Kurt Vonnegut, the renowned author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Cat’s Cradle, spent an important part of his life in Schenectady. The region influenced his work, and Schenectady appears as the setting for many of his stories, including the novel Player Piano.
K.A. Laity will discuss Vonnegut’s time in Schenectady – as a PR man for General Electric, and as a volunteer fire fighter – and the region’s legacy in his work on Saturday, April 11th at 2 pm at Mabee Farm Historic Site in Rotterdam Junction. The vent is part of the “It Came From Schenectady: Science Fiction in the Capital Region” exhibit series.
Laity is the award-winning author of White Rabbit, A Cut-Throat Business, Lush Situation, Owl Stretching, Unquiet Dreams, À la Mort Subite, The Claddagh Icon, Chastity Flame, Pelzmantel and Other Medieval Tales of Magic and Unikirja, as well as the editor of Weird Noir, Noir Carnival and Drag Noir.
Her bibliography is full of short stories, humor pieces, plays and essays, both scholarly and popular. She spent the 2011-2012 academic year in Galway, Ireland where she was a Fulbright Fellow in digital humanities at NUIG. Dr. Laity has written on popular culture and social media for Ms., The Spectator and BitchBuzz, and teaches medieval literature, film, gender studies, new media and popular culture at the College of Saint Rose. She divides her time between upstate New York and Dundee.
Mabee Farm Historic Site is located at 1100 Main St, Rotterdam Junction, NY. Admission is $5.00; free to members of the Schenectady County Historical Society.
About the exhibit: What if you had a superpower? What if you could travel through time? What if machines overtook Schenectady? “What if” questions inspire writers, artists, and filmmakers to create new worlds and imagine alternate realities. Featuring an Apollo EMU spacesuit (and a replica you can try on!), experimental equipment and machinery from GE, original science fiction cover art, hand-made costumes, an interactive studio set, film footage, and more, “It Came from Schenectady: Science Fiction in the Capital Region” invites you to discover the “what ifs” that inspired the creations of local science fiction innovators, including Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Nelson, Pamela Sargent, and Glendora.
For more information visit schenectadyhistorical.org or contact Mary Zawacki at 518-887-5073 or curator@schenectadyhistorical.org.
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