Calendar

All poets invited to compete in a weekly poetry slam judged by a randomly chosen panel from the audience. The program begins with a brief poetry open mike and (usually) a short set by a featured poet. (sign-up begins at 7:30 p.m.). $5 suggested donation.

Brian Gilmore‘s latest collection We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters has been nominated for NAACP Image Award. Gilmore is a poet, writer, public interest attorney, and columnist with the Progressive Media Project. He is a Cave Canem Fellow (1997), Kimbilio Fellow (2014), Literature Fellow for the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities (1997), Pushcart Prize nominee (2007), and winner of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Individual Artist Award (2001 and 2003). Gilmore has been a contributing writer for Ebony-Jet.com, and JazzTimes Magazine. He is the author of two collections of poetry: elvis presley is alive and well and living in harlem, and Jungle Nights and Soda Fountain Rags: Poem for Duke Ellington. His poems and writings are widely published and have appeared in The Progressive, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and many other publications. He teaches law at the Michigan State University College of Law, where he lectures and writes on contemporary issues relating to housing and economic inequality, dividing his time between Michigan and Washington, D.C.

Bill Haney will sign copies of his latest book, What They Were Thinking: Reflections on Michigan Difference Makers. The book provides insights into eighteen notable Michigan men and women who had a lasting impact, including novelist Elmore “Dutch” Leonard, Hall-of-Fame baseball announcer Ernie Harwell, Jack Kevorkian, Denise Ilitch, J.P. McCarthy, Jennifer Granholm, and Academy Award-winning producer/director Sue Marx.

William Valentine “Bill” Haney is a writer of non-fiction books, essays, and the occasional short story, screenplay or novel. He is the author or co-author of several books and the publisher of many more by other authors.

He has managed to write and publish over the years by also having simultaneously had successful careers in wildly diverse fields. He spent more than twenty years as a top corporate executive in worldwide marketing companies. Previously, during the earliest and exciting years of U.S. space exploration, he played key roles on the management of lunar surface scientific experiment programs. He founded three book-publishing enterprises and directed two others in scholarly settings.

Bill and his wife Marcy live in the bucolic countryside of north Oakland County. After careers in the aerospace industry, academia, business and book publishing, he tried retirement three times and failed miserably. Now he focuses on his own writing, while continuing to consult very selectively on intriguing projects in book publishing, organizational management and communication, and public relations.

Reif Larsen reads from his latest novel, I Am Radar, which draws on the furthest reaches of quantum physics, forgotten history, and performance art. Larsen’s first novel, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, was a New York Times bestseller, was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.  A film version was released in 2013.

Author Richard Adler is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, the author of several articles on baseball, and an Associate Professor of Microbiology at U-M, and author of a 2014 biography of U-M’s Victor Vaughan.

Victor Vaughan’s career at the University of Michigan spanned more than four decades, beginning with his graduate studies in physiological chemistry during the 1870s and ending in 1921 with his retirement after three decades as dean of the medical school. Not only was he instrumental in modernizing medical training at Michigan, his work in areas of hygiene, epidemiology and the study of toxins and infectious disease was highly regarded on the national scene. Twice he was called upon to serve his country in times of crisis. During the Spanish-American War he was a key member of the Typhoid Commission which investigated the outbreak of the life-threatening fever among army recruits in southern camps. During World War I, he was a member of the medical board within the Council of National Defense contended with an unprecedented influenza outbreak. Vaughan’s professional work included more than 250 published papers and some 17 books, many that outlined laboratory techniques which modernized the newly evolving field of bacteriology.

Cat Warren, author of What The Dog Knows is a university professor and former journalist with an admittedly odd hobby: She and her German shepherd have spent the last seven years searching for the dead. Solo is a cadaver dog. What started as a way to harness Solo’s unruly energy and enthusiasm soon became a calling that introduced her to the hidden and fascinating universe of working dogs, their handlers, and their trainers.

Warren interviews cognitive psychologists, historians, medical examiners, epidemiologists, forensic anthropologists—as well as the breeders, trainers, and handlers who work with and rely on these remarkable and adaptable animals daily. Along the way, Warren discovers story after story that proves the remarkable capabilities—as well as the very real limits—of working dogs and their human partners. Clear-eyed and unsentimental, Warren explains why our partnership with working dogs is woven into the fabric of society, and why we keep finding new uses for the working dog’s wonderful nose.

Warren is an associate professor at North Carolina State University, where she teaches science journalism, editing, and reporting courses. She lives with her husband and her German shepherds, Solo and Coda, in Durham, North Carolina. Visit CatWarren.com.

The second year of the Zell Fellows Reading Series continues , featuring fresh writing from the third year fellows in the U-M Helen Zell Writers’ Program, program alumni, and special guests.  March’s theme is “Sports.” Readers include Zell Fellows Chris McCormick and Mindy Misener with Zell alums John Ganiard and Tricia Khleif.

Rachel Hartman‘s new book, Shadow Scale, is forthcoming from Random House. As a child, Hartman played cello, lip-synched Mozart operas with her sisters, and fostered the deep love of music that inspired much of her previous novel, Seraphina. Rachel earned a degree in comparative literature but eschewed graduate school in favor of bookselling and drawing comics. Born in Kentucky, she has lived in Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, England, and Japan. She now lives with her family in Vancouver, Canada. To learn more, please visit SeraphinaBooks.com or RachelHartmanBooks.com.

Reading by local poet Joseph Chapman, whose poems have appeared in Boston Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. The program begins with open mike readings.