MEG WOLITZER Anthony Tommasini Susan Isaacs
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Please contact Fresh Air, NPR FOL vice presidents Nancy Wright at [email protected] (516-883-8418) or Ellen Zimmerman at ellengzimm@ “Strikes at the third-rail topics of our times with the yahoo.com (516-883-3298) with your sponsorship surety and sharpness of an arrow shot by an expert enquiries. archer.” USA Today Top 10 Books of 2018 ◾ ANNIVERSARY SPONSOR . $ 7,500 Twelve complimentary seats “Ultra-readable.” Vogue MEG WOLITZER ◾ EVENT SPONSORS . $ 5,000 The Female Persuasion “[Wolitzer’s] love of her characters shines more brightly Eight complimentary seats than any agenda.” ◾ AUTHORS SPONSORS . $ 3,000 New York Times Notable Book of 2018 Five complimentary seats ◾ PLATINUM . $ 2,000 Anthony Tommasini Four complimentary seats The Indispensable Composers: ◾ GOLD . $ 1,000 A Personal Guide Three complimentary seats “[Tommasini] defends the ◾ SILVER . $ 500 value of distinguishing the Two complimentary seats CURRENT OCCUPANT OR CURRENT OCCUPANT great from the merely good … ◾ BRONZE ��������������������������������������������������������������$ 250 perfectly fulfills its aim.” One complimentary seat Susan Isaacs Phillip Lopate, New York Program Moderator Times Book Review is an independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) Event Sponsor The Wadler Family “A must for musicians and in memory of Gary Wadler music lovers alike.” marking its 53rd year of service to our library. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette FOL is dedicated to strengthening the ties between Luncheon Sponsor Stuart Johnson the library and the community through outreach, Authors Sponsors The Amsterdam at Harborside “Entertaining, highly enthusiastic, and very advocacy, fundraising and programming. knowledgeable, he’s the perfect guide [to the great Sylvia Dunsky Anne & Vincent Mai composers].” Kirkus FOL Board of Directors 2018–2019 “Insightful … an engrossing study that will appeal to both Amy Bass, President; Nancy Wright and classical music aficionados and novice listeners.” Ellen Zimmerman, Vice Presidents; Lauren Smith, Publishers Weekly Secretary; Mary Alice Kohs, Treasurer; Danielle Tane, Assistant Treasurer Directors: Margaret “A pianist himself, Tommasini infuses his essays with DeSiervo, Carol Hiller, Cara Hristoforatos, Sylvia Friday, May 10, 2019 •11am–2:30PM insights from a lifetime of playing and listening.” Kamisher, Pamela O’Connell, Eleanor Rybecky, Fern North Hills Country Club San Francisco Chronicle Treiber, Jessica Weaver, Selma Willner One Library Drive NY 11050 Port Washington, to the Invitation Your 50th Annual Book & Author Luncheon 200 L.I.E. North Service Road, Manhasset Meg Wolitzer Anthony Tommasini Susan Isaacs 50 Years of The Female Persuasion The Indispensable Program Moderator Great Books & (Riverhead Books, 2018) Composers: A Personal Guide (Penguin Press, 2018) Great Authors Anthropologist Margaret Mead spoke in 1970 Photo by Nina Subin Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times best-selling Anthony Tommasini is the Chief Classical Music Susan Isaacs was dubbed “Jane Austen with On May 16, 1969, the Plandome Country Club hosted author of the novels The Interestings, The Critic for The New York Times and the author of four a shmear” by NPR’s book critic. Among her a special event destined to become one of Port’s Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, The books. His interest in the work of the composer and thirteen best-selling novels are Lily White, Shining most cherished annual traditions: the first FOL Wife (the basis for the 2017 film starring Glenn critic Virgil Thomson culminated in the biography Through and After All These Years. She has written Book & Author Luncheon. The speakers were four Close), This is My Life and Sleepwalking, as well as Virgil Thomson: Composer on the Aisle. A talented screenplays for two films:Compromising Positions, “author-experts” on four “aspects of contemporary two books for young readers. Her short fiction has pianist in his own right, Tommasini made two an adaptation of her novel, and Hello Again. She life” – the home, theater arts, family economics and been published in The Best American Short Stories recordings on the Northeastern Records label of also has one nonfiction work to her credit,Brave religion. Sandwich, dessert and coffee were $5. and The Pushcart Prize. Wolitzer often writes about Thomson’s music, Portraits and Self-Portraits and Dames and Wimpettes: What Women are Really The luncheon has since become a successful the challenges facing aspiring artists and American Mostly About Love: Songs and Vocal