A big round of thanks to Peter J. Bailey, who put together the Society’s panels for the 2013 American Literature Association conference at the Westin Copley Place, Boston, Mass., May 23-26, and thanks to those who responded to the call for papers and moderators.

Panel One: Domestic Terror/Domestic Restoration

Chair:  Sylvie Mathé, Aix-Marseille University

• “John Updike’s Patriotism in Terrorist: The Power of the “Novel” in the Twenty-First Century,” Takashi Nakatani, Yokohama City University
• “Updike’s Terrorist: Rewriting the Domestic Myth,” Judie Newman, University of Nottingham
• “Putting John Updike in the Updike Childhood Home,” Maria L. Mogford, Albright College

Panel Two: Epochs of Updike

Chair: Judie Newman, University of Nottingham

• “The Poorhouse Fair: The Liberal State and Its Discontents,” Yoav Fromer, New School for Social Research
• “Linking Couples and 50 Shades of Grey: The Times Are Only Sort of A-Changin,’” Josh Zajdman, independent scholar
• “Updike’s Late Stories: The Art of Mourning,” Peter J. Bailey, St. Lawrence University

Jack De Bellis, currently the John Updike Professor in Residence at Alvernia University and a director of The John Updike Society, will speak on the topic “Updike’s Pranks and the Girls He Pranked.”

The talk will be held at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, February 29, in the McGlinn Conference Center (formerly the Bernardine Franciscan Conference Center) at Alvernia University in Reading, Pa. The talk is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.

The John Updike Society will sponsor one panel at ALA this year, and it features two presenters new to the Society.

“John Updike in Context”

“Much Ado About Nothing: Boredom, Banality, and Bathos in Late Henry Green and Early John Updike.” David Brauner, University of Reading (UK)

“Rabbit and America’s Shared Identity Crisis,” Christopher Love, University of Southern Mississippi

“Villages: Updike Homes in Fiction, Memoir, and Essay,” Peter J. Bailey, St. Lawrence University

Chair/Moderator: Edward Allen, The University of South Dakota

Although The John Updike Society is looking toward a Second Biennial Conference in Boston, June 12-16, 2012, we still need members who are planning (or willing) to attend the American Literature Association conference in San Francisco on May 24-27, 2012. The Society is responsible for sponsoring at least one session, preferably two, as well as a business meeting.

If you can make it to San Francisco and have an idea for a paper, please submit it to James Plath (jplath@iwu.edu) by January 10. Rather than calling for papers for specific panel topics this year, we’ll build panels around the abstracts that come in.

Jack De Bellis, the John Updike Professor in Residence at Alvernia University and a director of The John Updike Society, will lecture on “Rabbit at Rest in Shillington” at 10 a.m. on Monday, October 10, at the Franco Library, Alvernia University, in Reading, Pennsylania.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the 2011 Greater Reading Literary Festival at Alvernia.

De Bellis, who is Professor Emeritus at Lehigh University, is the author or editor of numerous books on John Updike, including the indispensable John Updike Encyclopedia.

Richard Androne, of Albright College, has put together two panels for the American Literature Association conference in Boston May 26-29, and a general membership meeting will follow immediately after the second panel. Session times haven’t been alloted yet, but here are the panels:

Inside the Space of John Updike’s Fiction (May 28, 12:30-1:50 p.m.)

Chair: Quentin Miller, Suffolk University

“Reading for the Sake of Seeing: Visual Representation of Form and Space in Updike’s Short Fiction,” Kangqin Li, University of Leicester, UK

“’People Like Themselves’: Class in John Updike’s Couples,” Richard Androne, Albright College

“Evil in Eastwick and Eden: John Updike’s Application of Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Nothingness,” John McTavish, independent scholar, Huntsville, Ontario

The Other John Updike: Poems, Essays, and Children’s Books (May 28, 2:00-3:20 p.m.)

