October 1, 2010

AMHERST, Mass. — On Friday, Oct. 15, at 4 p.m. in Cole Assembly Room of Amherst College’s Converse Hall, television writer and screenwriter Victor Levin, a member of Amherst’s Class of 1983 and the 2010 Robert Frost Library Fellow, will give a lecture titled “Hollywood from an Amherst Perspective.” The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Friends of the Amherst College Library.

After graduating from Amherst, Levin moved to New York, where he wrote and directed commercials. His advertising work won two Clio Awards and the Cannes Lion de Bronze. In 1990, he moved to Los Angeles and began his career in series television, where he would write for HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show and Dream On before moving to NBC’s Mad About You.  He wrote some of that series’ most memorable episodes, including the groundbreaking “The Conversation,” a one-shot, one-take half-hour that aired without commercial interruption.  He shared a Golden Globe for Mad About You, as well as Emmy nominations for Mad and Sanders.  He shared a Cable Ace for the latter.

After Mad About You, Levin crossed over to features, writing Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!!! (2004) for DreamWorks Pictures, collaborating with Helen Hunt and Alice Arlen to pen Then She Found Me (2008), adapting the Korean romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2008) and co-writing Fox International’s We Are Family with Daniel Shere and Yuri Korotkov (currently in production).  In mid-2011, Levin will make his feature directorial debut with his script All the Ships at Sea, to be produced by Mockingbird Pictures.  

Approximately every two years for the past 30 years, the Friends of the Amherst College Library sponsors the Robert Frost Library Fellowship, which brings a visiting scholar to campus for a week, usually during the fall semester, to participate in courses, be available for consultation with students and participate in activities which reflect the central and interdepartmental role of the library in the academic life of the college.  Levin’s visit to Amherst as the 2010 Robert Frost Library Fellow will also include participation in classes, a second public lecture, showings of a number of his works and other interaction with faculty, students and library staff.    

The Friends of the Amherst College Library actively supports the library, staying informed about its work and participating in its development. Its programs reflect its sense of the Amherst College Library as a modern, dynamic institution while still honoring the library’s distinguished history and collections. The group contributes to a variety of library acquisitions, from rare books and manuscripts to reference books to software and databases, encourages and facilitates gifts to the library, publishes an annual newsletter and supports outside speakers. In addition to the Frost Library Fellowship, the organization has coordinated an ongoing video oral history series featuring interviews with an impressive and perhaps unexpected group of people who have influenced the college, a student book-collecting contest and another research fellowship program for undergraduates at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

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