Fran Heaney
ccSCOOP News
Photos : William Parker
The Spencertown Academy Arts Center began their two-week-long Festival of Books with a preview party on Friday night. Guests and book dealers enjoyed fine wines and savory hors d’oeuvres and had the chance to get first dibs on the collection of more than 10,000 books.
On Saturday morning, the doors opened to the upstairs book loft, and the bibliophiles piled in. In the children’s area, Clifford the Big Red Dog delighted the kids as he sat on the floor and colored with them. Vivian Wachsberger, who catered the day, said, “The kids were mesmerized by the tall skinny kid in the Clifford the Red Dog suit. The little children were enthralled.”
Outside in the tent, Wesley Brown hosted a conversation with Da Chen and Rigoberto Gonzalez. “Exploring the Immigrant Experience through Personal Memoir” gave both authors the opportunity to share their experiences coming to America. Chen, who grew up in China during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, recounted his immigrant story in Colors of the Moon and Sounds of the River. Gonzalez came to the United States at the age of ten with his family who were migrant farmworkers. His childhood experiences are recounted in his memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa and his collection of short stories Men Without Bliss.
The discussion was very well-received by the crowd. At the end of the presentation, Da Chen played his flute and delighted book buyers by autographing this books in beautiful Chinese calligraphy.
The Friends of the Chatham Public Library, the Spencertown Academy, and the Chatham Film Club joined forces to produce this year’s Chatham Reads. The book chosen for the event was the novel The Namesake, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. On Saturday afternoon at the Festival of Books, there was a dramatic reading from the book. Director Kate Gulliver recruited local immigrants to make up the cast for the reading: Bhanu Sharma, an Indian-born graduate of Chatham High School whose father owns the Sunoco station in Chatham; Hosneara Kader from rural Bangladesh, who now works with the Family Literacy program in Hudson; Aditya Pandurangan, a native of Madras who works in Pittsfield; and Mohamed Rony from Bangladesh, who is now a student at Columbia-Greene Community College.
On Sunday, Al Vink had a conversation with Steve Downs and Carl Strock. Downs, a retired Chief Attorney with the NYS Commission on Judicial Conduct, talked about his experience defending Yassin Aref, the imam of the Masjid As Salam Mosque in Albany, who was tried for terrorism in 2006. Downs helped Aref write the story of his childhood in Kurdistan in the memoir Son of Mountains. Carl Strock covered the trial of Yassin Aref for the Schenectady Daily Gazette.
On Sunday afternoon, artist Buzz Spector talked about his new Polaroid pictures on display in the Academy’s gallery.
Next weekend promises a great array of literary talent at the Festival of Books. Clifford the Big Red Dog will be back for a Book Breakfast at 9 am on Saturday. Russell Banks, Mary Gordon, and Lily Tuck will all talk about their work. Then on Sunday, Sheila Weller, Lucia Nevi, Rebecca Flowers, Alan Gelb, Elizabeth Hess, and Julia Pomeroy will discuss their journey to a writing career. And the book loft will still be open for business.
