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.
Cincinnati-based writer Michael Robert Wolf reads from and discusses his new novel, set in Brooklyn and Manhattan, about an Orthodox Jew, who used to operate a Linotype machine, and his two daughters. “This unassuming story of a devout Brooklyn Jew and his not-so-wayward daughter enchanted me,” says writer Jacquelyn Mitchard. “When I finished it, I wanted to read it all over again.”
For the second year running, Literati is pleased to help celebrate MGoBlog’s Hail To The Victors guide –an independent, definitive, in-depth guide to the upcoming Michigan Football Season–with an event in its honor. The evening will again feature a presentation from the issue’s contents, and additional copies will be available for sale. This year’s event will take place at Circus Bar & Billiards. Purchase a drink from their full bar, grab a bowl of free popcorn, revel in the football previewing. Free and open to the public. 7pm.
Featured in Hail To The Victors 2016:
- MGoBlog’s Brian Cook writes a team preview covering about a third of the book, offers an opinion on the overall state of the offense, defense, and special teams, and then plunks down a prediction that will no longer be roundly mocked because Michigan’s coaching staff is no good. Probably.
- Ace Anbender surveys the opposition with savage intent. Buckeye Grove’s Ross Fulton rounds out the Ohio State preview; Ross’s in-depth knowledge of the Buckeyes and surprising sanity are an excellent combination.
- Adam Schnepp sits down with tight end Jake Butt and discusses Harbaugh, the NFL, his decision to avoid it, and many other topics. Michael Elkon on expectations in year two of Harbaugh.
- SBNation’s Ian Boyd on John O’Korn and how he fits into Harbaugh’s passing game. Steve Sharik on Don Brown’s dudes and what he plans to accomplish with them.
- Seth Fisher and Mel Newman on when Texas A&M tried to buy Bo… and failed. John Kryk on The Guarantee, 30 years later. Steve Sapardanis on the Six Penny Defense, or when Bo invented the dime package. Craig Ross on how Michigan more or less invented all of football, from the forward pass to platoons.
Debra H. Goldstein has been described as a judge, author, litigator, wife, step-mom, mother of twins, civic volunteer and loyal University of Michigan alumna. Maze in Blue, her debut novel, received a 2012 Independent Book Publisher (IPPY) Award and was reissued as a May 2014 selection by Harlequin Worldwide Mysteries. Her short stories and non-fiction essays include Thanksgiving in Moderation, Who Dat? Dat the Indian Chief!, Legal Magic, Malicious Mischief, Grandma’s Garden, The Rabbi’s Wife Stayed Home, and Maybe I Should Hug You. Goldstein’s latest book, Should Have Played Poker, was published in April. It’s a mystery about a corporate lawyer whose mother reappears after a 26-year absence. When her mother is murdered a few hours later, the lawyer, against police advice, tries to figure out who did it. Signing.
All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share. Hosted by local poets and former college English teachers Joe Kelty and Ed Morin.
Literati is pleased to welcome former Michigan Daily editor–and current Detroit News reporter–Stephanie Steinberg in support of In the Name of Editorial Freedom: 125 Years at the Michigan Daily.
About the book:
At a time when daily print newspapers across the country are failing, the Michigan Daily continues to thrive. Completely operated by students of the University of Michigan, the paper was founded in 1890 and covers national and international news topics ranging from politics to sports to entertainment. The Daily has been a vital part of the college experience for countless UM students, none more so than those who staffed the paper as editors, writers, and photographers over the years. Many of these Daily alumni are now award-winning journalists who work for the premier news outlets in the world.
In the Name of Editorial Freedom, titled after the paper s longstanding masthead, compiles original essays by some of the best-known Daily alumni about their time on staff. For example Dan Okrent, first public editor of the New York Times, discusses traveling with a cohort of Daily reporters to cover the explosive 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Rebecca Blumenstein, deputy editor-in-chief of theWall Street Journal, and author Alan Paul talk about the intensity of theDaily newsroom and the lasting relationships it forged. Adam Schefter of ESPN recalls his awkward first story that nevertheless set him on the path to become the ultimate NFL insider. The essays of this book offer a glimpse, as activist Tom Hayden writes, at the Daily‘s impressive role covering historic events and how those stories molded the lives of the students who reported them.
Literati is pleased to welcome staff-favorite Roy Scranton in support of his novel, War Porn.
About the book:
“War porn,” n. Videos, images, and narratives featuring graphic violence, often brought back from combat zones, viewed voyeuristically or for emotional gratification. Such media are often presented and circulated without context, though they may be used as evidence of war crimes.
War porn is also, in Roy Scranton’s searing debut novel, a metaphor for the experience of war in the age of the War on Terror, the fracturing and fragmentation of perspective, time, and self that afflicts soldiers and civilians alike, and the global networks and face-to-face moments that suture our fragmented lives together. InWar Porn three lives fit inside one another like nesting dolls: a restless young woman at an end-of-summer barbecue in Utah; an American soldier in occupied Baghdad; and Qasim al-Zabadi, an Iraqi math professor, who faces the US invasion of his country with fear, denial, and perseverance. As War Porn cuts from America to Iraq and back again, as home and hell merge, we come to see America through the eyes of the occupied, even as we see Qasim become a prisoner of the occupation. Through the looking glass of War Porn, Scranton reveals the fragile humanity that connects Americans and Iraqis, torturers and the tortured, victors and their victims.
