Where the Real and the Surreal Meet
The Modern Real and Surreal: Writers and Artists on Our Age, is the Forbes Library’s author reading series. Now in its third season, the series explores contemporary themes on the premise that libraries offer vibrant spaces to engage with and explore our era’s most pressing questions – questions that in their surprises and contradictions can be understood through either a realistic lens or through fantasy, science fiction and the surreal. The series invites the community to join us in examining how story and art can provide empathy and insight in our accelerating world.
The series features writers in genres ranging from fiction to nonfiction to poetry. The role of the image in conveying literary themes will be explored, too, in events on comics & graphic novels, film and screenwriting, and nature word-and-image pairings. Current issues from our political and social milieu will also form an important backbone as these authors share from their fine work.
2017-2018 Forbes Library Reading Series
Christopher Couch, author, The Will Eisner Companion: The Pioneering Spirit of the Father of the Graphic Novel
November 8 – Aspergers, Autism, and Neurodiversity
John Elder Robison, author, Switched On
Cammie McGovern, novelist, A Step Toward Falling
Patricia Stacey, author, The Boy Who Loved Windows
December 13 – Celebration of Local Authors
Kelly Link, author, Get in Trouble
Mira Bartok, novelist, The Wonderling
Ruth Lehrer, novelist, Being Fishkill
February 26 – Screenwriting, Scripts and Film
Abraham Ravett, filmmaker, Holding Hands With Ilse
Wade Wofford, screenwriter/director, The Answer
Ellen Kaplan, screenwriter/director, Mixed Blessings
Jake Hulse, screenwriter/director, Heroes Don’t Come Home
March 21– Native Americans and the Land
Cheryl Savageau, poet and author, Mother/Land
Lisa Brooks, author, Our Beloved Kin
Jillian Hensley, novelist, In This Strange Soil
April 11 – Science Fiction and Fantasy
Jane Yolen, novelist, The Pit Dragon Chronicles
Elizabeth Bear, novelist, The Stone in the Skull
Robert V.S. Redick, novelist, Master Assassins
May 9 – Nature: Word and Image
Bob Marstall, illustrator, On Duck Pond
Naila Moreira, Forbes Library Writer in Residence, and Pam Petro, photographer, Dusk at Macleish
Valerie Carrigan, printmaker and book artist, The Walk
May 16 – Memory & Desire: Poetry of Midlife
Lesléa Newman, poet, LOVELY
Joy Ladin, poet, Impersonation
Gail Thomas, poet, Odd Mercy
2016-2017 Forbes Library Reading Series
Katherine Anderson – author of Hospital Hill
November 2 – Political Poetry
Jane Yolen – author of Bloody Tide
Rich Michelson – author of More Money Than God
Lesléa Newman – author of October Mourning
Andrea Hairston – author of Will do Magic for Small Change
Bill Newman – moderator
December 7 – Literature From and About Prison
Lois Ahrens – creator of Real Cost of Prison Project and Real Cost of Prison Comix
Moana Rawlings – program director, Women’s Treatment Program, Gandara Center
Kempis “Ghani” Songster – activist and poet (read by Michael Lewis)
Revan Schendler – journalist
January 11 – Celebration of Local Novelists
Jacqueline Sheehan – author of The Center of the World
M.B. Caschetta – author of Pretend I’m Your Friend
Jendi Reiter – author of Two Natures
Zane Kotker – author of Goodnight, Ladies
February 1 – Literature and Poetry of Brazil
Pamela Petro and Marguerite Harrison – artists/writers of In Two Voices series
Malcolm McNee – author of The Environmental Imaginary in Brazilian Poetry and Art
Ellen Doré Watson – translator of Ex-Voto by Adélia Prado
March 1 – Identity, Nature, and the Environment
Lauret Savoy – author of Trace
Mistinguette Smith – executive director of The Black Land Project
Naila Moreira – Forbes Library writer in residence
April 12 – War, Conflict, and Refugees: The Literature of Crisis
Emmanuel Dongala – author of Johnny Mad Dog
Polina Barskova – author of This Lamentable City
Thérèse Soukar Chehade – author of Loom
May 10 – Writers as Climate Activists
Ellen Meeropol – author of Kinship of Clover
Brian Adams – author of KABOOM
Jennifer Browdy – author of What I Forgot…and Why I Remembered: A Journey to Environmental Awareness and Activism Through Purposeful Memoir
2015-2016 Forbes Library Reading Series
Michael Dover, editor, and Elizabeth Farnsworth and Katie Koerten, contributors, Earth Matters
Naila Moreira, Writer in Residence, Forbes Library
November 4 – Writing about Health, Medicine and the Body
Norman Johnson, author of Darwinian Detectives
Nell Lake, author of The Caregivers
Suzanne Koven, Writer in Residence, Massachusetts General Hospital Internal Medicine Division
December 2 – 1000 Words: Telling Stories Through Photography
Paul Ickovic, photographer
Stephen Petegorsky, photographer
Greg Saulmon, journalist, The Hampshire Gazette
January 6 – Writing the Fantastical
Andrea Hairston, playwright, Will Do Magic for Small Change
Jedediah Barry, author, The Family Arcana
John Crowley, author, Four Freedoms
February 3 – The Massachusetts Review: Author Panel
curated by Emily Wojcik, managing editor of The Massachusetts Review literary magazine
March 2 – Comics and Graphic Novels
James Sturm, cartoonist and co-founder, Center for Cartoon Studies, Vermont
Tillie Walden, cartoonist, I Love This Part
James Lawson, cartoonist, Paleo: Tales of the Late Cretaceous
April 13 – The Common: Author Panel
curated by Jen Acker, editor of The Common literary magazine
May 4 – Writing about Disability
Claire Blatchford, author of Coming to My Senses
Katherine Duke, author of Kissability: People with Disabilities Talk About Sex, Love, and Relationships
Susan Stinson, author of Venus of Chalk