Literary Legends 2019
The 6th Annual Literary Legends Gala took place on Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 7 PM at the Washington Ave Branch of the Albany Library. The event celebrated three local authors: Peter Golden, Lyn Lifshin, and Dan Wilcox.
Peter Golden is an “award-winning journalist, historian and novelest”, as his website puts it. His journalism work has appeared in places such as the Detroit Free Press Magazine, The Albany Times Union, New Jersey Monthly, Microsoft’s eDirections, Beyond Computing, The Forward, Capital Magazine, and The Huffington Post. Golden’s journalism work even won him the New York State Bar Association’s Media Award. He has published a total of ten novels, one of them was a co-written memoir, three were historical non-fiction and the remaining six of were works of fiction. Five of his fiction novels are considered to be works of interactive fiction, as they were published online to be read through computers as they combine images, animations or even videos to the text itself.
Lyn Lifshin was an American poet who published over 130 books and chapbooks in her lifetime. She also edited four anthologies on top of her own writing. Lifshin was also the subject of the award-winning documentary Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. Unfortunately, Lifshin passed away in December of 2019, but her legacy and name will live on as a previus Albany Public Library Literary Legend.
Dan Wilcox is a poet and peace activist residing in Albany, NY. He reguarly hosts the Thursday Open Mic for poets at the Social Justice Center in Albany. Wilcox is a member of the group 3 Guys From Albany who have gone throughout the country performing their own poems to encourage poetry’s inclusion in our society. He is also a photographer who says to have “the world’s largest collection of photos of unknown poets.” Some of Wilcox’s poems have been published in the anthologies Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Anthology (The University of Georgia Press, 2018) and American Society: What Poets See (FutureCycle Press, 2012).