Writers (Video)

Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers in the UC Berkeley campus community with an annual student reading. The event features short excerpts of work by winners of the year’s biggest prose prizes, Story Hour in the Library interns, and faculty nominees. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29739]

The Neo Noir series examines different aspects of the film noir style. The films showcase the "soul of the city," interpreting the Los Angeles of the past, present, and future. In “Collateral”, director Michael Mann brings noir to a modern-day Los Angeles. Screenwriter Stuart Beattie talks with Anna Brusutti, Film and Media Studies Lecturer at UCSB, and the audience about his writing process. Seri...

Lydia Davis reads from her latest collection of short stories, “Can’t and Won’t,” and speaks of her writing processes when dealing with her own work and translated work. Series: "Humanitas" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29510]

Joyce Carol Oates has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Most recently, she published Carthage and The Sacrifice, and the story collections High-Crime Area and Lovely, Dark, Deep. Among her many honors are the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Prix Femina Étranger, and the President's Meda...

Jane Hirshfield's eighth poetry book, The Beauty, appears from Knopf in early 2015, along with a new book of essays, Ten Windows. Previous books include Come, Thief (Knopf, 2011) and After (2006), named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Financial Times (UK). She has also written a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and edited...

Joshua Weiner is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (2013). He is also the editor of At the Barriers: On the Poetry of Thom Gunn, and the poetry editor at Tikkun magazine. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2014 fellowship from the Guggenheim Memorial Fou...

Economist Joseph Stiglitz and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich reminisce about opposing “corporate welfare” during their days in the Clinton Administration and talk here about problematic trade deals, income inequality and Stiglitz’s new book, “The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them.” Reich and Stiglitz are presented by the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkel...

Harmony Holiday is a poet, dancer, and archivist, mythscientist and the author of Negro League Baseball (Fence, 2011), Go Find Your Father/ A Famous Blues (Ricochet, 2014), and “Hollywood Forever” (Fence, 2015). She reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29488]

Maria Hummel is the author of the award-winning poetry collection “House and Fire“ and of two novels, “Motherland” and “Wilderness Run.” Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Narrative, The Sun, The New York Times, and the anthology The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [S...

Joyce Carol Oates, the prolific author and winner of nearly every literary award of note, has maintained a creative dialogue with contemporary American culture for 50 years. She continues the conversation here with veteran journalist Dean Nelson as part of the 2015 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities]...

Screenwriter Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, I Am Not a Hipster) returns to his alma mater to share the excitement of his latest project, adapting Jeanette Walls’ best-selling memoir, The Glass Castle, to film. Cretton talks about the joys and frustrations of writing screenplays with Karl Martin of Point Loma Nazarene University as part of the 2015 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea. Series: "Wri...

Barney Frank, the 16-term former Congressman from Massachusetts joins Alex Gelber and Henry E. Brady of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley for a no-holds-barred review of his feats (and colleagues) on Capitol Hill. From being the first Member of Congress to publicly identify himself as gay, to Dodd-Frank, his signature bill addressing the 2008 financial crisis, and on to a thorough...

Author Lysley Tenorio describes the influences that led to “Monstress,” his popular short story collection that explores the conflicting and coalescing aspects of disparate cultures. Tenorio shares his process of writing funny, sad and beautiful fiction in this revealing interview with veteran journalist Dean Nelson as part of the 2015 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene Universit...

English professor Scott Saul discusses his new book, Becoming Richard Pryor. The richly researched biography about the comedian is accompanied by a website, “Richard Pryor’s Peoria,” which presents more than 200 photographs and documents from Pryor’s first two decades in Peoria, Ill. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29310]

Jay Kogen, Writer/ Executive Producer of the "Simpsons" is interviewed by UCSB professor Cheri Steinkellner. In addition to Homer and the gang, Kogen has written and produced for Malcolm in the Middle, Frasier and many others. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29141]

Tom Barbash is the author of the new book of stories “Stay Up With Me.” Previous books include award-winning novel “The Last Good Chance” and “On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11,” which was a New York Times bestseller. His stories and articles have been published and performed on National Public Radio. Here he reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour i...

Gillian Conoley was born in Austin Texas, where, on its rural outskirts, her father and mother owned and operated a radio station. She is the author of seven collections of poetry. She is Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Sonoma State University. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29108]

Robin Robertson is from the Northeast coast of Scotland. He has published five collections of poetry—most recently Hill of Doors—and received a number of accolades, including the Petrarch Prize, the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Cholmondeley Award, and all three Forward Prizes. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 2900...

UC Berkeley Executive Director of Visitor and Parent Services La Dawn Duvall reads Maya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman.” Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29005]

Joyce Maynard has been a writer of both fiction and nonfiction since the age of 18. Her memoir “At Home in the World” has been translated into fifteen languages. Her eight novels include the newly released “After Her,” as well as “To Die For” and the New York Times bestseller, “Labor Day.” In addition to writing, Maynard performs frequently as a storyteller with The Moth in New York City, and is t...

Jess Row, the author of “Your Face in Mine” and two short story collections, “The Train to Lo Wu” and “Nobody Ever Gets Lost” reads from his work at UC Berkeley. He has received a Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/O. Henry Award, and two Pushcart Prizes. In 2007 he was named a "Best Young American Novelist" by Granta. He teaches at the College of New Jersey and is an ordained Zen Teacher. Series: "St...

UC Berkeley Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Joseph Defraine Greenwell reads Maya Angelou’s poem “Alone.” Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29006]

UC Berkeley Professor of Environmental History, Philosphy and Ethics Carolyn Merchant reads David Iltis’ poem “The Lesson” Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29007]

In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O’Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Sin...

Award-winning historian Wendy Lower discusses the lives and experience of German women in the Nazi killing fields. Her study chillingly debunks the age-old myth of the German woman as mother and breeder, removed from the big world of politics and war. The women Lower labels “furies” humiliated their victims, plundered their goods, and often killed them, and like many of their male counterparts, th...