Local authors Sonia Pilcer and Jeanne Bogino will share a stage at this year’s Spencertown Academy Festival of Books on Sunday, September 6, at 3 pm. Their program, “Teen Angel to Rock Angel: Writer to Writer Mentoring,” will explore the process of mentorship between writers.
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In the late 1990s, Jeanne Bogino attended a writing workshop that Sonia Pilcer taught at Berkshire Community College in Great Barrington. She arrived with the pages that would become her first novel, “Rock Angel,” which has been recently published, as has Sonia Pilcer’s sixth novel: “The Last Hotel: A Novel in Suites.” They will discuss their own mentor-mentee experiences in conversation with author Wesley Brown (Tragic Magic and Push Comes to Shove).
Sonia Pilcer was born in Augsburg, Germany, and raised in the boroughs of New York City. Her most recent book, “The Last Hotel: A Novel in Suites,” is based on the residential hotel her father managed on the Upper Westside in the ‘70s. “Teen Angel,” her first novel, launched Pilcer’s career in her twenties. It was bought by Universal Studios and she wrote the screenplay with Garry Marshall. The book has recently been reissued in a 35th Year Anniversary Edition. Her other novels include “Maiden Rites,” “Little Darlings,” and “I-Land: Manhattan Monologues.” Pilcer teaches at Berkshire Community College and the Writers Voice in New York City, as well as privately.
A Berkshire County native, Jeanne Bogino has served as director of the New Lebanon Library in Columbia County, NY, since 2007. Her debut novel “Rock Angel” was published by Prashanti Press in 2014. The novel follows the meteoric rise of young, beautiful, heroin-addicted Shan to guitar goddess stardom in the 1990s. A lifelong writer, Jeanne has published short horror, fantasy, romance, memoir, and gay fiction, and is a regular contributor at Library Journal where she was named 2011’s fiction reviewer of the year. An expert on zombie lit and horror films, Bogino has published numerous articles and appeared on panels devoted to these subjects. She lives in Hancock, MA, with her partner.
Spencertown Academy Arts Center’s Festival of Books, an annual extravaganza of all things literary, takes place over Labor Day weekend, September 4 through 7. The Festival features a giant used book sale, two days of readings and book signings by nationally known and local authors, and a children’s program. Admission is free to all of the events, save for the early book-buying opportunities.[/private]