Chair: Judith Newman, University of Nottingham

“’I’ve Grown to Love it Here’: John Updike’s Subversive Poetics,” Edward Allen, The University of South Dakota

“’Yes, But’: Updike Reviews Hemingway,” Peter Bailey, St. Lawrence University

“John Updike’s Children’s Books: Introducing The Archangel,” Brian Steffen, independent scholar, Oswego, New York

In addition, society president James Plath was invited to participate in a four-person roundtable on “Websites of American Author Societies: What Are Their Goals? Who Are They For?”

The conference will take place at The Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Ave., Boston, where the Society was launched two years ago. And the business meeting for the Society, to which all members are invited, is scheduled for Saturday, May 28, from 3:30-4:50 p.m. All participants must be registered for the conference, and details are available at the ALA link on the Society’s webpage left menu.

Based on the success of such programs at other single-author conferences, The John Updike Society has decided to offer a parallel one-day seminar for local high school teachers to coincide with the First Biennial John Updike Conference at Alvernia University, Reading, Pa., Oct. 1-3. Registration, which will be open until September 12, is $25 for the day, including a box lunch. The Society reserves the right to close registration if the numbers grow too large. The special seminar at Alvernia includes three pedagogy sessions, two sessions open to the public, and one session open to members (and teachers) only.

8-8:50—Registration

9-9:50am—Plenary Session: “Updike in Pennsylvania.” Jack De Bellis (program director) and Dave Silcox (site director)

10-10:50am—Family panel: Mary Weatherall (Updike’s first wife) and Updike children Elizabeth Cobblah, Miranda Updike, and Michael Updike; James Plath, moderator

11:00-12:15—Pedagogy Session I: “’Ex-Basketball Player’: Approaches to Teaching Updike’s Most Anthologized Poem and suggested segments from the Rabbit novels.” James Plath (Illinois Wesleyan University)

12:30-1:45  Box Lunch, and a chance to mingle and talk with other teachers

2:00-3:00—Plenary Session II: “Headier Stuff: Resources for Teaching ‘A&P,’ ‘Pigeon Feathers,’ and ‘Separating.’”James Schiff (University of Cincinnati)

3:15-4:15—Plenary Session III: “Teaching Updike’s Lesser-Known Short Fiction.” Marshall Boswell (Rhodes College)

4:30-5:30—Keynote speakers Ann Beattie and Lincoln Perry. Ann Beattie is Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia and a distinguished writer of fiction, and Lincoln Perry is a renowned artist whose paintings and sculptures have been influenced by John Updike’s fiction. His paintings will be on display.

To Register: Send check for $25 along with your name, school, phone, and email to seminar director Richard Androne, Dept. of English, Albright College, P.O. Box 15234, Reading, PA 19612-5234.

Here’s the Conference program and registration materials for the upcoming First Biennial John Updike Society Conference at Alvernia University, October 1-3. It promises to be a memorable event, though registration closes on September 12 and to get the conference rate at Homewood Suites you’ll need to book your room by September 2.

Conference updates:  Lincoln Perry, who will deliver the keynote address with his wife, writer Ann Beattie, will be bringing the actual artwork from his series of paintings inspired by Updike’s Rabbit novels. The artwork will be on display in the room where Beattie and Perry will deliver their remarks. Also, Steve Soboroff, the collector who purchased the Updike typewriter that was recently auctioned by Christie’s, has generously agreed to display the typewriter at the conference. Not only that, but attendees will have the chance to type on it!

Ninety-four members have registered to attend the conference, with 43 opting to attend the closing dinner at the Peanut Bar, which will serve as a nice closure for our first conference.

Site director Dave Silcox, program director Jack De Bellis, teacher’s seminar directors Richard Androne and Joseph Yarworth, and the people at Alvernia University have been working hard to make the conference a memorable one. We’ll look forward to seeing you all in Updike territory in just a little over a month. Please remember to use the Updike Society Facebook page if you want to solicit rides or riders from the Philadelphia International Airport. Note too that there’s a regional van service from Philly International to Reading.

Pictured are the Reading Public Library, where Saturday’s social event will be held, and the Peanut Bar, site of the final dinner.

