April 7 Guests

ALLEGRA SILBERSTEIN
In 2010 Allegra Jostad Silberstein was named the first ever Poet Laureate of the City of Davis. A longtime Davis teacher (now retired), dancer, and philanthropist, Allegra is known widely for her work as coordinator for The Other Voice, a reading series that takes place at the UU Church of Davis, and for her support of local writers. Her poems have been published in Poetry Depth Quarterly, The Yolo Crow, Blue Unicorn, Rattlesnake Press, Poetry Now, Iodine Poetry, Poetry of the New West, California Quarterly, and other journals. The has also placed poems in a variety of anthologies, including The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, Gatherings, A Woman’s Place, and Where Do I Walk. Her first chapbook, ACCEPTANCE, was published in 1999.  IN THE FOLDS was published by Rattlesnake Press in 2005.  She is currently working on a full-length book of poems.

SHERMAN STEIN
Sherman Stein, professor emeritus of mathematics at UC Davis, has a new career writing books about math, including How the Other Half Thinks: Adventures in Mathematical Reasoning; Mathematics: The Man-Made Universe; Algebra and Tiling: Homomorphisms in the Service of Geometry; Strength In Numbers: Discovering the Joy and Power of Mathematics in Everyday Life; and Archimedes: What Did He Do Besides Cry Eureka?. His books aim to make mathematics accessible to the reader, to show them what math is really like and why it might be interesting and relevant to their lives; as he says, he wants “to make the beauty of math available to the public. I want to spread the gospel.” His most recent book, the Survival Guide for Outsiders: How To Protect Yourself from Politicians, Experts, and Other Insiders uses mathematical concepts and his own experiences to build a handbook for living in a democracy.