Fitz Books hosts a visit by debut novelist Sam Sussman, author of the acclaimed auto-fictional novel Boy From the North Country this Saturday evening. Plus, five other events in the community.

Monday, Dec. 1, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.: Talking Leaves Books and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center present author, journalist, and Buffalo area native Lee Carlson celebrating the release of his new book A Single Excellent Night: A Man, a Mentor, and a Moment in Time (Henry Chapin & Sons Books) about his mentorship and lifetime friendship with the writer Peter Matthiessen, the American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher, and
the cofounder of The Paris Review.

A longtime student of Peter Matthiessen, Carlson’s book explores their relationship and Matthiessen’s legacy. This event will consist of a talk from the author, to be followed by book signing. Books will be available for purchase from Talking Leaves Books. Purchase of your book from Talking Leaves and donation to Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (via cash or QR code on-site) are the best way to support this event.

More about the Book:

From journalist and internationally recognized author Lee Carlson comes a life-changing memoir about our search for meaning and the personal relationships that shape us.

Down a country lane in a former stable hidden behind tall privet hedges, a small group of acolytes gathers at dawn, chanting softly in a dimly lit room. Their teacher—celebrated writer, naturalist, and Zen master Peter Matthiessen—urges them to be present, then settles into silence among them.

Among the spiritual seekers is novice Lee Carlson, in the grip of an emotional crisis. Staring at the wall before him, breath by breath, he asks: “Why such pain in this life? What is God? How can I love more fully?”

As Matthiessen promises, “All will be revealed.”

A Single Excellent Night traces the awakening experiences and formative moments from the first four years of Carlson’s 15-year apprenticeship with Matthiessen. More than a book on Zen or spiritual practice, it explores meaningful relationships, healing, mindfulness, and the search for presence and purpose. Rich with insight, it is a lyrical meditation on love, community, and the rare alchemy between teacher and student.

More about the Author

Lee Carlson is an author, journalist, and Zen practitioner whose acclaimed memoir Passage to Nirvana chronicles his recovery from traumatic brain injury using writing, sailing, and Zen. A former magazine editor and documentary producer, his work has appeared in Outside, the Los Angeles Times, and multiple Time Inc. publications. A longtime student of Peter Matthiessen, Carlson’s current book explores their relationship and Matthiessen’s legacy. He currently lives in Western New York.

Location: Hallwalls Cinema, 341 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesday Night Open Mic Series at the Em Tea Coffeecup Café. All are welcome whether new to poetry or a long-time member of the community. 80 Oakgrove Ave., Buffalo, NY. Free and open to the public.

Wednesday, Dec. 3, 7:30 p.m.: CFI Literary Café Series reading hosted by poet Ryki Zuckerman and featuring poets Tim Raymond and Brandon Williamson. Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Rd., Amherst. Free and open to the public.

About the writers:

J. Tim Raymond is a writer, artist, actor, poet, reviewer, certified art therapist, teacher
and author of the memoir, Slack Action — My Year of Marginal Mishaps, 1967.

His education includes an MFA from The Maryland Institute of Art and BFA from Cooper Union. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he has lived in Western New York since the early 1990s, after starting an art career in Baltimore, New York, and Austin. Represented for a time by Jack Tilton Gallery in New York, he later worked as an instructor at University of Texas in Austin and Erie Community College in Buffalo. He has provided art therapy services to MRDD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and dementia populations at day treatment and day habilitation facilities in the Buffalo area. His art reviews of local gallery exhibitions were published in the former free press journals, Art Voice and The Public. Additionally, he has been involved for several years with productions at the Subversive Theater Collective as an actor, set painter, and board member. He also appears in the 2018 short film, “Memories of the Future.” Raymond is an exhibiting member of Buffalo Society of Artists and Board member since 2023. Formerly, a member of the College Street Gallery Artist Collective, he also served as a docent at the former Albright Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo AKG Art Museum). He has been involved with the Subversive Theater Collective as set painter, actor, and board member. Additionally, Raymond has been a frequent participant in local poetry readings. His art has been shown in numerous local group and member exhibitions, such as Burchfield Penney, Albright Knox, Hallwalls, Big Orbit, Artspace Buffalo, High Temp Art Space, Queen City, C.G. Jung Center and Art Dialogue.

Brandon Williamson is a poet, spoken word artist, actor and performer with Ujima Theater Company, and organizer and coordinator of poetry slams across the United States and internationally.

Williamson, who was born, raised, and continues to live in Buffalo, has performed on stages across North America and Europe. He graduated from the State University of New York at Fredonia in 2007 with a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Theatre. Brandon began his career as a high school theater teacher. A few years later, he changed directions and returned to SUNY Fredonia to become an Admissions Counselor to not only fulfill his joy of working with students, but also to give back to the community. During his nine years as an Admissions Counselor, Brandon also founded Pure Ink Poetry and wrote and published two books of poetry.

Brandon describes himself as a “Storyteller, creativity consultant, innovation specialist, and founder of the internationally recognized Pure Ink Poetry organization in Buffalo, NY and with experience serving as a school administrator, college admissions counselor, high school teacher, college advisor, minister, poet, actor, musician, author, athlete, producer, community activist, professional wrestler, and innovator.”

