professor called “America’s leading immigration economist” by Business Week and The Wall Street Journal will speak at 2 p.m., Thursday, April 18, in BU's Kehr Union, multipurpose rooms.

George J. Borjas, professor of economics and social policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will discuss “Immigration and Economics.” The free lecture is open to the public.

A research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor. His editorials appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journaland Le Monde, and he is the author of the textbook, Labor Economics, now in its sixth edition, and Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy.

He has appeared on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” the PBS “NewsHour” with Jim Lehrer, the nightly news shows of CBS and NBC, Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor” and “Fox and Friends,” and Ben Wattenberg’s “Think Tank.” The lecture is sponsored by BU’s College of Liberal Arts, economics department, and International Economics Honors Society. For more information, contact Mehdi Haririan, chair of economics, (570) 389-4682 or mhariria@bloomu.edu.

I know this isn't strictly arts related. However, the speakers that Mehdi Haririan has brought to campus over the years —including NYT columnist Paul Krugman — have been consistently superb and insightful. — EGF

Edith Wharton

BU English professor Ferda Asya will give a talk on "Edith Wharton's Transatlantic Homes and Friends" on Thursday, April 18, from 4:30 – 5:30 pm, in Warren Student Services Center, room 004 This event is open to the public and free of charge. Light refreshments will be provided. Edith Wharton was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence (1920) and she was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate degree from Yale University. For her war work, she was awarded la Légion d’honneur, the highest decoration given by the French government.

Asya will explore Wharton’s passion for her houses in the United States and France, devotion to her transatlantic friends, including Elisina Tyler, Rosa de Fitz-James, Minnie David Bourget, Paul Bourget, Walter Van Rensselaer Berry, and William Morton Fullerton, and enactment of her friends in some of her fiction.

Poetry

The River Poets will host readings Thursday, APril 18, at 7:30 pm (sharp) at Bloomsburg Public Library, 22 Market St. Abigail Hess and other poets from the Slam Poetry group at Susquehanna University will perform and present their poems. MC is Tara Holdren.

More Poetry + Jazz

A tidbit from guitarist Matt Leece: Channel your inner bohemian Friday night at the Center Street Café (next to Artspace). Poetry readings and jazz music commence at about 7 pm.

Essayist and poet Lia Purpura to read Tuesday

Essayist and poet Lia Purpura will give a reading Tuesday, April 16, at 7 pm in BU's Hartline Science Center, Kuster Auditorium.

A leading author in the "New Essay" movement, A 2012 Guggenheim fellowship recipient, Purpura is the author of three collections of poems (King Baby, Stone Sky Lifting, The Brighter the Veil), three collections of essays (Rough Likeness, On Looking, and Increase) and one collection of translations (Poems of Grzegorz Musial: Berliner Tagebuch and Taste of Ash).

Her poems and essays appear in AGNI, The Antioch Review, DoubleTake, FIELD, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Orion Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Ploughshares. Southern Review.

Her visit, part of the Big Dog Reading Series, is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and is free and open to the public.

The American dream, translated

Anna Monardo, award-winning author of The Courtyard of Dreams and Falling in Love with Natassia, will visit Bloomsburg University on Thursday, April 11, for a lecture and question-and-answer session.

The lecture, "Translating the American Dream," will be at 7:30 pm in McCormick Center, room 1303; the question-and-answer session will be held at 3:30 p.m. in Warren Student Services Center, room 004. The events, sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, Department of English and Gender Studies Minor (GSM), are free and open to the public.

Music on the horizon

John Vanore and Abstract Truth are special guest performers at Bloomsburg University’s Jazz Festival on Friday, April 12 in Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall. Bands from middle schools and high schools will participate in master classes for each section and a full band clinic. The BU Jazz Ensemble will perform a free concert at noon.

BU student Kyle Moore, pianist, will give a free recital Saturday, April 13, at 5 pm in First Presbyterian Church, 345 Market St.

Bloomsburg University’s Concert Band will perform Sunday, April 14, at 7:30 pm in Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall.

Democracy on Celluloid 

The move Recount, starring Kevin Spacey, will be shown Thursday, April 11, at 6:15 pm in Hartline Science Center, room G42. The screening is part of BU's Constitutional Freedom Film Series. The movie explores the human drama surrounding the 2000 presidential election. The film screening, sponsored by the Frederick Douglass Institute and the American Democracy Project, is open to the public free of charge. 

Celebrate Bloomsday June 16 (as in Leopold)

Named not for the town, but for the hero of James Joyce's Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, and the day of the novel's events, June 16, 1904.

Members of the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble will give a reading at the Cloak and Dragon bookstore on Main Street from 10 am to 12:30 pm.

Also in honor of Bloomsday: There will be a scavenger hunt throughout downtown beginning with registration at 9:30 am at the Moose Exchange.

On the poetry front: Troubadour-poet Lester Hirsh will perform at Edith's Kitchen, June 16, from 6 to 8 pm. Edith's Kitchen is located at 119 Pine Street, Catawissa, AKA the Whistle Stop by the River.

