Break out your 2011 calendars, people. The New York Times is set to hold its 10th annual Arts & Leisure Weekend from January 6th through the 9th. The event will include TimesTalks interviews with big names across a variety of fields, conducted by New York Times journalists.

Some of the guests slated to participate include CBS anchor Katie Couric, who will be interviewed by Gail Collins; Food Network star Ina Garten, interviewed by Alex Witchel; James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, interviewed by Daniel Wakin; Terence Winter, the co-creator of “Boardwalk Empire,” will be interviewed by Charles McGrath along with actors Steve Buscemi and Paz de la Huerta. Additional interviews will be conducted with pianist Lang Lang; Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain; actor/director Robert Redford; actor/director/producer Kevin Spacey; and film and stage director Julie Taymor.

The weekend will also include performances by the likes of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and American Idiot director/co-writer Michael Mayer, who will be interviewed by Patrick Healy. There will be a salute to the music of Tim Rice (aka the writer of nearly every Disney song you’ve sung into a hairbrush) and a performance by Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright.

So save the date. But, please, leave your hairbrushes at home.

— DIANE CLEHANE

It was Hollywood on the Hudson at Michael’s today as Peggy Siegal hosted one of her legendary lunches right smack in the middle of the dining room. Today’s guest of honor was James Cameron. Looks like Peggy pulled out all the stops, rounding up quite an eclectic collection of actors, directors, and entertainment A-listers to celebrate the Avatar auteur’s nine Oscar nominations and, no doubt, drum up a few votes. Ballots are due March 2! In case you haven’t heard, Cameron is up against some stiff competition in the best picture and director categories. His ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, has been nabbing plenty of statuettes this award season for helming The Hurt Locker, and everyone in Hollywood is waiting to see who comes out on top on Oscar night.

I was squeezed into the bar with Redbook‘s editor-in-chief Stacy Morrison and Hearst’s director of public relations Alexandra Carlin. Stacy is about to publish her first book, Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist’s Journey Through the Hell of Divorce (Simon & Schuster) next month and it’s a real page turner. After spending a year “trying not to write the book,” Stacy decided to chronicle her painful but ultimately life-affirming journey from jilted wife of a year-old baby to happy single mother. The memoir, which seems destined for the big screen, took two years of writing and rewriting on weekends to finish. “I wanted to make people think differently about divorce,” Stacy told me. After tiring of deflecting people’s inappropriate questions about the split, Stacy says she ultimately thought: ‘If you want to see the real story, here it is.’ And she doesn’t hold anything back. From the nights spent sobbing on her kitchen floor to the painful conversations with her soon-to-be ex, it’s all there.

I asked Stacy if she had any misgivings about exposing so much about her personal life in the book, given her high-profile position as a relationship ‘expert.’ (She got her boss Cathie Black‘s blessing to write it.) On the contrary, she told me. “The book is a resilience road map,” says Stacy. Miraculously, she and her ex-husband have managed to remain friends (really!) and have a co-parenting strategy that works for the couple and their young son. Stacy even dedicated the book to the man who left her because, she says, “I couldn’t have written it without him in more ways than one.”

The book is getting plenty of good buzz and even earned high praise from none other than Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote of her own reawakening after divorce in Eat, Pray, Love. Gilbert “loved the tone” of the book, calling it “real, without the slightest hint of self-pity.”

Here’s the rundown on today’s crowd:

1. Just an intimate lunch for 38 including James Cameron and pals Bob Balaban, Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn (looking absolutely ageless), Avatar villain Stephen Lang, indie It girl Parker Posey, documentarian Ken Burns and director Julie Taymor, Jean Doumanian and Warner Music’s Lyor Cohen. Also in attendance: Les Moonves, John Stossel, Felicia Taylor, and “Mayor” Joe Armstrong. Entertainment Weekly’s Oscar odds-maker Dave Karger was also on hand taking it all in.

Read more