He is the recipient of an Excellence in Education nomination as a Buffalo Schools Administrator and a recipient of the Buffalo Business First’s 40 under 40 award.

Williamson is the founder and Director of the Pure Ink Poetry Slam Series, and the author of the poetry collections Critical Lens (2015) and A ‘How to’ Guide (2020)

Thursday, Dec. 4, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: TEACHERS ARE WRITERS, with award-winning writer, artist, and visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger.

In collaboration with the Western New York Network of English Teachers and the Buffalo State English Education program, Just Buffalo Literary Center offers a workshop series for school teachers and educators so they will have the opportunity to explore their own creative work, engage in ongoing conversations about process, and grow as writers. This workshop is FREE and aimed at teachers. CTLE credit is available through the Buffalo State English Education program.BPS teachers can register on PGS; non-BPS teachers register by emailing Molly Eldridge at MEldridge@buffaloschools.org. Just Buffalo Writing Center, 468 Washington Street, 2nd Floor, in Buffalo.

About the Teaching Artist:

Ariel Aberg-Riger is a visual storyteller who believes in the power of melding forms and morphing mediums to tell expansive narratives. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, and Teen Vogue, and her debut book America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History met with critical acclaim (2023 Kirkus Prize, 2024 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction finalist, multiple Best Book of the Year as well as Best Book of the *21st Century* lists). Beyond the page, she’s performed her visual stories with the Kronos Quartet at Carnegie Hall, projected them onto the side of an abandoned grain elevator, exhibited them in galleries, painted them throughout towns as murals, and mailed them across the country as the co-founder of the Buffalo Correspondance School. She lives with her wife and two kids in Los Angeles, California.

Saturday, Dec. 6, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.: Author Afternoon at The Meeting House, 5658 Main Street in Williamsville, NY.

Join author Sinead Tyrone, the organizer of the event, with fellow writers and Buffalo-based authors Donna Grace, Katherine Hastings, P.A. Kane, Michael Parzymieso, and Daniel Sendker for an afternoon of readings and opportunities to purchase books, just in time for the holidays. The readers (poets, fiction writers and nonfiction writers) are all writers who have published work over the past two years and will have them available for sale at the event. Free and open to the public.

Saturday, Dec. 6, 7 p.m.: Fitz Books presents evening with novelist Sam Sussman. Sam’s critically-acclaimed debut novel Boy From the North Country was released to wide critical acclaim this fall. Sam will be in conversation with Buffalo-based novelist Nishant Batsha. Fitz Books, 1462 Main St., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

About the Author and Book:

Sam Sussman is a 34 year old American writer. Boy From the North Country (Penguin Press) is an autofictional novel based on Sussman’s Harper’s Magazine memoir essay, “The Silent Type: On (Possibly) Being Bob Dylan’s Son.”

Kirkus called the novel “the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.”

Tony Kushner called the novel, “A penetratingly observed exploration of loss and grief, healing and mortality, theology, philosophy, and above all, art—of art as origin and salvation, art as community, seduction, fame, power, holiness. Its language is unguardedly personal, at times uncomfortably intimate, accumulating over and over into moments of stunning poetic force, revelatory insight, heartbreak and wisdom.”

David Yaffe, author of Like A Complete Unknown, said the novel was, “A monumental event for anyone who cares about Dylan. More meaningfully, the book transforms into an emotionally moving story of what it means to love a mother and be a son. Sussman has written one of the Great Millennial Novels and proved himself an inheritor of Dylan’s lyrical tradition.”

The novel also received praise from Vivian Gornick, Ayad Akhtar, Maria Semple, and Aminatta Forna.

Sussman studied one year at SUNY Binghamton and one year at Christ Church, Oxford, before transferring to Swarthmore College. He returned to Oxford to complete an M.Phil, writing a dissertation on Rousseau. While at Oxford, Sussman was an active member of the Oxford Union.

Sussman has lived in Berlin and Jerusalem and taught writing and literature seminars in England, India, Peru, and Chile. While living in England, Sussman won the BAFTA New Writing Award for original screenplay. Sussman is a member of PEN America and has participated in the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature three times.

Sussman grew up with his mother on fourteen acres in the woods in the Hudson Valley. His mother, Fran Sussman, was a holistic health practitioner, educator, and writer. She died in 2o17 at age 63 of ovarian cancer.

Sussman lives between his childhood home in the Hudson Valley and the walk-up apartment in Yorkville, Manhattan, in which his mother first lived as an artist and actor in the early 1970s and much of Boy from the North Country takes place. Bob Dylan wrote parts of his 1975 album Blood on the Tracks in the apartment while romantically involved with his mother Fran Susman as his first marriage to Sara Lownds dissolved.

Later, in 1990, Dylan and Sussman’s mother Fran were briefly romantically-linked again, nine months before his birth. Sam Sussman returned to the apartment which had long been leased by his family after his mother Fran Sussman died in 2017.

For Sussman, the what the book explores is less a question of a possible DNA link than it is of spiritual lineage to Dylan. The book is about male vulnerability and grief, and in particular about grief at the loss of his mother.

“I wrote the book for my mother,” Sussman says. “I didn’t write it for Bob Dylan…Samuel Beckett said you have to find the form that fits the mess,” Sussman explained. “For me, that form was a novel.”