Palm Desert Center

Presenting the 2012-13 season of Arts & Letters

A literary arts series

Arts & Letters invites the community to spend time with some of today's most influential authors through interviews and personal readings. Conversations are facilitated by Tod Goldberg, the program director for UCR Palm Desert's Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts.

Cannabis Culture: Mark Haskell Smith and Heather Donahue: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 17

Reporting for the Los Angeles Times on the international blind tasting competition held annually in Amsterdam known as the Cannabis Cup, novelist Mark Haskell Smith discovered a marijuana culture that was unlike anything he'd previously experienced.  The result is his book, "Heart of Dankness: Underground Botanists, Outlaw Farmers, and the Race for the Cannabis Cup." He will be in conversation with Heather Donahue, who started a marijuana farm after starring in the blockbuster film, "The Blair Witch Project." Her book is "Growgirl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot." Mark Haskell Smith also teaches fiction at UCR Palm Desert low-residency MFA in creative writing and writing for the performing arts.

This event is free, but reservations are highly recommended. RSVP here.

All events are held inside the auditorium at UCR Palm Desert, 75080 Frank Sinatra Drive.

Previous lectures in the  2012-13 academic year:

Molly Ringwald: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28

Beloved for her many roles in movies and TV, Molly Ringwald has matured into a critically-acclaimed author. Her first work of fiction, "When It Happens to You: A Novel in Stories," published in August 2012, explores the complexities of family and other relationships.

Jess Walter: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20

A former National Book Award finalist and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Jess Walter is the author of five novels and one nonfiction book. His essays, short fiction, criticism and journalism have been widely published, in Harper's, Esquire, McSweeney's, Byliner, Playboy, ESPN the Magazine, Details and many others. His most recent work is the New York Times bestselling novel, "Beautiful Ruins."

Emily Rapp: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 13

A former Fulbright scholar and graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Emily Rapp is the author of "Poster Child: A Memoir" and "The Still Point of the Turning World," to be released in March 2013. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, a James A. Michener Fellowship at the University of Texas-Austin, and the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence fellowship at Bucknell University.  Her writing has appeared in Slate, Salon, and the New York Times. She teaches nonfiction at the UCR Palm Desert low-residency MFA in creative writing and writing for the performing arts.