An English major in college, my take on Ulysses was: Joyce is a female supremacist because women are the gatekeepers in relationships. Bloom tries to upset that natural balance by denying his wife for 10 years and having a correspondence relationship with a woman, who he refuses to meet in person (to deny her the ability to decide if they meet again). Spoiler alert: After several hundred pages of a fairly miserable day for Leopold, the fate of his marriage is determined by his wife in a half-asleep haze in the very last pages. — EGF.

Adderall Diaries author coming in March

This is  pretty big deal.

Stephen Elliott, author of the The Adderall Diaries, and director of the upcoming film Cherry will speak at Bloomsburg University on Wednesday, March 28. He will give a talk on "Writing for New Media" at 4 p.m., in Kehr Union, Multipurpose A, and read from The Adderall Diaries at 7 p.m. in McCormick 1303.

Elliott is the author of seven books including The Adderall Diaries which has been described as “genius” by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Vanity Fair and was the best book of the year in Time Out New York, a best of 2009 in Kirkus Reviews, and one of 50 notable books in the San Francisco Chronicle.

He is also the director the film Cherry, starring James Franco, Heather Graham, Dev Patel, and Lili Taylor, to be released this spring.

Elliott's visit is part of the Bloomsburg's Big Dog Reading Series.

Where's Emily? Dickinson that is

For those with an interest in poetry, there's a series of events, most free, in the Bloomsburg area revolving around Emily Dickinson. They are:

• March 31: 5:00-7:00 PM, Geisinger Medical Center, Henry Hood Center for Health Research Auditorium,100 N. Academy Ave., Danville: BIG READ: EMILY DICKINSON KICK-OFF! Barbara Dana and Cindy Mackenzie, co-editors, will present a talk about their book, WIDER THAN THE SKY: ESSAYS AND MEDITATIONS ON THE HEALING POWER OF EMILY DICKINSON. Refreshments. Sponsored by the Division of Spiritual Care, Geisinger Medical Center. FREE.
• April 1-30 (Monday-Friday) 10 AM: 89.9 FM; DICKINSON-A-DAY poetry readings by Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble actor Laurie McCants; produced by Erika Funke, WVIA-FM, an NPR affiliate.
• April 2: 12:00-2:00 PM, Cloak and Dragon Bookstore, 12 E. Main St., Bloomsburg: BOOK SIGNING. Barbara Dana will sign her books, A VOICE OF HER OWN: BECOMING EMILY DICKINSON (a novel for teen readers) and WIDER THAN THE SKY: ESSAYS AND MEDITATIONS ON THE HEALING POWER OF EMILY DICKINSON. FREE.
• April 4: 6:30 PM, Thomas Beaver Free Library, 205 Ferry St., Danville: BOOK SIGNING. Barbara Dana will sign her books, A VOICE OF HER OWN: BECOMING EMILY DICKINSON (a novel for teen readers) and WIDER THAN THE SKY: ESSAYS AND MEDITATIONS ON THE HEALING POWER OF EMILY DICKINSON. FREE.
• April 7: 7:30 PM, Bloomsburg Public Library, 225 Market St., Bloomsburg: MY EMILY (a poetry reading by Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble actor Laurie McCants, featuring poems by and inspired by Dickinson). Sponsored by River Poets. FREE.
• April 9: 11:00AM, The Children’s Museum, 2 W. 7th St., Bloomsburg: GINGERBREAD WITH EMILY DICKINSON. Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble actor Laurie McCants, dressed as Dickinson, reads from her poetry and from children’s books about the poet. Refreshments provided by CityGirl Bakery, Danville. $5.00 admission (group discounts available).
• April 14: 6:30 PM, Thomas Beaver Free Library, 205 Ferry St., Danville: MY EMILY (a poetry reading by Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble actor Laurie McCants, featuring poems by and inspired by Dickinson). FREE.
• April 16: 11:00AM, Thomas Beaver Free Library, 205 Ferry St., Danville: GINGERBREAD WITH EMILY DICKINSON. Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble actor Laurie McCants, dressed as Dickinson, reads from her poetry and from children’s books about the poet. Refreshments provided by CityGirl Bakery, Danville. FREE.
• April 21: 7:30 PM, The Moose Exchange, 203 Main St., Bloomsburg: THE BRAIN WITHIN IT’S GROOVE: MUSICAL INTERPETATIONS OF EMILY DICKINSON’S POETRY, a new-music concert by composer/performer Steven Gilliland, as part of the Moose Exchange’s “A Night on the Town”. $10 admission. April 21-May 26: The Moose Exchange, 203 Main Street, Bloomsburg: ART SHOW. Work by local artists inspired by Emily Dickinson. Featuring several imaginary portraits of the poet by Gregory Paul Owens. FREE.
• April 27: 7:30 PM, The Moose Exchange, 203 Main St., Bloomsburg: INDUSTRIOUS ANGELS, a new solo music-theatre-shadow-puppet-memory-play by Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble actor Laurie McCants, evoking the secret creativity of women and the ghost of Emily Dickinson. $10 admission.