Works. Both Doing on Page and Screen. Before she took to fundraiser for the FOL, regularly drawing an gender politics through the decades. were funded in part by the National Endowment books, she was an editor at Seventeen magazine audience of more than 300. Over the decades the In her newest best seller The Female for the Arts. He also wrote Opera: A Critic’s Guide and a freelance political speechwriter. event has shifted venues (many will remember its Persuasion, Wolitzer’s theme is female friendship to the 100 Most Important Works and the Best An alumna of Queens College, Isaacs currently long tenure at the George Washington Manor, now and mentorship. We all yearn to be admired by Recordings. chairs the board of directors of the literary Hendrick’s Tavern) until finding a home in recent someone we admire—the private, electrifying When he began to listen to the great works of organization Poets & Writers. She is past president years at the North Hills Country Club. It was named pleasure of being singled out by someone of classical music as a child, Tommasini had many of Mystery Writers of America and belongs to in honor of the founder and first president of the esteem. But sometimes it can also mean entry questions. Why did a particular piece move him? the National Book Critics Circle, PEN, and the Friends, Richard D. Whittemore, in 2000. to a new kind of life, a bigger world. Wolitzer How did the music work? Now in The Indispensable International Association of Crime Writers. Among Since 1969, more than 100 authors have been delivers a charming and wise novel about power Composers, he offers his own personal guide to her honors are the John Steinbeck Award, the featured at the luncheon. The list includes many and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and the canon—and what greatness really means Writers for Writers award, and the Marymount award winners, best-selling authors, and local ambition. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is in classical music—drawing on elements of Manhattan Writing Center prize. luminaries such as Susan Isaacs, Dan Paisner and about the flame we all believe is flickering inside biography, the anxiety of influence, the composer’s Her most recent works are the novella, A Hint George Vecsey. Please see the keepsake bookmark of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right relationships with colleagues, and shifting attitudes of Strangeness, and the short story, “Getting available at each place setting for the full list. Ms. person at the right time. toward a composer’s work over time. Somewhere,” included in the anthology It Seems Isaacs, after being a featured author a record three A faculty member of the MFA program at Stony Born in Brooklyn, Tommasini grew up on Long to Me That I Am America. Her new novel—her times, has graciously served as program moderator Brook Southampton, Wolitzer was also a guest Island and graduated from Yale University in 1970. fourteenth, and first of a series—isTakes One to in recent years. artist in the Princeton University Atelier program He earned a Master of Music degree from the Yale Know One. It will be published in October. In 1990, one of our favorite rejections came in September 2013. She was born in Brooklyn and School of Music, and a Doctor of Musical Arts She lives with her husband, a criminal defense in a handwritten note from writer Annie Dillard raised in Syosset, and is the daughter of novelist degree from Boston University. He has taught music lawyer, in Port Washington. (“I’m sorry I can’t come to Port Washington. I’m Hilma Wolitzer (a Book & Author Luncheon at Emerson College, and given nonfiction writing just swamped.”). That note and other luncheon speaker in 1989). She studied creative writing at workshops at Wesleyan University and Brandeis memorabilia can be seen on display in a special Smith College and graduated from Brown University University. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, exhibit outside the library’s Main Reading Room in 1981. She lives in New York City with her family. Dr. Benjamin McCommon, a psychiatrist. through the month of May. Book & Author Reservation Form Reserve your place now! Make your check payable to FOL and mail this reservation form to FOL Assistant Treasurer: Danielle Tane 26 Crescent Rd., Port Washington, NY 11050 (917) 488-9462 [email protected] Reservations should be mailed by Wednesday, May 1 and will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis. MAIL EARLY! No walk-ins please. No tickets are issued. A record of reservations is kept at the door. For more information, you may also call Lynn Moessner at the library at (516) 883-4400, Ext.