Literati is pleased to partner with the University of Michigan to present Theodoris Chiotis, editor of the anthology Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis.
Futures features some of the most daring new voices in Greek poetry, together with international poets with Greek connections. These bold, impassioned and critically aware texts stake new poetic and political ground: they articulate what it means to live in a time when capitalism is buckling under its own weight and new ways of living and thinking seem to be emerging. In a time of crisis, Futures calls for solidarity, resistance and poetry as a political paradigm.
Contributors: Dimitris Allos, Orfeas Apergis, Vassilis Amanatidis, Marios Chatziprokopiou, Theodoros Chiotis, Emily Critchley, Yiannis Doukas, Nikos Erinakis, Phoebe Giannisi, Constantinos Hadzinikolaou, Κaterina Iliopoulou, Panayotis Ioannidis, D.I. (Dimitra Ioannou), Adrianne Kalfopoulou, Patricia Kolaiti, Dimitra Kotoula, Alexios Mainas, Christodoulos Makris, Sophie Mayer, Stergios Mitas, Eftychia Panayiotou, Konstantinos Papacharalampos, Iordanis Papadopoulos, Stephanos Papadopoulos, Eleni Philippou, Stamatis Polenakis, Nick Potamitis, George Prevedourakis, Theodoros Rakopoulos, Kiriakos Sifiltzoglou, Eleni Sikélianòs, A. E. Stallings, Yiannis Stiggas, Barnaby Tideman, Maria Topali, Tryfon Tolides, Thanasis Triaridis, Thomas Tsalapatis, George Ttoouli, Universal Jenny, Steve Willey.
“Excellent … launches a counter-offensive against the inhuman and mystifying terminologies of high finance … [Chiotis’s] translations have such vitality that they mesh seamlessly with the English language poems.”–Times Literary Supplement
Vicky Delany launches her new series – a Sherlock themed cozy titled Elementary, She Read.
Literati is pleased to welcome Jung Yun in celebration of the paperback release of her debut novel, Shelter, a staff favorite and a semifinalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.
Kyung Cho is a young father burdened by a house he can’t afford. For years, he and his wife, Gillian, have lived beyond their means. Now their debts and bad decisions are catching up with them, and Kyung is anxious for his family’s future. A few miles away, his parents, Jin and Mae, live in the town’s most exclusive neighborhood, surrounded by the material comforts that Kyung desires for his wife and son. Growing up, they gave him every possible advantage—private tutors, expensive hobbies—but they never showed him kindness. Kyung can hardly bear to see them now, much less ask for their help. Yet when an act of violence leaves Jin and Mae unable to live on their own, the dynamic suddenly changes, and he’s compelled to take them in. For the first time in years, the Chos find themselves living under the same roof. Tensions quickly mount as Kyung’s proximity to his parents forces old feelings of guilt and anger to the surface, along with a terrible and persistent question: how can he ever be a good husband, father, and son when he never knew affection as a child?
As Shelter veers swiftly toward its startling conclusion, Jung Yun leads us through dark and violent territory, where, unexpectedly, the Chos discover hope. Shelter is a masterfully crafted debut novel that asks what it means to provide for one’s family and, in answer, delivers a story as riveting as it is profound.
“Shelter is domestic drama at its best, a gripping narrative of secrets and revelations that seized me from beginning to end.”—Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-Winning author of The Sympathizer
Jung Yun was born in South Korea, grew up in North Dakota, and educated at Vassar College, the University of Pennsylvania, and University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her work has appeared in Tin House (the “Emerging Voices” issue); The Best of Tin House: Stories, edited by Dorothy Allison; and The Massachusetts Review; and she is the recipient of two Artist Fellowships in fiction from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and an honorable mention for the Pushcart Prize. Currently, she lives in Baltimore with her husband and serves as an Assistant Professor of English at the George Washington University.
Literati is thrilled to be the partner-bookseller for the Zell Visiting Writers Series, presented by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program, which brings world-renowned poets and fiction writers to Helmut Stern Auditorium in the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
Marie Howe has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, and NYU. Her most recent book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W. W. Norton, 2009) was a finalist for the IBook Prize. Her other collections of poetry include What the Living Do (1998) and The Good Thief (Persea, 1988), which was selected by Margaret Atwood for the 1987 National Poetry Series. She coedited (with Michael Klein) the essay anthology In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic (1994). She has received fellowships from the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She was the Poet Laureate of New York State from 2012 to 2014. She lives in New York City.
Literati is delighted to welcome Dan Chaon in support of his latest novel, the staff-favorite Ill Will. Dan will be joined for a post-reading conversation by UM MFA first year in fiction Sam Krowchenko.
Two sensational unsolved crimes—one in the past, another in the present—are linked by one man’s memory and self-deception in this chilling novel of literary suspense from National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon. “We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves.” This is one of the little mantras Dustin Tillman likes to share with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie? A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.
Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient’s suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but as the two embark on an amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries—and putting his own family in harm’s way. From one of today’s most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan Chaon’s nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place.
“Dan Chaon’s new novel is subtly, steadily unnerving—like a scalpel slipping under your skin and prying it, ever so slowly, from the muscle beneath. Ill Will is a dark Möbius strip of a thriller that will leave you questioning what’s perceived and what’s imagined, and whether the reverberations of tragedy ever truly come to an end.”—Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You
Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.
Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States and author of The Humane Economy: How Innovators and Enlightened Consumers are Transforming the Lives of Animals (William Morrow/Harper Collins), will discuss the themes of his book and sign copies at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
The Humane Economy has been listed as a national best seller in both the New York Times and Washington Post.
Ross School of Business, 701 Tappan Avenue. Free. 301-258-1563. KFeldman@humanesociety.org https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wayne-pacelle-ross-prof-andy-hoffman-attorneys-for-animals-net-impact-tickets-30886206475
Literati is pleased to be the bookseller for Benjamin Madley’s visit to Ann Arbor in support of his book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873. This event is presented by the University of Michigan’s Native American and Indigenous Student Interest Group, with support from the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Department of American Culture.
Benjamin Madley is assistant professor of history, University of California, Los Angeles, where he focuses on Native America, the United States, and genocide in world history. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Readings by U-M creative writing grad students, including fiction writer Kristen Roupenian and poet Robert Heald.
7 p.m., UMMA Auditorium, 525 S. State. Free. 615-3710.
The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends – a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
Mar. 17 & 18. RC students present the acclaimed contemporary NYC-based playwright David Adjmi’s award-winning 2012 tragicomic satire of the empty-headed narcissism of the congenitally rich in the guise of the daily life of the doomed queen on the eve of the French Revolution.
8 p.m., Keene Theater, East Quad, 701 East University. Free. 647-4354.
Coffee and (_______)
14409 Jefferson Ave E, Detroit, Michigan 48215
The Line Up:
Diana Dinverno
Keith Taylor
Kristin Lenz
Laura Hulthen Thomas
Sarah Rose Sharp
Aubri K. Adkins (host)
DIANA DINVERNO began her writing life by authoring essays and features for numerous Michigan publications. She was a finalist for the New Rivers Press 2015 Short Story Prize and the recipient of awards from Detroit Working Writers (fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry), Rochester Writers (memoir), and the Poetry Society of Michigan. Her work appears in The MacGuffin, Peninsula Poets, and American Fiction, Volume 15, The Best Unpublished Stories by New and Emerging Writers. Recently, she completed a work of historical fiction set in Renaissance Florence. Diana, a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Detroit School of Law, lives and works in metro Detroit. www.dianadinverno.com
KEITH TAYLOR has authored or edited 16 books and chapbooks, including his most recent small collection, Fidelities (Alice Greene and Co., 2015). His most recent full length collection The Bird-while, was published by Wayne State University Press in February, 2017. His collection, If the World Becomes So Bright, was published in 2009. He has also co-edited several collections of fiction and non-fiction, including a recent collection of contemporary Michigan ghost stories. His poems, stories, reviews and translations have appeared widely in North America and in Europe. He has received Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. He teaches at the University of Michigan where he also serves as Associate Editor of Michigan Quarterly Review and director of the Bear River Writers Conference. He spends his summers teaching at the University of Michigan Biological Station near Pellston. http://www.keithtaylorannarbor.com/
KRISTIN BARTLEY LENZ is a social worker and writer who has lived in Michigan, Georgia, and California. She has a B.A. in psychology from the University of Michigan and a MSW from Wayne State University. She writes for Detroit non-profits including the Skillman Foundation and Gleaners Food Bank, and manages the Michigan Chapter blog for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Her first novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go, was published in September 2016 and was the winner of the Helen Sheehan YA Book Prize and a Junior Library Guild Selection. http://www.kristinbartleylenz.com/
LAURA HULTHEN THOMAS’s short fiction and essays have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The Cimarron Review, Nimrod International Journal, Epiphany and Witness. She received her MFA in fiction writing from Warren Wilson College. She currently heads the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College, where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction. Her short story collection, States of Motion, is forthcoming this spring from Wayne State University Press.
SARAH ROSE SHARP is a Detroit-based writer, activist, photographer and multimedia artist. She writes about art and culture in Detroit for Hyperallergic, Art in America, and others. She has been to all 50 states and shown work in New York and Detroit. She is not a huge fan of bios.http://sarahrosesharp.com/
AUBRI K. ADKINS is a short story writer and memoirist. Her short story, Midday Tumbler, was published in the Tusculum Review. She has a B.A. in the Liberal Arts from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI and a M.A. in Industrial and Organizational Psyhology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, IL. She is the host of the East Side Reading Series and would love to talk to you
