NoViolet Bulawayo won the 2014 PEN-Hemingway Award, the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing, and the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2014. We Need New Names was a finalist for numerous other awards, including the Man Booker Prize. NoViolet earned her MFA at Cornell University where she was a recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where she now teaches as a Jones Lecturer in Fiction. NoViolet grew up in Zimbabwe.
David Joy will read from his latest novel, Where All Light Tends to Go.
Reading with David will be special guest and Man Booker nominated author Chigozie Obioma. Author and Midwestern Gothic co-founder Robert James Russell will be moderatind a post-reading discussion, followed by an audience Q&A.
In the meth-dealing McNeely family, killing a man is a rite of passage, but when eighteen-year-old Jacob McNeely botches a murder, he is torn between appeasing his kingpin father and leaving the mountains with the girl he loves. The area surrounding Cashiers, North Carolina is home to people of all kinds, but the world that Jacob lives in is crueler than most. His father runs a methodically organized meth ring, with local authorities on the dime to turn a blind eye to his dealings. Having dropped out of high school, subsequently cutting himself off from his peers, Jacob has been working for this father for years, all on the promise that his payday will come eventually. The only joy he finds comes from reuniting with Maggie, his first love, and a girl clearly bound for bigger and better things than their hardscrabble town. The world that Jacob inhabits is bleak and unrelenting in its violence and disregard for human life, and having known nothing more, Jacob wonders if he can muster the strength to rise above it.
“Remarkable… This isn’t your ordinary coming-of-age novel, but with his bone-cutting insights into these men and the region that bred them, Joy makes it an extraordinarily intimate experience.” — New York Times Book Review
“Bound to draw comparisons to Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone…[Joy’s] moments of poetic cognizance are the stuff of fine fiction, lyrical sweets that will keep readers turning pages…’Where All Light Tends To Go’ is a book that discloses itself gradually, like a sunrise peeking over a distant mountain range…If [Joy’s next novel] is anything like his first, it’ll be worth the wait.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“[Joy] has studied his forebears in Southern gothic: Where All Light Tends to Go mixes Flannery O’Connor’s twisted religion with Cormac McCarthy’s mythopoetic violence…Jacob’s narrative voice mixes these poetic passages with down-home colloquialisms in sequences that are occasionally jarring, though nothing stands in the way of the story’s momentum. Readers turn through pages of darkness hoping that, against the odds, Jacob can find his way to the light.” — Memphis Commercial-Appeal
“[A] gripping first novel…[a] tragic, absorbing plot. Engaging characters, a well-realized setting, and poetic prose establish Joy as a novelist worth watching.” — Publishers Weekly
“Joy’s first novel is an uncompromising noir, its downward thrust pulling like quicksand on both the characters and the reader. And, yet, there is poetry here, too, as there is in Daniel Woodrell’s novels, the kind of poetry that draws its power from a doomed character’s grit in the face of disaster…This is the start of a very promising fiction-writing career.” — Booklist
David Joy lives in a more remote part of North Carolina (Webster) and has great knowledge of the area and its people, the real-life inspirations for what he’s coined an “Appalachian noir.” David was born in Charlotte, N.C., in 1983, and moved to Cullowhee in 2003 to study literature at Western Carolina University mentoring under Ron Rash, Deidre Elliott, and Pamela Duncan. He is the author of Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey, which was a finalist for the Reed Environmental Writing Award and the Ragan Old North State Award for Creative Nonfiction. His stories and creative non-fiction have appeared in Drafthorse Literary Journal, Smoky Mountain Living, Wilderness House Literary Review, Bird Watcher’s Digest, Pisgah Review, and Flycatcher.
Chigozie Obioma was born in Nigeria. He has lived in Cyprus, Turkey and now the United States where he is a professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A recipient of Hopwood Awards in fiction and poetry, his fiction has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review and Transition. His novel, The Fishermen, will be published originally in English by ONE/Pushkin Press (UK), Little, Brown (US/Canada), Scribe (Australia/NZ), Cassava Republic (Nigeria) and in 24 languages beginning from Spring 2015. Go to ‘International Editions’ section of the website for a list of editions and publishers’ pages. His debut novel, THE FISHERMEN, is a winner of the inaugural FT/Oppenheimer Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize 2015.
