REGISTER immediately. Seating is limited. Advance registration is required. 

Artists on the Brink and the Yale Alumni Association of New York, with the co-sponsorship of Yale GALA, are pleased to present...

Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham on Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 at 8 p.m. sharp in a Brink Lab and Company of Scholars public educational enrichment program on skillfully developing characters in fictional works of literature. This intimately scaled, master class will be conducted as an engaging and participatory seminar tackling how writers craft compelling and credible characters.

Michael Cunningham is the acclaimed author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award and Pulitzer Prize), Specimen Days, and By Nightfall. He is a Senior Lecturer in Yale University's English Department and teaches creative writing courses such as "Reading Fiction for Craft."

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A Public Program: All are welcome. This is a public program with a door wide open to anyone with a keen interest in the life of the mind. The only prerequisite is curiosity and a desire to gain insight into the creative process in the company of other engaged and good-spirited attendees.

Supporting a Cultural Incubator: All proceeds from this event will support cultural programming at St. Mark's. If you are able to donate, please do so. Any amount will be greatly appreciated.

An Inclusive Event: If the admission charge is prohibitive, please register for this program at reduced cost via e-mail at yaanyeducationalprograms@gmail.com.

A Landmark Venue: This remarkable gathering will be held in the Sanctuary of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery and we are thrilled to highlight the historic richness and cultural significance of the beloved fixture of New York City's cultural and spiritual life as we wrestle with characters that leave an indelible imprint on the minds of readers. In Literary Landmarks of New York, Bill Morgan writes of St. Mark's: "Isadora Dunaca, Carl Sandburg, Kahlil Gibran, Harry Houdini, Frank Lloyd Wright, and William Carlos Williams spoke or performed here." Robert Kahn's remarkable City Secrets New York City includes an entry by Laurie Duchovny noting: "St. Mark's has been home to the Poetry Project, scene of the only joint reading by Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsberg, since its founding in 1966." Poetry Project participants have included the likes of John Ashberry, Yoko Ono, and Adrienne Rich.  

Register now for a memorable encounter with a coveted writer on the writer's craft in a venerable New York institution.

Questions may be directed to: yaanyeducationalprograms@gmail.com.

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Brink Lab is the educational enrichment programming series of arts not-for-profit Artists on the Brink and introduces the public to a laboratory of ideas on the creative process and effecting social change.

Company of Scholars is an initiative of the Yale Alumni Association of Metropolitan New York’s Educational Programs Committee and encompasses a broad constellation of intellectually rich learning experiences from enlightening talks to encounters with cultural institutions to on the ground immersion in the places where light and truth collide.

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Web Resources:

Michael Cunningham's Website

http://www.michaelcunninghamwriter.com/

Michael Cunningham on Yale's Website:

http://english.yale.edu/faculty-staff/michael-cunningham