Nicola’s Books will join other bookstores across the country to celebrate ‘Curiosity Day,’ an annual event that promotes the joy of reading and learning with everyone’s favorite monkey, Curious George. For two hours it will be everything Curious George – books, games, art and activities. Costume contest at 11:00 am (for both kids and adults); come as your favorite character in a Curious George book. Beverages and snacks will also be served throughout the event.
Kate Mendeloff and the RC Visiting Artists program welcome Alice Eve Cohen, playwright, author and actor, for a production of “Thin Walls” — a play about a microcosm of the urban landscape at a turbulent time in New York City’s history. Set in a century-old residential building, once elegant and now run-down, the darkly humorous and deeply moving play interweaves the stories of the building’s long-time residents, its recent arrivals and its ghosts, as the end of the 20th century approaches.
Alice Eve Cohen’s plays and solo pieces have been produced around the world. Ms. Cohen has also written for television, and her fiction has been published by Simon and Schuster and Heinenmann Press. She has received fellowships, grants and commissions from New York State Council on the ARts, Dance Theatre Workshop and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as an Emmy Award Commendation and numerous awards from Poets and Writers, Meet the Composer andASCAP. She received her BA from Princeton University and her MFA from the New School University, where she teaches solo theatre. She works with Lincoln Center Institute, and is the founding editor-in-chief of Theatre Development Fund’s educational theatre journal, Play by Play.
Includes a talk on the therapeutic power of memoir writing and a book signing of the author’s memoir, What You Feel Is Real.
Brian Freeman joins our book club on Wednesday, September 23 at 7 PM, to talk about his Jonathan Stride novel The Cold Nowhere as well as his new thriller, Season of Fear. He’ll also be presenting a PowerPoint: “Jonathan Stride’s Duluth.”
Reading by Ken Meisel, an award-winning Detroit-area poet whose recent The Drunken Sweetheart at My Door is a collection of surrealistic metaphysical poems about love. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
Jon M. Stevens was born in Powell, Ohio, and grew up in the shadow of Ohio Stadium. He earned a master’s degree from U-M in 2004 and is currently a designer for an architecture firm in Ann Arbor. Ken Magee is an expert in Wolverine football history. He is a 30-year veteran of law enforcement, former chief of police for the University of Michigan, and a retired federal agent. A portion of this book’s proceeds will benefit the Ken Magee Foundation for Cops, which assists police officers permanently injured in the line of duty. They are the authors of The Game: The Michigan-Ohio State Football Rivalry.
Jon M. Stevens was born in Powell, Ohio, and grew up in the shadow of Ohio Stadium. He earned a master’s degree from U-M in 2004 and is currently a designer for an architecture firm in Ann Arbor. Ken Magee is an expert in Wolverine football history. He is a 30-year veteran of law enforcement, former chief of police for the University of Michigan, and a retired federal agent. A portion of this book’s proceeds will benefit the Ken Magee Foundation for Cops, which assists police officers permanently injured in the line of duty. They are the authors of The Game: The Michigan-Ohio State Football Rivalry.
Literati welcomes Robert James Russell for the launch of his western novel, Mesilla. Reading with Robert will be Chicago-based author Ben Tanzer.
A born and bred Michigander, Robert James Russell is the co-founding editor of the literary journal Midwestern Gothic, which aims to catalog the very best fiction of the Midwestern United States (an area he believes is ripe with its own mythologies and tall tales, yet often overlooked), as well as the micro-press MG Press. In 2013 he launched the online literary journal CHEAP POP, which publishes micro-fiction, 500 words or less.
Fascinated by regionalist literature and the intersection of place and relationships, his work has appeared in numerous publications, both print and online. His first novel, Sea of Trees, was published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2012. His first collection of stories, Don’t Ask Me to Spell It Out, was released in April 2015 by WhiskeyPaper Press. His Western novel, Mesilla, will be released in September 2015 by Dock Street Press. He’s been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, and was awarded an artist residency with the University Musical Society for the 2014-2015 performance season. He currently has a lecturer appointment at the U-M Residential College.
Ben Tanzer is the author of the books My Father’s House, You Can Make Him Like You, So Different Now, Orphans and Lost in Space, among others. Ben can be found online at This Blog Will Change Your Life, the center of his growing lifestyle empire. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two sons.
The UM School of Music Jazz Department is sponsoring this appearance by NYC percussionist/drummer William Hooker who will perform to Oscar Micheaux‘s silent film Within Our Gates (1920). Micheaux is considered the first major African American film director and producer. Mr. Hooker will also meet with RC Faculty Mark Kirschenmann’s improv. ensemble on Thursday evening the Sept. 24th, and will meet with students from DAAS on Friday afternoon, Sept. 25, at 2:00.
About the film – Within Our Gates – 1920 Black and white/Indie film 1h 19m.
In this early silent film from pioneering director Oscar Micheaux, kindly Sylvia Landry (Flo Clements) takes a fundraising trip to Boston in hopes of collecting $5,000 to keep a Southern school for impoverished black children open to the public. She then meets the warmhearted Dr. Vivian (William Smith), who falls in love with Sylvia and travels with her back to the South. There, Dr. Vivian learns about Sylvia’s shocking, tragic past and realizes that racism has changed her life forever.
