Writers (Video)

Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, this event features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. This year’s participants: La Dawn Duvall (Visitor & Parent Services), Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Joseph Defraine Greenwell, Steven Finacom (Capital Projects), Alex Mastrangeli (English), S...

UC Berkeley Bioengineering Professor Kimmen Sjölander reads “Keeping Quiet” by Pablo Neruda. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29008]

David Kirp, author of the acclaimed “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for American Schools” and professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, argues that the best way to improve education is to avoid trendy reforms and stick with what works: providing support for teachers to make personal connections with their students. Series: "The Goldman School - B...

Internationally recognized biographer Noel Riley Fitch offers some food for thought in “Sharing Julia Child’s Appetite for Life,” the title of her keynote address to the annual Dinner at the Library at UC San Diego. Fitch gives a revealing look into how Child’s passion for French cuisine made her a culinary icon to generations of Americans. Fitch is the only biographer exclusively authorized by Ju...

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: 28342]

Rowan Ricardo Phillips, award-winning poet, literary and art critic, and translator reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. His first collection of poems, “The Ground: Poems” was published in 2013. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28137]

Writer and Editor Marv Wolfman discusses the art and craft of writing compelling stories with emotionally complex characters and imaginative plots for comics, animation, video games and everything in between. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24137]

The annual student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28341]

New York Times best-selling author Ayelet Waldman’s new novel, “Love and Treasure,” was called a “treasure trove” by Joyce Carol Oates. Previous books include “Red Hook Road” and “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace.” Her novel “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits” was made into a film starring Natalie Portman. Waldman’s personal essays, prof...

Leonore Wilson is Poet Laureate of Napa Valley and author of “Western Solstice” published by Hiraeth Press. She has received fellowships from Villa Montalvo Center of the Arts and University of Utah. Her poems have appeared in Quarterly West, Madison Review, Third Coast, Unruly Catholic Women Writers Poets Against the War, and TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Human...

Walter Kirn is an author, essayist and critic. The New York Times has commented that “No one mines his own life in the service of understanding the American experience better than Walter Kirn.” His best-selling novels “Up in the Air” and “Thumbsucker” were made into movies. A contributing editor to Time magazine, Kirn’s work has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Vogue, New York and Esquire. He r...

Fred Vogelstein is the author of “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution” (2013). A contributing editor at Wired magazine, he writes about technology and media. He’s been a staff writer for Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Newsday and US News and World Report. Vogelstein’s work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Time...

Novelist and memoirist Anne Lamott brings her unique charm to the Writer’s Symposium by the Sea once again as she stresses the importance of finding one’s pure voice in writing about sadness, disappointment or satisfaction with life in this freewheeling conversation with author Donald Miller and veteran journalist Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Se...

Zubair Ahmed was born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 2005, his family won the Diversity Visa Lottery, which granted them the opportunity to immigrate to the US. During the year-and-a-half before moving, he became a professional video gamer and then moved to Duncanville, Texas where he finished high school. Ahmed now studies mechanical engineering and creative writing at Stanford University. H...

Jeannette Walls drew from her nomadic childhood with negligent but interesting parents for her memoir “The Glass Castle” and her colorful grandmother for “Half-Broke Horses: A True Life Novel.” Her latest, “The Silver Star,” continues to explore dysfunctional family love and loyalty. She talks here with veteran journalist Dean Nelson as part of the 19th annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Poin...

Cynthia Cruz’s poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Boston Review, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review and others. Her first collection of poems, RUIN, was published by Alice James Book and her second collection, “The Glimmering Room,” was published by Four Way Books in 2012. She has received fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony as well as a Hodder Fellowship fro...

Cancer is a lens in which to understand modern society and the acquisition of knowledge, argues Pulitzer-Prize winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee. In this wide-ranging interview with journalist Dean Nelson, Dr. Mukherjee goes on to describe himself as a “sober optimist” about the future of cancer research as he urges the cancer community to demand more public support for cancer the...

Author, New York Times columnist and master storyteller Samuel Freedman describes the process of creating powerful narratives about people engaged with race, faith and other cultural issues in this interview with veteran journalist Dean Nelson. Freedman is presented as part of the 19th Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [...

Linda Gregerson is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Selvage (2012). Her many honors include awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundations, the Kingsley Tufts poetry endowment. Her third book, Waterborne, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Gregerson is Caroline Walker Bynum...

This reading is a special event celebrating the first anthology of Burmese poetry in English translation in more than fifty years. At a time of political transformation in Myanmar, Zeyar Lynn, poet, essayist, and translator presents his work from “Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets.” Lynn is widely regarded as the most influential living poet in Myanmar and a translator of many Western...

Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, this event features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. This year’s participants: Police Chief Margo Bennett, Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks, Keith P. Feldman (Ethnic Studies), Dean Keith Gilless (College of Natural Resources), Alexander Givental (Mathematics), Timo...

Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers in 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: 24376]

One of the year’s most lively events, the student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24352]

David Shields is the author of twelve books, most recently Jeff, One Lonely Guy, which was co-written by Jeff Ragsdale and Michael Logan. He is a winner of multiple PEN awards and the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, two NEA fellowships, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He is the Milliman Distinguished...

Award winning writer and poet C. S. Giscombe has written many poems, books, and plays. He was the 2010 recipient of the Stephen Henderson Award given by the African American Literature and Culture Society. His poetry book Prairie Style won a 2008 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Two of his recent plays (Lycanthropes/ Entre Chien et Loup and Lycanthropes/ Loup-Garou!) have b...