Award-winning food editor Gabrielle Langholtz hosts an evening with the fare featured in America: The Cookbook: A Culinary Road Trip Through the 50 States, her 800-recipe compendium which includes classics, regional fare, recipes from influential chefs like Alice Waters, and the dishes from recent immigrants.
7-9 p.m., Zingerman’s Roadhouse, 2501 Jackson. $80. Reservations required. 663-3663.
Z.G. Tomaszewski is a rambler, fisherman, musician, and author of three books of poem: All Things Dusk (winner of the Hong Kong University International Poetry Prize), Mineral Whisper, and River Nocturne. His work expresses a fragile, learned confidence — a spiritual wavering of breath exhaled, a dream cross-hatched through memory.
7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757.
Toastmasters is an international group devoted to helping each other grow in our abilities to give speeches. The Sweetwaters Toastmasters Club meets twice monthly. We are a fun and friendly group! Toastmasters also helps you develop leadership skills if you wish to do that. Come as many times as you want for free, and decide later if you want to join. In the meantime, come make new friends and have fun!
Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea on Washington Street, 123 West Washington Street. Free. 323-286-3999. https://www.facebook.com/groups/TMSweet/
Every Wed. Members read and discuss poems around themes TBA. Followed by collaborative writing games and exercises. Attendees invited to read their poems. Snacks & socializing.
8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.
Alpena-based UK-bred writer Gary B. France discusses his new book about his experiences as a soccer fan living in the U.S. In anticipation of tomorrow’s match between Manchester United and Liverpool
7 p.m., Nicola’s, Westgate shopping center. Free. 662-0600
Shakespeare Scenes in the Arb has come again! Every year, veterans of Ann Arbor’s Shakespeare in the Arb come together for a free, casual performance of a variety of scenes from our favorite Shakespearean plays, in a tour of some less-seen spots in the beautiful Nichols Arboretum.
Shows begin at 6:30 PM on Friday, July 27th, and Saturday, July 28th. Audiences should collect outside the Arb’s Reader Center, and will be led on the path of the show. This year, we’ve got scenes from Julius Caesar, Richard III, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and King Lear!
The show should run about an hour. Be prepared for some short walks, and standing or sitting on the ground to view various scenes. You are welcome to bring blankets to sit on, as long as you don’t mind carrying them from scene to scene!
Literati is pleased to welcome back poet Keith Taylor who will be sharing his new collection Ecstatic Destinations.
About Ecstatic Destinations:
In Ecstatic Destinations, Keith Taylor takes us on a walk through his neighborhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His joyous and often wry observations of chance encounters, his neighbors, parks, the history of his own backyard, plus the ever present traffic, spark us to reimagine both the layers of our own most intimate, if everyday environments and our place in them.
On the surface, the book can be said to start and end on a park bench. Keith walks all year and we can feel the passing of the seasons. We get his easy familiarity with his regular stops along the way, the neighbors he meets, everyone’s yards, their trees, and the sounds that surround it all. Night has set by the end; we have arrived.
Artist Mary Shea complements Keith’s journey of reflection and ecstasy with her cover paintings and interior drawings and prints.
Keith Taylor has published many books over the years: collections of poetry, a collection of very short stories, co-edited volumes of essays and fiction, and a volume of poetry translated from Modern Greek.
Shakespeare Scenes in the Arb has come again! Every year, veterans of Ann Arbor’s Shakespeare in the Arb come together for a free, casual performance of a variety of scenes from our favorite Shakespearean plays, in a tour of some less-seen spots in the beautiful Nichols Arboretum.
Shows begin at 6:30 PM on Friday, July 27th, and Saturday, July 28th. Audiences should collect outside the Arb’s Reader Center, and will be led on the path of the show. This year, we’ve got scenes from Julius Caesar, Richard III, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and King Lear!
The show should run about an hour. Be prepared for some short walks, and standing or sitting on the ground to view various scenes. You are welcome to bring blankets to sit on, as long as you don’t mind carrying them from scene to scene!
Literati is thrilled to welcome two fantastic authors Will Walton & Eric Smith who will be sharing their new young adult novels, I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain & The Girl and the Grove!
About I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain:
For most of his young life Avery has dealt with his alcoholic mother with the help of his grandfather Pal–he immerses himself in poetry and popular music, and now that high school is over for the summer, he makes out with his best friend Luca (who understands about alcoholic mothers), but the death of his grandfather creates a hole in his life that he can not seem to crawl out of.
About The Girl and the Grove:
Adopted teen Leila discovers that her connection to nature and passion for environmental activism are part of her unique and magical genetic makeup, and a grove of trees that holds a mythical secret.
Will Walton is an indie bookseller in Athens, Georgia.
Eric Smith is a young adult author and literary agent who grew up in the wilds of New Jersey. When he isn’t working on books (his and other peoples), he can be found writing about books for places like Book Riot and Paste Magazine. He lives with his wife, Nena, and their legion of small furry animals in Michigan.
Literati is excited to welcome back author Ann S. Epstein who will be sharing her latest novel Tazia and Gemma.
About Tazia and Gemma:
Spanning 1911 to 1961, Tazia and Gemma is told from the perspective of an unwed mother, whose tale moves forward in time, and her daughter, whose search for her father moves backward. Tazia, a pregnant seventeen-year-old Italian immigrant and survivor of the Triangle Waist Company fire, flees New York, leaving her married lover to think she miscarried the baby he urged her to abort. To support herself and her daughter Gemma, Tazia takes low-wage jobs as she migrates westward. Gemma, now fifty, embarks on an eastward journey to find her father, eventually tracing her roots to Italy. In the end, Tazia no longer needs to escape her history, while Gemma finds that her identity leads back to her mother. The narrative illuminates the tension between assimilation versus honoring one’s heritage, and confronts the struggle for self-respect in the face of discrimination and demeaning work conditions–issues both timely and timeless.
Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, craft articles, and book reviews. She is the author of On the Shore (Vine Leaves Press, 2017) and A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (Alternative Book Press, 2018). Her other work appears in Sewanee Review (winner, Walter Sullivan Prize), PRISM International, Ascent, The Long Story, Saranac Review, The Madison Review, Passages North, Red Rock Review, William and Mary Review, Tahoma Literary Review, The Copperfield Review, The Normal School, Carbon Culture Review, Earth’s Daughters, The Offbeat, Wilderness House Literary Review, and other journals. In addition to writing, she has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology and M.F.A. in textiles. Her historical works mix fact and fiction, and she is gratified to have forgotten what is and is not real by the time a story is finished.
