HVWC - Katherine McNamara and Lee Stringer

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote the forward to Lee Stringer's Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street, and says: "Like Jack London, he is a self-educated storyteller of the first rank, and an unembittered, hopeful survivor of extreme poverty, long-term homelessness, and addiction... He kicked his drug habit. That makes him worthy of our attention, however fleeting, as a small-time hero. But this man can write! His stories are deliberately unsentimental...He chooses...to be coolly technical, to teach his readers what homeless persons in New York City, many of them clinically insane or idiotic, do hour-after-hour, day-after-day, simply to keep from dying." Writing is what saved Stringer — a new addiction, he says — and being editor of Street News gave him an early home off the street. He now lives in Mamaroneck and writes for publications such as The Nation, The New York Times, and Newsday.

The Hudson Valley Writers' Center presents a reading with *Katherine McNamara* and Lee Stringer Thursday, June 27th, 7:30 pm
On the surface, Katherine McNamara and Lee Stringer seem to be describing two corners of our nation that could not be more different — a barely populated region of Alaska and the world of the homeless on New York City's 42nd Street. But both writers are so open, so observant, and so honest and gifted in conveying what they came to know in these places, it seems perfect to hear them together.
Katherine McNamara went to Alaska in 1976 after returning from a sojourn in the literary salons of Paris. In her late twenties and wanting "to learn how to live," she had taken a job as an itinerant poetry teacher in the school districts of Alaska's interior. Among the many experiences she describes, one of the most important is a challenging relationship with a troubled Dena'ina Athabaskan man and her struggle to adapt to and learn from the culture of his small village. Now she lives in Charlottesville, VA, is editor and publisher of the on-line journal Archipelago (www.archipelago.org), and has published a beautifully crafted book about that time, Narrow Road to the Deep North: A Journey into the Interior of Alaska (Mercury House).	Novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote the forward to Lee Stringer's Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street, and says: "Like Jack London, he is a self-educated storyteller of the first rank, and an unembittered, hopeful survivor of extreme poverty, long-term homelessness, and addiction... He kicked his drug habit. That makes him worthy of our attention, however fleeting, as a small-time hero. But this man can write! His stories are deliberately unsentimental...He chooses...to be coolly technical, to teach his readers what homeless persons in New York City, many of them clinically insane or idiotic, do hour-after-hour, day-after-day, simply to keep from dying." Writing is what saved Stringer — a new addiction, he says — and being editor of Street News gave him an early home off the street. He now lives in Mamaroneck and writes for publications such as The Nation, The New York Times, and Newsday.

*Suggested Donation: $5 ($3 for members)* The readings at the HVWC are made possible in part by grants from the Bydale Foundation and the Gannett 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 Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government, corporations and individuals. Return to HVWC Calendar The Hudson Valley Writers' Center - Home