Literati is delighted to welcome Blair Braverman in support of her memoir, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North. Blair will be joined in conversation by UM MFA alum Mindy Misener.
Blair Braverman fell in love with the North at an early age: By the time she was nineteen, she had left her home in California, moved to Norway to learn how to drive sled dogs, and worked as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube charts Blair’s endeavor to become a “tough girl”—someone who courts danger in an attempt to become fearless. As she ventures into a ruthless arctic landscape, Blair faces down physical exhaustion—being buried alive in an ice cave, and driving a dogsled across the tundra through a whiteout blizzard in order to avoid corrupt police—and grapples with both love and violence as she negotiates the complex demands of being a young woman in a man’s land.
Brilliantly original and bracingly honest, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube captures the triumphs and the perils of the journey to self-discovery and independence in a landscape that is as beautiful as it is unforgiving.
Blair Braverman graduated from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, where she was also an Arts Fellow. She has been a resident fellow at Blue Mountain Center and the MacDowell Colony and her work has appeared in Buzzfeed, The Atavist, The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Orion, AGNI, High Country News, Waging Nonviolence, and on This American Life. She lives in Mountain, Wisconsin.
Vermont freelance food journalist Larry Olmsted is joined by local radio personality Michael Patrick Shiels in a discussion of Olmsted’s new book about recent food frauds, such as Parmesan cheese made from sawdust. Signing. Zingerman’s olive oil tasting.
University of Iowa Chinese literature professor Jennifer Feeley reads from her poetry and her translations of Chinese poetry, including her new book, Not Written Words: Selected Poems of Xi Xi, the 1st book by this prominent contemporary Hong Kong poet to be translated into English. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
Literati is pleased to welcome Margaret Wappler in support of her debut novel, Neon Green.
It’s the summer of 1994 in suburban Chicago: “Forrest Gump” is still in theaters, teens are reeling from the recent death of Kurt Cobain, and you can enter a sweepstakes for a spaceship from Jupiter to land in your backyard. Welcome to Margaret Wappler’s slightly altered 90s. Everything’s pretty much the way you remember it, except for the aliens. When a flying saucer lands in the Allens’ backyard, family patriarch and environmental activist Ernest is up in arms. According to the company facilitating the visits, the spaceship is 100 percent non-toxic, but as Ernest’s panic increases, so do his questions: What are the effects of longterm exposure to the saucer and why is it really here? The family starts logging the spaceship’s daily fits and starts but it doesn’t get them any closer to figuring out the spaceship’s comically erratic behavior. Ernest s wife Cynthia and their children, Alison and Gabe, are less concerned with the saucer, and more worried about their father s growing paranoia (not to mention their mundane, suburban existences). Set before the arrival of the internet, “Neon Green” will stun, unnerve, and charm readers with its loving depiction of a suburban family living on the cusp of the future.
Margaret Wappler has written about the arts and pop culture for the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Elle, The Believer, The Village Voice, and several other publications. Her work has appeared in Black Clock, Public Fiction, and the anthology Joyland Retro. Neon Green is her first novel. She lives in Los Angeles.
A variety of fun activities, including a mock Muggle Wall where customers can share their favorite memories of Harry Potter, in anticipation of the midnight release of the rehearsal edition of the script of Jack Thorne’s 2-part play Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, an adaptation of a new J.K. Rowling story which makes its world premiere at the Palace Theatre in London tomorrow.
8 p.m.-midnight, 973-1618.
Party to celebrate the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling’s play that is set 16 years after the last Harry Potter novel.
Join us on the eve of Harry Potter’s birthday, July 30th, for a Harry Potter release party to celebrate the new script, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child! The purchase of one of our event packets will get you a copy of The Cursed Child (available at the end of the party, July 30 at midnight), entry to all of the evening’s activities, and lots of HP goodies and treats! Book-less event packs are also available if you have more than one attendee for the party but only need one copy of the new play.
We are also very excited to be partnering on this event with Washtenaw Literacy. 30% of our event packet proceeds will go straight to them and they’ll be on hand at the party with information about the good they do and how you can help! Check back here for more event details as they are revealed, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to see what fun we’re preparing for the party! Pre-order your event packet below and mark your calendar for this magical Harry Potter celebration!
Monthly open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show. Each month 10 storytellers are selected at random from among those who sign up to tell a 3-5 minute story on the monthly theme. The 3 judges are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
Note: Beginning in August, the Storyslam is held twice a month, on the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), The Circus, 210 S. First. $10. 764-5118.
On Aug. 4, local short story writer Alex Kourvo and young adult novelist Bethany Neal discuss why some scenes work and some don’t, which scenes your story must have, and how to write scenes that grip the reader while furthering the story. For adult and teen (grade 6 & up) fiction and nonfiction writers. Also, Kourvo and Neal host an open house for writers to connect with one another and/or work on their projects at 7 p.m. on Aug. 18.
Literati is pleased to welcome Madeline Diehl and Jennifer Metsker in support of the anthology Show Me All Your Scars: True Stories of Living with Mental Illness.
About the book:
Every year, one in four American adults suffers from a diagnosable mental health disorder. In these true stories, writers and their loved ones struggle as their worlds are upended. What do you do when your father kills himself, or your mother is committed to a psych ward, or your daughter starts hearing voices telling her to harm herselfor when you yourself hear such voices? Addressing bipolar disorder, OCD, trichillomania, self-harm, PTSD, and other diagnoses, these stories depict the difficulties and sorrows–and sometimes, too, the unexpected and surprising rewards–of living with mental illness.
About the speakers:
Jennifer Metsker lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan where she is the Writing Coordinator at the Stamps School of Art and Design. Her poetry, which often addresses issues related to mental illness, has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals includingThe Cincinnati Review, Cimarron Review, Gulf Coast, The Seattle Review, Whiskey Island, Rhino, Cream City Review, and Birdfeast. She has written art reviews forArthopper and Carbon Culture and recently was awarded the Third Coast Audio Shortdoc Prize for an audio piece that she created with artist Stephanie Rowden.
Madeline Strong Diehl has worked as a magazine journalist, editor, and grant writer for almost 30 years. She has won the T.S. Eliot poetry prize from the University of Kent at Canterbury and published a book of poetry, Wrestling with Angels (2013). Her comedies have been produced Off-Broadway and around the Midwest, and she has published dozens of humorous essays, believe it or not.
