'Celebrating the art of the essay' in New Haven

The New Haven Public Library will hold the 5th annual Evening with Anne Fadiman and her Students, celebrating the art of the essay, from 6 to 7 p.m. March 31.

Fadiman has been Yale's Francis Writer-in-Residence since 2005, according to a library statement.

"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," her "account of a Hmong family's interactions with the American medical system, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction," the statement said. She is also the author of two essay collections, Ex Libris and At Large and At Small.

Fadiman will read from her work-in-progress "about the doomed relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his son Hartley," the statement said.

She has invited three of her most promising writing students to share their profiles of individuals whom they have encountered, including a sculptor, a typewriter repairman, and a driving instructor, the statement said. The students include Riley Scripps Ford, a fiction writer and a columnist for the Yale Daily News; Zara Kessler, co-editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine; and Peter Lu, columnist for the Yale Daily News.

The program will be held at the downtown library, 133 Elm St.; free parking is available. For information visit http://www.fadiman2011.eventbrite.com/ or call the library at 203-946-8835.

Summer Reading with book groups at New Haven Public Library

By Monayzia Taylor

NEW HAVEN - Picture living a life amid extreme cultural misunderstanding.

That is the circumstance Anne Fadiman recounts in her book, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures.”

Area residents have a chance to come and engage in a powerful conversation and discussion on the book at 6 p.m. July 21 at the New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm St.

The book recounts a “medical catastrophe” that occurs as a result of the cultural misunderstanding, library organizer said in a statement.
The book discussion is sponsored by The Elm Street Book Group.

Next, on August 18, there will be a discussion on the book, “Dust Tracks on Roads,” Zora Neale Hurston’s “funny and poignant account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural south to a prominent place among the leading artist and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance,” library organizer said in the statement.

The Elm Street Book Group meets the third Wednesday of the month at New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm St. New readers are always welcome.

Free parking is available and books are provided for checkout by the CT Humanities Council.
Free Blue State Coffee is available for those who register for the book discussion.
For more information call the library at 203-946-8835.