The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Claire T. Carney Library Associates will honor four preeminent authors on Sunday, March 22, 2009 at the New Bedford Wamsutta Club. This outstanding program will serve as a benefit to expand and modernize the university’s library. Chancellor Professor Emeritus Mel B. Yoken, former president of the Library Associates, will host the event which will take place at 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM.
The admission price of $25.00 includes a full buffet brunch and the writers’ discussion of their books. Tickets will be available at the door. It is preferred, however, that all reservations be made in advance. Checks, made payable to The Claire T. Carney Library Associates, can be sent to Mrs. Rita Raymond, 1032 Sterling Street, New Bedford, MA 02745. There will be ample parking in the Wamsutta Club parking lot. All proceeds benefit the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Claire T. Carney Library. For more information about the UMass Dartmouth library, visit http://www.lib.umassd.edu.
For additional information about this stellar program of great British and American writers, please contact Damaris Berner at 508 999-8671 dberner@umassd.edu or, Professor Yoken at myoken@umassd.edu
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The four authors: Pat LaMarche, Nigel Hamilton, Nancy Rubin Stuart and Adam Braver, are highly acclaimed writers of historical fiction, biography and social history. Books will be available to be autographed by the authors.
Pat LaMarche is an author, educator, journalist, and broadcaster who has successfully managed business and charitable organizations, and is well known for her innovative approach to public service. LaMarche writes a weekly syndicated column dealing with politics and current events, and has leveraged her popularity to help provide food, heating oil and medical treatment for many of her fellow Mainers, as well as support for the Maine National Guard and September 11th relief crews. In 1998 and 2006, LaMarche ran for Governor of Maine and, in 2004, she served as the Green Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate. LaMarche is the only Maine woman to establish a political party in that state. A graduate of Bangor’s John Bapst High School and Boston College, she also pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Amsterdam. LaMarche’s recent book, Left Out in America (UpalaPress, 2006) will be discussed at the literary brunch. She is also a contributor to Voyages: A Maine Franco-American Reader.
Nigel Hamilton studied history at Cambridge University and has published many acclaimed biographies of significant historical value. He was appointed The John F. Kennedy Scholar at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and wrote JFK: Reckless Youth (Random House, 1992.) In 2000 he returned to the University of Massachusetts Boston, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies to write, Bill Clinton: An American Journey (Random House, 2003.) While researching and writing the second volume of his biography of Bill Clinton, Hamilton also wrote Biography – A Brief History, which was published to great acclaim by Harvard University Press in the spring of 2007. He has researched and written extensive biographies about Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery. In Monty: The Battles of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery (Random House, 1994) Hamilton revised and compressed the battle accounts of his three-volume official biography for the general reader. Early in his career, Hamilton broke new ground in biography by looking at the lives not of one writer, but of two, in terms of sibling rivalry in, The Brothers Mann: The Lives of Heinrich and Thomas Mann 1871-1950 and 1875-1955 (Yale University Press, 1979.) Most recently, he has undertaken a modern version of Suetonius’ classic biographical work The Twelve Caesars. Hamilton’s new version will be called American Caesars, and cover the last twelve American presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush and will be published in 2010. He will undertake the third and final volume of his Clinton trilogy after completion of American Caesars.
Adam Braver is an American author who has published four acclaimed novels, mostly of historical fiction. His first book was Mr. Lincoln’s Wars (Harper Perennial, 2003), is a novel told from thirteen different perspectives in order to illuminate Abraham Lincoln’s inner life. Second was Divine Sarah (William Morrow, 2004), which fictionalizes actress Sarah Barnhart’s Tour of America. Crows Over the Wheatfield (Harper Perennial, 2006) told the story of a renowned Van Gogh scholar struggling to deal with her guilt after she accidentally kills a young boy in a car accident. The most recent, Nov 22, 1963 (Tin House Books, 2008) is a fictionalization of the day of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Braver’s short stories have appeared in journals such as “Harvard Review,” “West Branch,” “Ontario Review,” and “Daedalus.” Braver teaches at Roger Williams University. He also has been a regular writer-in-residence and faculty member at the New York State Summer Writers Institute.
Nancy Rubin Stuart is an award-winning author and journalist who specializes in women, biography and social history. She has appeared on national television and radio shows in connection¬ with her books. These included appearances on C-Span’s Book TV, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio, Charlie Rose, Oprah, A & E Network’s “America’s Castles” and “Mansions, Monuments and Masterpieces.” Stuart was just nominated for a George Washington Book Award on behalf of her latest book, The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation (Beacon Press, 2008.) In 2005, Harcourt published her biography about the co-founder of American spiritualism, The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox. Stuart’s best-selling biography American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post has been reprinted in paperback by (Universe, 2004.) Her earlier books include, Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen (St. Martin’s Press, 1991,) The Mother Mirror: How a Generation of Women Is Changing Motherhood in America (Putnam, 1984) and The New Suburban Woman: Beyond Myth and Motherhood (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1982.) As a journalist, she has contributed to many publications including The New York Times, American History Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, American History, The Stamford Advocate, Greenwich Time, Business Week’s Careers, Family Circle, Savvy and Travel and Leisure.
Workshop on oral history by Dr. Betty Hoffman, President of the New England Association of Oral History
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