NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE               DATE: 03/07/06
CONTACT: LESLIE SCHALER, COMMUNICATION ASST., (413) 545-0162

FRIENDS OF THE UMASS AMHERST LIBRARY HOSTS

FOURTH ANNUAL RECEPTION AND DINNER

“Dinner with Friends” is April 1, 2006 

     Amherst, Mass. – On Saturday, April 1, 2006, at 6:30 p.m., the Friends of the UMass Amherst Library will host the fourth annual “Dinner with Friends” in the new Learning Commons at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library on the UMass Amherst campus
The event features three notable authors from the area—Norton Juster, Sabina Murray, and Ilan Stavans (author’s bios follow), a champagne and hors d’oeuvre reception with Celtic harpist Sarah McKee, and a gourmet feast.  Tickets are $125 per person or $200 for two (of which $90 is tax-deductible, $130 for two).  The evening is a key fundraising event for the UMass Amherst Library, the largest public research library in the region.

     The UMass Amherst Library is open to all residents of Massachusetts, offering a rich array of resources and services.  In fall 2005, the Learning Commons—an innovative 23,000 square foot space—was created in the Du Bois Library.  The Learning Commons is a gathering place for study, research, and learning in collaborative, technology-rich settings.  In addition to reference and research assistance, users have access to technical support, writing assistance, advising, and tutoring.  The Learning Commons has more than 150 computers, of which nearly 60 are open to the public.

     Last year, attendees and sponsors raised over $16,000 for the Library.  Sponsors of the 2006 “Dinner with Friends” to date include Microsoft, Dell, Accounting and Tax Associates, Amherst Insurance Co., Jeffery Amherst Bookshop, MicroTek Inc., National Evaluation Systems Inc., Herman Miller, Inc., and OFI Contract Interiors.

Dinner with Friends, April 1, 2006 – Authors’ bios:
     Norton Juster, author of “the beloved classic” The Phantom Tollbooth (1961) and the 2006 Caldecott Medal winning The Hello, Goodbye Window, lives in Amherst.  He was a practicing architect and a professor of architecture and environmental design at Hampshire College.  Though famous as a children’s book author, his books, including the utterly charming The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (1963)reach out uniquely to both adults and children.  The Phantom Tollbooth has been called “the quintessential book for children of all ages, and the language lover’s delight for the child in every adult.”  Both Tollbooth and Dot have been made into films.  The Hello, Goodbye Window is currently #2 on the New York Times Children’s Books Bestseller List.

     Sabina Murray is author of the novels A Carnivore’s Inquiry (2004) and Slow Burn (1990).  Carnivore in this case means cannibal, in a book described by one reviewer as “compelling, maddening, hilarious, and mostly remarkable,” while another spoke of “a grisly thriller.”  Her short story collection, The Caprices (2002), marked by “baroque imagination and scalpel-like prose,” was winner of the 2002 PEN/Faulkner award.  She wrote the screenplay for the 2004 film, The Beautiful Country.  Her stories are anthologized in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction.  Ms. Murray, who grew up in Australia and the Philippines, has been on the MFA faculty at UMass Amherst since 2003.  She has a B.A. in Art History from Mount Holyoke College.

     Ilan Stavans, born in Mexico, moved to the United States in 1985.  He is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College and Professor of Poetry at Columbia University.  He is the author of On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (2001), Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion (2005), The Hispanic Condition (1995), and many other books.  In 2003, he published the first dictionary of Spanglish, Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language.  He is editor of The Poetry of Pablo Neruda (2003), the four-volume Encyclopedia Latina (2005), The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (1998), the Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature (2005), and other works.  He has received numerous honors, including nomination for a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Latino Hall of Fame Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Ruben Dario Medal.  A film will come out based on a story in his forthcoming book, The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories.  Stavans is “Latin America’s liveliest and boldest critic and most innovative cultural enthusiast.”  He has been a member of the faculty of Amherst College since 1993.

     For more information, contact Emily Silverman at the UMass Amherst Library at (413) 545-0995 or email friends@library.umass.edu.