Lecture Previews
Paul Willis Publishes New Book of Poems
Better Late
Santa Barbara poet Paul Willis’s long awaited book of poetry, Visiting Home, came out this spring. He spoke with me about it from his home in Montecito. Read story.
Photographer Joel Meyerowitz and His 9/11 Archive, Aftermath
Standing Alone
When the events of September 11, 2001, engulfed New York City, native New Yorker and photographer Joel Meyerowitz was on Cape Cod. Read story.
Ojai’s 9th Annual Storytelling Festival
Telling Tales
Some people exaggerate. Some outright lie. But when did you ever hear of someone making a living at it? Read story.
Salman Rushdie to Discuss Enchantment
The Empire Writes Back
There’s something dubious about fiction writers whose major theme is storytelling. Read story.
Political Satirist Andy Borowitz on Why Politics Is So Damn Funny
Turning Gaffes into Laughs
For more than a decade, Andy Borowitz has made his living as a freelance political satirist, publishing everywhere from the L.A. Times to the New Yorker. Read story.
Samantha Power’s New Book, Chasing the Flame
Peacekeeping by Power
In May 2003, Sergio Vieira de Mello had just completed two and a half years as the United Nations’ chief envoy to East Timor. Read story.
Andrew J. Bacevich on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
Where We Fall Down
Andrew J. Bacevich was an early and prominent critic of the war in Iraq. Read story.
Melting the Ice in the Heart of Man
Angaangaq, an Eskimo Elder, Discusses Climate Change, Drops Sagely Wisdom
Angaangaq, a wise Eskimo elder, is coming to town. Read story.
Tierney Gearon’s Mother Project
Family Matters
For Tierney Gearon, photography is about far more than just capturing her subjects; it’s about understanding them. Read story.
Colman McCarthy on Teaching Nonviolence
Touting the Literature of Peace
Morally ambiguous? Intellectually dubious? Realistically utopian? Colman McCarthy’s cause célèbre — peace, of the absolute, change-the-world kind — is natural fodder for derision, but he doesn’t mind. Read story.
James Carroll on Religion and War
Beyond the Post-Religious Age
James Carroll, op-ed columnist for the Boston Globe, will give a free lecture, The Disputation: Christians Arguing with Christians about the Jews tonight, February 7, at UCSB’s Campbell Hall. Read story.
Award-Winning Poet B.H. Fairchild to Read at SBCC
Body and Soul
B.H. Fairchild is the author of six books of poetry, including ,em>Local Knowledge, The Art of the Lathe, and Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. He has won numerous honors and awards for his poems, including an NEA Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award, and the California Book Award. Read story.
Writer Max Schott Reads at UCSB
Poetry in Prose
I got to know Max Schott in the mid-1970s when I started teaching literature classes in the College of Creative Studies (CCS) at UCSB. This was just before he published his first book, Up Where I Used to Live: Stories. By then, Max had been teaching at CCS for nearly 10 years, beginning soon after Marvin Mudrick founded the college in 1967. Read story.
Josh Conviser’s New Novel, Empyre
The Spy-Fi Master
Thanks to its natural beauty, laid-back attitude, and proximity to Los Angeles, Santa Barbara has long offered sanctuary to Hollywood refugees. Having done time in the L.A. film industry, screenwriter Josh Conviser relocated to Montecito in order to escape the interference of studios, producers, and committees, and concentrate on a new project: a near-future novel called Echelon. Read story.
Tom Brokaw on Pre-War Press and the Information Era
Of Booms and Bangs
In Boom: Voices of the Sixties, Personal Reflections on the ’60s and Today, former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw offers a follow-up to The Greatest Generation, his best-selling book about the ᾽50s. Boom, like The Greatest Generation, is not really a history, and certainly isn’t a polemic; it’s an easygoing series of reflections about people Brokaw thinks exemplified the era. Read story.
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