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.