Meet the Authors in Abingdon

22
February 2012
www.artsmagazine.info
Magazine
Meet Authors at Abingdon Library
Meet authors during Sunday with
Friends at 3 p.m. at the Washington County
Public Library in Abingdon, Va. Events include
book sales, book signings and refreshments.
276-676-6222, www.wcpl.net
• FEB. 5: Naomi Benaron’s debut
novel is gaining a lot of international
attention, including winning the Bellwether
Prize for novels about social justice, funded
by Barbara Kingsolver, who describes the
books as “truly fearless writing: ambitious,
beautiful, unapologetically passionate.
Culturally rich and completely engrossing.”
Running the Rift follows Jean Patrick Nkuba
from the day he knows running will be his
life to the moment that he must run to save
his life. Born a Tutsi, he is thrust into a world
where it is impossible to stay apolitical,
where even your coach is secretly training
soldiers who will hunt down your family. Yet
in an environment increasingly restrictive
for the Tutsi, Nkuba holds fast to his dream
of becoming Rwanda’s first Olympic medal
contender in track — a feat he believes might
deliver him and his people from the violence.
When the killing begins, Nkuba is forced to
flee, leaving behind the woman, the family
and the country he loves. Finding them
again is the race of his life.
Benaron earned an MFA from Antioch
University and an MS from the Scripps
Institute of Oceanography. She teaches at
Pima Community College in Tucson, Ariz.,
and online through the Afghan Women’s
Writing Project. An advocate for African
refugees in her community, she has worked
extensively with genocide survivor groups in
Rwanda. She won the G.S. Sharat Chandra
Prize for Fiction for her short story collection,
Love Letters from a Fat Man, and the Lorian
Hemingway Short Story Competition. She is
also an Ironman triathlete.
• FEB. 26: Meet Doug Ogle, author of
Whitetop: The Great Meadow Mountain
of Virginia. This is the first book devoted
exclusively to a single mountain peak in
Virginia. Ogle, one of the area’s leading
botanists and retired professor from
Virginia Highlands Community College,
knows intimately the diverse ecology of the
mountain. Few mountains have as long and
pivotal a record of human and natural history
in the Commonwealth, from early boundary
surveys in the 1700s to being a part of the
Mount Rogers National Recreation Area today.
In Ogle’s narrative, natural history details
are intertwined with anecdotes about human
history from the bear hunters, scientists, and
entrepreneurs who have left descriptions and
photographs of this unique place.
We Were Here is the first documentary
to look back 30 years to the impact of
the AIDS epidemic on San Francisco.
RIGHT: Elizabeth Olsen stars
in the psychological thriller
Martha Marcy May Marlene.
Film Series Continues
at Abingdon Cinemall
The Arts Array Film Series, sponsored
by Virginia Highlands Community College,
is shown on Mondays and Tuesdays at the
Abingdon Cinemall. Screenings are at 4 p.m.
and 7:30 p.m. $7.50. 276-739-2447, www.cinemall.com
• FEB. 6-7: Martha Marcy May
Marlene is a powerful psychological thriller
starring Elizabeth Olsen as Martha, a young
woman who seeks help from her estranged
older sister after fleeing from a cult and its
charismatic leader. When memories trigger a
chilling paranoia that cult members could still
be pursuing her, the line between Martha’s
reality and delusion begins to blur.
• FEB. 13-14: We Were Here is the
first documentary to look back 30 years to
the impact of the AIDS epidemic on San
Francisco where 16,000 died within 15 years.
The film focuses on five individuals — from
their vantage points as caregivers, activists,
and researchers, as friends and lovers
of the afflicted, and as people with AIDS
themselves — and how their lives changed in
unimaginable ways.
Felicity
Jones
stars
in Like
Crazy.
• FEB. 20-21: Like Crazy, winner of
the Grand Jury Prize for Best Picture at the
Sundance Film Festival, illustrates how your
first real love can be as thrilling and blissful
as it is devastating. When a British college
student falls for an American classmate, they
embark on a passionate and life-changing
journey, only to be separated when she
violates the terms of her visa.
• FEB. 27-28: Margin Call is based
on a true story. This thriller is set in the
high-stakes world of the financial industry
and follows key players at an investment firm
during one perilous 24-hour period early in
the 2008 crisis. When an entry-level analyst
unlocks information that could prove to be
the downfall of the firm, a roller-coaster ride
ensues as decisions both financial and moral
catapult them to the brink of disaster.