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GOVERNOR ELIOT SPITZER, FIRST LADY SILDA WALL SPITZER & LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR DAVID A. PATERSON ANNOUNCE STATE AUTHOR AND POET
Mary Gordon and Jean Valentine Honored at the State Capitol and Executive Mansion; Two-Year Terms Encouraging Writing and Poetry

Governor Eliot Spitzer, First Lady Silda Wall Spitzer and Lieutenant Governor David A. Paterson today presented two New York writers with the state’s highest literary honors, the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit, and the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit. State Author Mary Gordon and State Poet Jean Valentine will each serve two-year terms during which time they will promote fiction writing and poetry across the state though a series of public readings and talks.

The Citations were presented today at the State Capitol, and will be followed by a dinner and discussion hosted by the Governor and First Lady at the Executive Mansion as part of their push to promote the literary arts and inspire young New York writers. During the coming year, the Governor and First Lady will host a series of cultural events at the Executive Mansion to celebrate New York’s rich culture.

“For centuries New York State has produced some of the most influential writers in American history,” said Governor Spitzer. “Their stories give us a window into the struggles of our ancestors, the stories of our neighbors and the human conditions that bind us all. The writers honored today represent the best of New York’s literary achievements.”

First Lady Silda Wall Spitzer said: “These writers are an inspiration to artists across New York. Their work adds to the state’s strong literary arts history, an impressive record that includes authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Normal Mailer, Sharon Olds and John Ashbery – just a few of our previous State Authors and Poets. We congratulate both women on their successes and thank them for their contributions.”

Lieutenant Governor David A. Paterson said: “As we strive to make New York a leader in education and knowledge, these writers are at the top of their respective literary fields. Through these honors they will be sharing their understanding not only of writing, but of experiencing life and expressing oneself through creative pursuits.”

The State Legislature in 1985 designated the SUNY Albany-based New York State Writers Institute to make the awards every two years. The selections are based upon the recommendation of two advisory panels of distinguished authors convened by the Institute, which was founded in 1983 by William Kennedy, one of New York’s most well-known contemporary writers. The Governor awards each Citation to “an author whose achievements make him or her deserving of such recognition.” Each Citation carries an honorarium of $10,000.

The advisory panel that recommended Ms. Gordon as State Author included: the present Laureate, Russell Banks, novelists Sue Miller and Alice McDermott, and novelist and Executive Director of the New York State Writers Institute William Kennedy.

Writers Institute Executive Director William Kennedy said: “Mary Gordon’s fiction is a fusion of emotional power and literary elegance. She writes of family, and of issues central to women’s lives, and her work is sometimes seen as autobiographical. But it transcends the personal. Her heroines do battle with forces threatening their lives – religion, sexual love, politics, male power; also with their own compulsions to yield to such forces. She has engaged major ideas and conflicts of our era, always at a very human level.”

The advisory panel that recommended Ms. Valentine as State Poet included: Maxine Kumin and Franz Wright, former State Poets Billy Collins and John Ashbery, and poet and Institute Director, Donald Faulkner.

Writers Institute Director Donald Faulkner said: “Jean Valentine is one of our most valiant poets. She is an intrepid explorer of the ‘thin places,’ the spaces where dream and waking, life and beyond-life, all overlap, blend, and sometimes merge. Her ability to give voice to this richness, combined with her insight and cunning craft, produces a poetry we need.”

Following the dinner at the Executive Mansion, the writers will be reading from their works at 8 p.m. at the University at Albany, Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue.

About New York State Author Mary Gordon

Mary Catherine Gordon is best known for her novels, memoirs and literary criticism. They constitute an important contribution to Irish-American literature. Mary Gordon was born in Far Rockaway, New York. The only child of an Italian-Irish Catholic mother and a Jewish father who converted to Catholicism, Gordon attended Catholic schools in Valley Stream, Long Island. Her father died when she was seven, but his faith and commitment to the intellectual life were long-lasting influences. In 1967 Gordon entered Barnard College (B.A. 1971), where she was encouraged to write fiction rather than poetry. After Barnard, Gordon earned an M.A. (1973) at Syracuse University and began work toward a Ph.D. in English. While teaching freshman composition at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York, she began writing Final Payments (1978). Mary Gordon's latest work is Circling My Mother: A Memoir which was published in 2007. It marks her return to nonfiction after two works of fiction. She is currently writing a work called Reading Jesus. This book will use Gordon's literary training to read the Gospels. She and her husband, Arthur Cash, live in New York City and Hope Valley, Rhode Island. They have two adult children, Anna and David. Gordon is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College.

About New York State Poet Jean Valentine

Jean Valentine was born in Chicago, earned her B.A. from Radcliffe College, and has lived most of her life in New York City. She won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker, in 1965. Her most recent book is Little Boat (Wesleyan University Press, 2007). Her previous collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965 - 2003, was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry. Author of eight other books, Valentine has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the NEA, The Bunting Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation, The New York Council for the Arts, and The New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as the Maurice English Prize, the Teasdale Poetry Prize, and The Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize in 2000. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Graduate Writing Program of New York University, Columbia University, and the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.

The Edith Wharton Citation of Merit honoring Ms. Gordon and the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit honoring Ms. Valentine can be found here.