Niagara University's 8th Annual Mark Twain Symposium & Birthday Party this year has the fortune of being held on Twain's birthday -- November 30th! You are all invited, and if anyone is interested in presenting a short (5-10 minute) paper, that would be great. Keep in mind, however, that this is a fun event with most attendees being folks from the community and students / faculty. Thus, you will not find an audience of "pure" (or even semi-pure!) scholars; this means that if you do choose to present, your topic should be something that is worded and presented in a manner that will interest those with but a casual knowledge of Twain. There is a strong emphasis on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and this year's program thus far includes: -- a performance (of about 45 minutes) from a man considered the equal or better than Hal Holbrook in portraying Twain, Mike Randall -- a reading by Prof. Vic Doyno (University at Buffalo), considered one of the leading H.F. scholars in the world -- a lecture / slide presentation on bringing the "lost" H.F. manuscript to the Buffalo library, by Bill Loos, Curator of Rare Books at the library -- a discussion that promises to be extremely heated and explosive on the use of the word "nigger" in H.F. -- the debut of yet another Mark Twain rap song by yours truly, Errol Craig Sull, Adjunct Professor, Niagara University Come celebrate the life of this greatest of American writers! This is the ONLY such event held in the United States, and you need to attend at least once. I look forward to hearing from you ... and seeing at least some of you in November! Errol