Book Markers: 09.26.13

Simon Says

    Not only is Simon Van Booy one of the more talented young fiction writers going, his first published work appeared in this newspaper. Yes, that’s self-referential of us to point out, but we thought you’d like to know. He has written well-received collections of short stories, one of which, “Love Begins in Winter,” won a Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and has just come out with his second novel, “The Illusion of Separateness.” He’ll talk about it on Wednesday at noon for a brown bag lunch at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton.

   The former South Fork resident now may live in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg section, teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York, speak with an ear-pleasing Welsh accent, dress nattily, and look great in a pair of horn-rims, but don’t rush to judgment: He used to slam through the line and break for the open field as a tailback at Campbellsville University in Kentucky. Which lends credence to his writing’s lyricism and his stories’ romanticism. Somehow.

Pintauro’s Pictures

    And speaking of the varieties of artistic experience, please reset your powers of apprehension for the emergence of Joe Pintauro, photographer. The Sag Harbor playwright (“Snow Orchid,” “Men’s Lives”) has put together an art book celebrating that Old World beauty, Venice, in particular Piazza San Marco. Titled “Nunc et Semper,” the limited-edition volume comes courtesy of Stony Brook Southampton’s new TSR Editions and features large-format photos and foldouts.

    Mr. Pintauro will show some of his photographs and talk about the book next Thursday at 7 p.m. at the temporary home of the John Jermain Memorial Library on West Water Street in Sag Harbor.

Who Is Mary Coin?

    Marisa Silver, no stranger to the power of an image, what with her past work as a movie director, has taken one and run with it. She based her new novel, “Mary Coin,” on one of the most recognizable of American photographs, “Migrant Mother,” taken by Dorothea Lange at the height of the Depression. Ms. Silver will read from the book Wednesday night at 7 for Writers Speak at Stony Brook Southampton.

    Ms. Silver, long a summertime visitor to East Hampton, is the author, most recently, of the story collection “Alone With You.” The free reading will take place in the Radio Lounge, upstairs in Chancellors Hall on campus.