Book Markers: 05.01.14

“Building the Uqbar Dinghy”

    The last time Redjeb Jordania spoke at the East Hampton Library, it had to do with his 2012 memoir, “All My Georgias.” The history there is that his father was the first president of that country, and his family fled to France in 1921 in the face of Soviet occupation.

    And now for something completely different from the Springs resident: On Saturday he’ll lead a discussion of his new book, “Building the Uqbar Dinghy,” which refers to a pram-nosed craft of his own design and construction. It starts at 1 p.m.

    Mr. Jordania once ran a community boat shop in East Hampton and was a boatbuilding instructor at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. He has taught sailing at Club Med and maritime history for the old Southampton College Seamester program.

The Fiction Issue Cometh

    Freshly redolent of glossy paper and printer’s ink comes the spring issue of The Southampton Review. Dubbed the Special Fiction Issue, it features “A Trickster Tale” by Edwidge Danticat and the poet Robert Pinsky talking craft with a counterpart, Kathryn Levy of Sag Harbor. (Speaking of poetry, Ben Jonson weighs in across the centuries with “His Excuse for Loving.”)

    Writers ranging from Meg Wolitzer to Emma Walton Hamilton answer the question “What story influences you most?” And Barry Blitt of The New Yorker is among the illustrators and painters offering up the visuals. All courtesy, of course, of the Stony Brook Southampton M.F.A. program in creative writing and literature.