September 10-24, 2020

Welcome to the 3rd annual Albany Book Festival, presented by the NYS Writers Institute
at the University at Albany, featuring world-renowned authors, local authors, and workshops on writing and publishing.

Visit our YouTube channel to watch featured events.

Albany Book Festival 2020 Goes Online!

We’re going to have to do things a little differently this year. We have pivoted to a Virtual Writers Institute for our entire fall programming, with everything offered online, starting with our Albany Book Festival September 10-24.

The health and safety of everyone involved is paramount. Covid-19 protocols dictate it is not possible to come together in large gatherings on the UAlbany campus as in previous years.

We are inspired to make this year’s virtual Albany Book Festival the best experience possible with engrossing pre-recorded conversations with amazing authors, including Edwidge Danticat, Noam Chomsky, Gish Jen, Colum McCann and Sister Helen Prejean. It is a lineup that reinforces our commitment to diversity and inclusion and offering voices across the spectrum.

The coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented and troubling time. But let us not forget that books possess a transformative power, perhaps more so during lockdowns and quarantine. Books can open our hearts. Books can change our minds. Books transport us to places and times and situations we would never be able to visit ourselves. Books deepen our empathy and help us imagine and respect the other.

Let us focus on what this fall’s Virtual Albany Book Festival offers all of us, be thankful for this opportunity, and hope that the fourth annual edition will be back on campus and in-person.

Happy reading,

Paul Grondahl, Director NYS Writers Institute

FEATURED AUTHORS

All conversations are available on the dates listed after 1:00 pm with the exception of Sister Helen Prejean (Her event will be live at 7:30pm.) All conversations are pre-recorded and available on our YouTube site so you can watch at your convenience, on any device.

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J. Courtney Sullivan

September 10 (Thursday)
J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, and Saints For All Occasions. Maine was named a Best Book of the Year by Time magazine, and a Washington Post Notable Book for 2011. Her new novel Friends and Strangers, published in June, was named a “Today Show” #ReadwithJenna Book Club pick.

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September 11 (Friday)
Harold Holzer will discuss his new book “The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between The White House and the Media—From the Founding Fathers to Fake News”

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Gish Jen & Jane Leavy

September 14 (Monday)
Gish Jen has published short work in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and dozens of other periodicals, anthologies and textbooks.

Jane Leavy’s new book, “The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created”, has been called a "masterpiece…. A major work of American history by an author with a flair for mesmerizing story-telling.”

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Cree LeFavour & Dwight Garner

September 15 (Tuesday)
Cree LeFavour’s first novel,
“Private Means”, published in May, captures the very essence of summer in a sharply observed, moving meditation on marriage, money, and loss. LeFavour is the author of the memoir “Lights On, Rats Out”.

Book critic for The New York Times and a founding editor at salon.com

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September 16 (Wednesday)
A former child soldier, Sierra Leonean and American author of the novel “Radiance of Tomorrow” and the memoir “A Long Way Gone", which was a #1 New York Times bestseller and has been published in more than 40 languages. His new novel “Little Family” (2020) is a powerful novel about young people living at the margins of society, struggling to replace the homes they have lost with the one they have created together. He is a UNICEF Ambassador and Advocate for children affected by war, and a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Advisory Committee.

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Sierra Crane Murdoch & David Treuer

September 17 (Thursday)
Sierra Crane Murdoch’s first book “Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country”, published in February.

David Treuer grew up Ojibwe on a Minnesota reservation and trained as an anthropologist. His New York Times bestseller “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present” was a finalist or the 2019 National Book Award.

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September 18 (Friday)
National Book Award winner Colum McCann’s newest novel “Apeirogon” has been longlisted for the Booker Prize. He is the internationally bestselling author of the novels “TransAtlantic”, “Let the Great World Spin”, “Zoli, Dancer”, “This Side of Brightness”, and “Songdogs”, as well as three critically acclaimed story collections and the nonfiction book “Letters to a Young Writer”. McCann’s fiction has been published in over forty languages and has received many international honors, including the National Book Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Pushcart Prize, and an Oscar nomination for his short “film Everything in This Country Must.”

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Noam Chomsky & Robert Pollin

September 21 (Monday)
Called "America's leading dissenter" and considered the founder of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in modern history.

Robert Pollin’s 2015 book “Greening the Global Economy” provides a penetrating analysis of the challenge of global warming and a compelling plan to stabilize the environment while creating jobs and advancing social justice.

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Edwidge Danticat & Kali Fajardo Anstine

September 22 (Tuesday)
Edwidge Danticat’s latest short story collection “Everything Inside: Stories," has been awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Story Prize, and the Vilcek Prize in Literature.

National Book Award finalist for her debut short story collection “Sabrina & Corina”(2019), which was also selected a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize and The Story Prize and longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Drawing from her Southern Colorado heritage and life experiences living across the American West, Fajardo-Anstine’s writing and lectures reflect her own heritage as a Colorado Chicana with roots in Indigenous, Latina, and Filipino cultures.

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Matthew McElligott

September 23 (Wednesday)
Matthew McElligott is the author of several books for children, including The Mad Scientist Academy and Benjamin Franklinstein series. His newest picture book DO NOT EAT THE GAME!, released in May, is told through a game board and is the perfect read-along for family game nights. He is a professor and chair of the Art + Design Department at Sage College of Albany.

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Sister Helen Prejean

September 24 (Thursday) LIVE at 7:30pm
Sister Helen Prejean is a Roman Catholic nun and a preeminent advocate for the abolition of the death penalty. Her bestselling book about ministering to death row inmates, “Dead Man Walking” (1993), was adapted as a 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon (as Sister Helen) and Sean Penn. Her new memoir, “River of Fire” (2019), recounts her spiritual journey from praying for God to solve the world’s problems to engaging full-tilt in working to address societal injustices.

Events subject to change.

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