The
Hudson Valley Writers’ Center celebrates
Westchester’s National Book Award honorees:
Young People’s Literature Winner Judy Blundell of Katonah
and Poetry Finalist Patricia Smith of Tarrytown
Judy
Blundell, well known to Star Wars fans as Jude Watson, has written
more than 100 books for middle grade, young adult, and adult readers under
several pseudonyms. She is 2008 National Book Award winner for her young
adult novel What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic), a coming of
age mystery set just after World War II and the first book that she’s
published under her own name. Her novel, Premonitions, was an ALA
Reluctant Readers Best Picks and was chosen by the New York Public Library
as a 2004 Best Books for the Teen Age. Among her forthcoming projects
is Book #4 in the New York Times bestselling series, The 39 Clues.
2008
Nation Book Award Finalist, Patricia Smith’s fifth book of poetry,
Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press) chronicles the human, physical
and emotional toll exacted by Hurricane Katrina, a catastrophic natural
event with lasting spiritual and political impact. This much-anticipated
volume is also the focal point of a new dance/theater collaboration between
Patricia and Urban Bush Women dancer Paloma McGregor. Patricia is also
the author of Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffee House Press), a
National Poetry Series winner, the Best Poetry Book of 2006 on About.com,
and a 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Paterson Poetry Prize winner.
Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, poemmemoirstory, Harvard
Divinity Bulletin, the Chautauqua Literary Journal, TriQuarterly,
and other journals, and in many groundbreaking anthologies—most recently
Gathering Ground, The Spoken Word Revolution, The Oxford Anthology
of African- American Poetry and Short Fuse: The Global Anthology
of New Fusion Poetry. Her poem “The Way Pilots Walk” received a Pushcart
Prize, and is featured in Pushcart Prize XXXII: Best of the Small Presses.
Patricia also authored Africans in America (Harcourt Brace), a
companion volume to the groundbreaking four-part PBS history series, and
a children’s book, Janna and the Kings. She is currently at work
on Fixed on a Furious Star, a biography of Harriet Tubman, as well
as on a verse memoir and a young adult novel.
All readings include a question & answer period and a reception with books by the author(s) for sale.
Suggested
Donation: $5 ($3 for HVWC members and those under age 18)
Programs and events at The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center are made possible, in part, by grants from the Bydale Foundation, David G. Taft Foundation, Orchard Foundation, William E. Robinson Foundation, and Thendara Foundation; with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and by the Basic Program Support Grant of the Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government.