NYS Summer Writers Institute offers a rich array of readings

The traditional slate of free readings and discussions by participating and guest writers will again highlight the 2008 New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore.

The 22nd annual summer program is scheduled through July 25. Operated under the joint auspices of Skidmore and the New York State Writers Institute, the program features creative writing courses in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Howard launched the series of readings on Monday, June 30. The following is the 2008 schedule of New York State Summer Writers Institute special events. All begin at 8 p.m. in Davis Auditorium of Palamountain Hall (except where noted). Admission to all events is free.

	Robert Pinsky

• July 1: Fiction reading by Elizabeth Benedict (novelist, Almost) and Francine Prose (novelist, A Changed Man)
 
• July 2: Fiction and poetry reading by Mary Gordon (official New York State Author, Pearl) and Frank Bidart (poet, Desire)
 
• July 3: Non-fiction reading by Honor Moore (author, The Bishop’s Daughter) and Phillip Lopate (author, Waterfront)
 
• July 4: Poetry reading by Robert Pinsky (former U.S. Poet Laureate) 

• July 7: Poetry and fiction reading by Campbell McGrath (poet, American Noise) and Kathryn Harrison (novelist/memoirist, The Kiss)
 
• July 8: Poetry and fiction reading by Mary Kinzie (poet, Summers of Vietnam) and Marilynne Robinson (Pulitzer Prize, Gilead)  

William Kennedy

• July 9: Fiction reading by Jim Shepard (Like You’d Understand, Anyway) and Sigrid Nunez (Last of Her Kind)
 
• July 10: Fiction and poetry reading by Binnie Kirshenbaum (novelist, Hester in the Ruins, Pure Poetry) and Dan Chiasson (poet, Natural History)  

• July 11: Fiction reading by Joyce Carol Oates (National Book Award, them, We Were The Mulvaneys), Gannett Auditorium

• July 14: Fiction and poetry reading by Howard Norman (novelist, The Bird Artist) and Jane Shore (Happy Family)
 
• July 15: Fiction reading by William Kennedy (Pulitzer Prize, Ironweed, Roscoe)
 
• July 16: Fiction reading by Julia Slavin (novelist, Carnivore Diet) and Rick Moody (fictionist, Demonology)
 
• July 17: Fiction and poetry reading by Jamaica Kincaid (novelist/memoirist, Mr. Potter, A Small Place) and Henri Cole (poet, Middle Earth) 

	Russell Banks

• July 18: Fiction and non-fiction reading by Ann Beattie (novelist, Park City) and Sheila Kohler (Bluebird, Or The Invention of Happiness)

• July 21: Fiction and nonfiction reading by Neil Gordon (The Company You Keep) and James Miller (Democracy is in the Streets)

• July 22: Fiction and poetry reading by Russell Banks (novelist, The Darling) and Chase Twichell (poet, Dog Language)

• July 23: Fiction and poetry reading by Mary Gaitskill (fiction, Veronica) and Peg Boyers (poet, Hard Bread, Honey with Tobacco)
 
• July 24: Fiction and non-fiction reading by Robert Stone (Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties) and Alix Ohlin (novelist, The Missing Person)
 
• July 25: Fiction and poetry reading by James Longenbach (poetry, Draft of a Letter) and Joanna Scott (fiction, Liberation: A Novel)