Although most of the readings presented by The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center are aimed at all ages, parents and their teen daughters may be especially interested in two readings in the next few weeks.
On Tuesday, February 28 at 8 pm, the Center offers you a chance to hear one of the major literary figures of our time, Jamaica Kincaid, at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry.
Admission is only $10.
Kincaid, who lived on the island of Antigua until age 17 and now lives in Vermont and Cambridge, MA, is particularly well-known for the novels Annie, John and Lucy, the essay A Small Place, and the memoirs The Autobiography of My Mother and My Brother. An avid gardener and the author of My Garden (Book), Kincaid’s recent Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalayas is about her adventure in the mountains of Nepal with a group of botanists. She was also editor of The Best American Travel Writing 2005. Her wide critical acclaim includes the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts for her first book, a story collection, At the Bottom of the River.
She has been a visiting professor at Harvard University since 1992, and in 2004 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
On Sunday, March 5 at 4:30 pm, there will be two widely-praised young adult novelists, Marthe Jocelyn of NYC and Stratford, Ontario, and Staton Rabin of Irvington. Both happen to have written recent novels about gutsy girls in history. Jocelyn’s book, Mable Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum, Peril, and Adventure, which won the 2005 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, is about a girl who thinks her life with her schoolmistress sister is very boring until she gets caught up with the suffragist activities of the local Ladies Reading Society.
Rabin’s book, Betsy and the Emperor, is about a witty and spunky girl who befriends Napoleon when he is imprisoned in her family’s home on the island of St. Helena. It has been translated into 12 languages and will be made into a film with Al Pacino. Jocelyn is well-known for her series The Invisible Day, The Invisible Harry, and The Invisible Enemy and Rabin also has several other books, including a recent time travel book, Black Powder, about teens who try to stop the invention of gun powder. Admission to the March 5 event is only $5 ($3 for young people and HVWC members). Anyone needing more information should call the Center at 332-5953 or check the website, www.writerscenter.org.
