INFORMATION FOR
The Passaic River—its past, present, and future—will be the topic of a talk and slide presentation on Sunday, April 18, at 2 p.m. in the Cheng Library Auditorium at William Paterson University in Wayne. Admission is free and open to the public. The program is sponsored by the Friends of the Cheng Library at William Paterson University.
Mark Hillringhouse, a photographer, poet, and member of the English department at Passaic County Community College, will discuss “Life Along the Passaic River,” his year-long project to convey in images and words his love and fascination with the Passaic River, one of New Jersey’s most important resources. Hillringhouse recently spent a year documenting the history of the river in “Passaic River Journal,” a photo-essay that was commissioned by The American Poetry Review and which appeared in the journal’s January/February 2010 issue. A selection of his photographs of the Passaic River will be on display and for sale in the library.
“Ever since I moved to Paterson in 1984, in the newly opened ‘Artist Housing’ in the renovated silk mills by the falls, I have been drawn to this river because it is New Jersey’s river,’ he says in the article. Hillringhouse explores the river from Paterson to Newark, in a canoe, by car, and on foot, and photographs the river and the many sights along the way, including the Great Falls, the Colt Mill, the abandoned Western Electric plant in Kearny, and the Newark waterfront.
Hillringhouse’s photography and writing have appeared in many journals, books, anthologies, and magazines. He was the founding editor of the American Book Review, and a contributing editor for The New York Arts Journal. He has won three fellowships for poetry from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A member of the English department at Passaic County Community College, he earned an MFA in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. His forthcoming book of poetry, Between Frames, is being published this year by Serving House Books.
For additional information, contact the Cheng Library at William Paterson University at 973-720-2113.
# # #