Authors Julia Keller & Elsa Hart join our book club. For Julia, it’s the launch day of her new Bell Elkins novel, Sorrow Road, and our book club will be reading Elsa’s Jade Dragon Mountain, set in 18th century China on the tea route.
Literati is pleased to welcome renowned speaker and author Shaka Senghor in support of Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison.
About Writing My Wrongs
In life, it’s not how you start that matters. It’s how you finish.
Shaka Senghor was raised in a middle-class neighborhood on Detroit’s east side during the peak of the 1980s crack epidemic. Under difficult circumstances at home, Shaka ran away at age 14, turned to drug dealing, and ended up in prison for murder at age 19. Writing My Wrongs is his story of what came next.
After pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Shaka was sentenced to 40 years in prison, entering the system at age 19, bitter, angry, and hurt. He blamed everybody, from his parents to the system, and he channeled that anger into violence. He ran a black market store, he loan sharked, and, halfway through his sentence, he was sent to solitary confinement for 4½ years for assaulting an officer to the point of near-death.
A turning point in prison for Shaka occurred when his 10-year-old son wrote a letter to him recognizing the crucial reality for what he was in prison for—murder. With the cold hard truth hitting Shaka for the first time, his toughness and prison shrewdness wore off, as right there in that moment he realized he failed his son and the other black males in his neighborhood.
Clinging on to hope from the letter his son wrote to him years earlier, Shaka continued to pour his time into literature, reading about Malcolm X and Nat Turner, Socrates and Donald Goines novels. He also discovered religion, meditation, and self-examination tools that he used to help him begin atoning for the wrongs he had committed. Shaka was more determined than ever to get a parole hearing. In 2008, he was granted a hearing but quickly denied, and then again in 2009, before he was able to enroll into the Assaultive Offender Program (AOP), a ten-month-long group therapy class required by all inmates with an assaultive case.
Shaka eventually completed the AOP class and was up for parole yet a third time. “If I am released from prison, I plan to work and volunteer at local high schools and community centers,” he announced to a parole board member. He continued, “My ultimate goal is to pursue a career in writing.”
On June 22, 2010, one day after his 38th birthday, Shaka was released from prison and was finally a free man. He stood by his words he shared with the parole board member, his family, and friends and became an activist and mentor to young men and women facing circumstances like his. His work in the community and the courage to share his story led him to fellowships at the MIT Media Lab and the Kellogg Foundation and invitations to speak at events like TED and the Aspen Ideas Festival. Writing My Wrongs is an extraordinary tale of forgiveness, hope and second chances, one that reminds us that our worst deeds don’t define who we are.
About the Author
Shaka Senghor is a writer, mentor, and motivational speaker whose story of redemption has inspired thousands. He is the author of six books, a former Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, a Community Leadership Fellow with the Kellogg Foundation, and the founder of The Atonement Project, which helps victims and violent offenders heal through the power of the arts. He currently serves as the co-founder of #BeyondPrisons, a #cut50 initiative to share the devastating and far-reaching human impacts of the incarceration industry. In addition to serving as a lecturer at the University of Michigan, Shaka speaks regularly at conferences, high schools, prisons, churches, and universities around the country.
Literati is pleased to welcome Fabienne Josaphat in support of her debut novel, Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow.
Haiti, 1965. Francois Duvalier, often called Papa Doc or Baron Samedi, is a brutal dictator using extreme violence to control the impoverished island nation. Unrelenting curfews are imposed on the people of Port-au-Prince and the ever-present bogeymen, Tonton Macoutes militia, have scared away even the bravest of tourists. For taxi driver Raymond L’Eveillé, life under these conditions is becoming increasingly untenable. Unable to properly feed his wife and young children, or pay the rent on time, Raymond’s family is on the brink of destitution. By contrast, Raymond’s brother Nicolas is a wealthy professor at the local university. A believer in law and justice, Nicolas is secretly writing a socialist manifesto, in an attempt to rally support for those that oppose Papa Doc’s harsh dictatorship. When Nicolas’ home is searched as a result of his liberal lectures, the violent and unfeeling Tonton Macoutes quickly arrest him and send him to Fort Dimanche, an over-filled, disease-ridden prison that few survive. Meanwhile, Raymond comes home to find his wife has left with their children, hoping to build a better life for her starving family abroad. With his family gone, and as Nicolas’ colleagues continue to disappear, Raymond plunges into a daring scheme to save his brother. In order to gain access to the dreaded Fort Dimanche, the cab driver does something few Haitians would ever dream of doing: he gets himself arrested. Once inside, and with the help of a small gang of resistance fighters and a sympathetic prison guard, the two men will attempt a death-defying prison break. But first, they will both have to survive life in Fort Dimanche. The harrowing experience shared by the two brothers is brutal, heartbreaking and ultimately triumphant.
Josaphat’s electric prose brings to life a horrifying and not so distant time in Haiti’s past while exploring the best and worst of humanity. The novel examines power’s tendency to corrupt, the impulse of nationalistic pride, and above all, the human desire to survive, while describing in rigorous detail the shocking realities of life in the Baron’s shadow.
“Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow takes us to hell and back, inside one of the most brutal prisons run by one of the world’s most ruthless dictators. Fabienne Josaphat impressively brings to life a horrible period as well as the men and women who fought against it. Filled with life, suspense, and humor, this powerful first novel is an irresistible read about the nature of good and evil, terror and injustice, and ultimately triumph and love.”—Edwidge Danticat, author of Claire of the Sea Light
Fabienne Josaphat received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Florida International University. Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow is her first novel. She lives in Miami.
