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.
Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK. She is also the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, and Hunger, forthcoming from Harper in 2016.
Note: Q&A with Roxane Gay at 2 pm in the Hopwood Room.
Literati welcomes Jon Fine, author of Your Band Sucks: What I Saw at Indie Rock’s Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear). Jon Fine is the executive editor of Inc. magazine. As a guitarist—in Bitch Magnet, Coptic Light, and Don Caballero, among others–he’s performed around the world and appeared on MTV. As a writer, Fine’s long-running BusinessWeek column “Media Centric” won both American Society of Business Publication Editors and National Headliner awards, and his work for Food & Wine won a James Beard Award. He has served as an on-air contributor to CNBC, and his work has also appeared in The Atlantic, GQ, and Details.
Deborah L. Wolter is an elementary teacher consultant in Ann Arbor public schools. She has worked for over 18 years with public school teachers and their students from all walks of life and who were in different places of exploring multiple languages and literacies. Reading Upside Down offers a paradigm shift from achievement gaps to opportunity gaps in literacy instruction. Drawing on the author’s rich experiences working one-on-one with challenged readers, this book presents case studies illustrating the complexities of student learning experiences and the unique circumstances that shaped their acquisition of literacy. Wolter explores eight key factors that contribute to reading challenges in developing readers, including school readiness, the use of prescribed phonics-based programs, physical hurdles, unfamiliarity with English, and special education labeling. With a focus on the differences that educators can make for individual students, the text suggests ways to identify and address early opportunity gaps that can impact students throughout their entire educational career.