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, was 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.
This month we will host a full hour of Open Mic when area poets can read their own work of share a favorite poem by another author. This is a monthly poetry series held on the second Thursday of each month.
Storytellers Guild members present a program of old tales and personal stories for grownups.
annarborstorytelling.org, facebook.com/annarborstorytellers. 665-2757.
Born in 1989 and currently living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Z.G. Tomaszewski is a poet, rambler, handyman, and musician as well as co-director of Lamp Light Musical Festival and a founding member of Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters. His first book, All Things Dusk, was selected by Li-Young Lee as the 2014 International Poetry Prize winner and published by Hong Kong University Press.
Dennis Hinrichsen’s most recent works are Skin Music, co-winner of the 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review Press, and Electrocution, A Partial History, winner of the Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Prize from Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art. His previous books include Rip-tooth (2010 Tampa Poetry Prize) and Kurosawa’s Dog (2008FIELD Poetry Prize). An earlier work Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights received the 1999 Akron Poetry Prize. Poems of his can be found in a number of recent anthologies includingPoetry in Michigan/Michigan in Poetry, New Poetry From the Midwest 2014, Clash by Night (an anthology inspired by The Clash’s London Calling), and Best of the Net 2014. He lives in Lansing, Michigan.
Poet Amber Tamblyn will read from her 2015 collection Dark Sparkler.
A unique, poetic, and harrowing exploration of life, death, celebrity, and immortality, from actress and acclaimed poet Amber Tamblyn, Dark Sparkler is “a smartly crafted collection, proving that she is a savvy and fierce woman and poet who knows that behind every spotlight is shadow.” (Booklist) A lifelong performer from a Hollywood family, actress Amber Tamblyn (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Two and a Half Men) is also an established poet who has studied with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Hirschman, and others. As a working actress, she is also deeply fascinated—and intimately familiar—with the costs of fame and the demands placed on young women in movies and on television. An initially casual interest in the lives and disappointments of actresses before her time—tragic stories of suicide, murder, obscurity, and other forms of death—inspired this insightful and emotionally charged collection of poetic portraits of the lives and troubling ends of more than thirty actresses famous and obscure. Featuring subjects like Brittany Murphy, Marilyn Monroe, and Jane Mansfield—and paired with original artwork, commissioned for this book, by luminaries including David Lynch, Adrian Tomine, Marilyn Manson, and Marcel Dzama—Dark Sparkler is a surprising and thought-provoking collection from a searching and multi-talented young artist.
“With a drummer’s approach to wording and a coroner’s attention to bodily detail, Amber Tamblyn’s tragicomic dead girl poems are a thoughtful, ghoulish kick.” —Sarah Vowell
“Ms. Tamblyn has a gift for words.” —Quentin Tarantino
“Amber Tamblyn’s Dark Sparkler is an elegy, a eulogy, a rhapsody, a rage. In these astonishing poems inspired by dead actresses, Tamblyn fiercely examines the spectacle of the actress as she lives and dies and how our hands and hearts linger on their lives.” —Roxane Gay, author of New York Times bestseller Bad Feminist
Amber Tamblyn is an author, actress and director who has been nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award for her work in television and film. She has three collections of poetry and prose, most recently “Dark Sparkler” (Harper Perennial) which explores the lives and deaths of child star actresses, with accompanying artwork by such luminaries as Marilyn Manson and David Lynch, amongst others. She reviews books of poetry written by women for Bust Magazine and is a contributing writer for The Poetry Foundation and visiting Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She lives in Brooklyn.
Event seating will open at 6:30, and will be limited. We suggest arriving early.
Zell Writers’ Program Alum Mo Daviau reads from her debut novel, Every Anxious Wave.