Society member Frank Fitzpatrick, a self-described “Updike fanatic” who has written about Updike for NPR and the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has worked in the sports department since 1980, will be featured this Thursday, May 20, in a program at the Scranton Albright Memorial Public Library. In “John Updike’s Pennsylvania with Journalist Frank Fitzpatrick,” Fitzpatrick will show slides of Updike’s Pennsylvania and talk about the connection between place and the prolific writer’s work.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick read one of Mr. Updike’s early ‘Rabbit’ novels where the main character also played basketball,” library spokesperson Evelyn Gibbons told the Scranton Times-Tribune. “He became captivated by Mr. Updike’s novels and by the eloquent and insightful way Mr. Updike wrote about sports.”

Fitzpatrick is the author of three books, one of which was a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is perhaps best known for The Lion in Autumn: A Season with Joe Paterno and Penn State Football.

The program, which will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Periodicals Room, is free to the public, but tickets are required. They are available at the Circulation Desk. For more information, contact the library (570) 348-3000 or visit their website.

The John Updike Society is pleased to announce that the keynote speakers for Updike in Pennsylvania: The First Biennial John Updike Society Conference at Alvernia University, October 1-3 2010, will be writer Ann Beattie and painter Lincoln Perry.

Of Ann Beattie, Updike himself once wrote, “Miss Beattie’s power and influence . . . arise from her seemingly restless immersion in the stoic bewilderment of a generation without a cause.” A stylist herself, Beattie has been compared to both John Updike and John Cheever because she too chronicles life in America’s middle classes—the often small moments that lead to small epiphanies for her restive and slightly disconnected heroes and heroines.

Like Updike, Beattie burst on the New York scene with both a novel and collection of short stories (Chilly Scenes of Winter, Distortions, 1976) and has won acclaim for her work in both genres. She went on write six more novels (Falling in Place, 1981; Love Always, 1986; Picturing Will, 1989; Another You, 1995; My Life, Starring Dara Falcon, 1997), The Doctor’s House, 2002) and seven additional collections of short fiction (Secrets and Surprises, 1978; The Burning House, 1982; What Was Mine, 1991; Where You’ll Find Me and Other Stories, 1986; Park City, 1998; Perfect Recall, 2000; Follies: New Stories, 2005), with a novella (Walks with Men) and short story collection (Ann Beattie: The New Yorker Stories) scheduled for June and November publication, respectively.

One of America’s most talented short story writers, Beattie received the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story 12 years after Updike was awarded the very first prize. Both Beattie and Updike also won the Rea Award for the short story, presented by the Dungannon Foundation—Beattie in 2005, and Updike a year later. In fact, Beattie was on the selection committee with Joyce Carol Oates and Richard Ford the year that Updike was chosen to be honored. Both writers admired each other, and Updike chose Beattie’s story, “Janus,” as one of The Best American Short Stories of the Century. Beattie lives with her husband, Lincoln Perry, in Charlottesville, where she is Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.

Lincoln Perry is a painter of national reputation who has his own Updike connection. Fascinated by the interesting narratives and juxtapositions that can emerge from painting “groups,” Perry created and exhibited twenty paintings which were inspired by Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy. “A similarity between me and Ann is that we are very curious about narrative and narrativity . . . but we’re suspicious about the power, the implied resolution to stories,” Perry once told an interviewer.

Perry, who is currently Distinguished Visiting Artist at the University of Virginia, has had solo exhibitions in New York, Washington, D.C., Maine, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. And he has been invited to contribute to group shows in Georgia, California, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, South Carolina, Louisiana, Idaho, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Arkansas—including the “Contemporary Realism” show at The New York State Council on the Arts and “New American Figure Painting” at the Contemporary Realist Gallery in San Francisco. Also a muralist, his installations are on permanent view at the Met Life Building in St. Louis; One Penn Plaza in Washington, D.C; the Federal Courthouse extension in Tallahassee, Florida; Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia; and Lincoln Square in Key West. He is represented by Eye International, DeWitt Hardy, Les Yeux du Monde, Lucky Street Gallery, and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art.

Beattie will talk about Updike’s short fiction from the perspective of a short story writer, while Perry will show images and discuss his Rabbit, Run series.