A wild romp of a love story across time, interweaving astrophysics and indie rock.
Karl Bender exclusively uses his Chicago apartment’s wormhole to send people back to rock concerts until his best friend cannot be talked out of trying to save John Lennon. Alas, Karl accidentally leaves off the “1” in “1980,” sending Wayne back to 980, Mannahatta. Though he receives Wayne’s texts extolling the quality of life, and especially the quality of the fish, Karl can’t figure out how to bring him back.
Enter brilliant, prickly, overweight astrophysicist Lena Geduldig. Karl and Lena’s connection is immediate. While they work on getting Wayne back, Karl’s future self emails him from Seattle, imploring him: don’t lose Lena. Karl visits Seattle, now waterlogged, and meets his future stepdaughter. Unable to resist meddling with the past, Karl and Lena bounce around time in Boston, Portland, Chicago, Montana, Seattle, and Mannahatta. When Lena ultimately prevents her own long-ago rape, she alters the course of her life. She no longer knows Karl, who must figure out how to get her back without erasing the stepdaughter to whom he’s grown close.
“Every Anxious Wave gives us the intelligent irreverence of Nick Hornby, the honest romance of Gary Shteyngart, and the swoon-worthy charm of a John Cusack movie, all within a riveting story of lost love, bent time, and rock stars. A delightful, innovative debut.” –Rebecca Dinerstein, author of The Sunlit Night
“An absolute kick in the pants to read–if you love rock, bodies, and time travel, this is your ride.”
–Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Small Backs of Children
Mo Daviau was born in 1976 to a very unusual couple in a widely disliked city in California. A graduate of Smith College and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her stuffed crocodile.
This event will be recorded
In the webcomic and graphic novel Mom’s Cancer, Brian Fies told the story of his mother’s diagnosis and treatment for cancer, and its effect on his family. “Mom’s Cancer” began as a serialized Internet comic, with new installments added throughout 2004. Readership grew by word-of-mouth. People who needed the story found it and told their friends about it. The story won the comics industry’s Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic, the Harvey Award, and the German Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (Youth Literature Prize) and became a pioneering work in the new field of “graphic medicine.”
Brian will talk about why and how he created “Mom’s Cancer,” and the wider social communities he’s entered as a result. The event includes a book signing and books will be for sale courtesy of Bookbound Bookstore.
This event is co-sponsored by the following U-M Departments in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts: The Department of American Culture; Instructional Support Services; Office of Undergraduate Education; and the Program in Biology.
Reading by Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative (Kalamazoo) cofounder Denise Miller, author of the recent CORE, a collection of poems based on the stories of African American sharecroppers of the Great Migration.
Literati welcomes young-adult author and Ann Arbor native Gavriel Savit in support of Anna and the Swallow Man: a stunning, literary, and wholly original debut novel set in Poland during the Second World War, perfect for readers of The Book Thief.
About the book: Kraków, 1939. A million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. This is no place to grow up. Anna Łania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father, a linguistics professor, during their purge of intellectuals in Poland. She’s alone. And then Anna meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall, a skilled deceiver with more than a little magic up his sleeve. And when the soldiers in the streets look at him, they see what he wants them to see. The Swallow Man is not Anna’s father—she knows that very well—but she also knows that, like her father, he’s in danger of being taken, and like her father, he has a gift for languages: Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish, even Bird. When he summons a bright, beautiful swallow down to his hand to stop her from crying, Anna is entranced. She follows him into the wilderness. Over the course of their travels together, Anna and the Swallow Man will dodge bombs, tame soldiers, and even, despite their better judgment, make a friend. But in a world gone mad, everything can prove dangerous. Even the Swallow Man. Destined to become a classic, Gavriel Savit’s stunning debut reveals life’s hardest lessons while celebrating its miraculous possibilities.
About the author: Gavriel Savit holds a BFA in musical theater from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he grew up. As an actor and singer, Gavriel has performed on three continents, from New York to Brussels to Tokyo. He lives in Brooklyn. This is his first novel.
