Calendar

Sep
1
Sat
Emily Siwek: A Monster on Main Street, with the Violin Monster @ Literati
Sep 1 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

Join us for a special Stortyime Event with Emily Siwek and the Violin Monster!

About A Monster on Main Street:
Strange sightings are all around in this simply sweet story inspired by Ann Arbor’s beloved Violin Monster. Rendered with loose, playful illustrations, this string playing werewolf encourages readers to give scary things a second look.

Emily Siwek is an Ann Arbor, MI native who loves finding adventure in her hometown with her husband and two children.  She has worked in a variety of creative industries from interior design to trend forecasting and enjoys coloring outside the lines.

Sep
5
Wed
Robert W. Turner II: Not For Long @ Literati
Sep 5 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We are excited to welcome sociologist and former professional football player Rober W. Turner II to Literati to discuss his new book Not For Long: The Life and Career of the NFL Athlete. 

About Not For Long:
The NFL is the most popular professional sports league in the United States. Its athletes receive multimillion-dollar contracts and almost endless media attention. The league’s most important game, the Super Bowl, is practically a national holiday. Making it to the NFL, however, is not about the promised land of fame and fortune. Robert W. Turner II draws on his personal experience as a former professional football player as well as interviews with more than 140 current and former NFL players to reveal what it means to be an athlete in the NFL and explain why so many players struggle with life after football.

Without guaranteed contracts, the majority of players are forced out of the league after a few seasons. Over three-quarters of retirees experience bankruptcy or financial ruin, two-thirds live with chronic pain, and too many find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Robert W. Turner II argues that the fall from grace of so many players is no accident. The NFL, he contends, powerfully determines their experiences in and out of the league. The labor agreement provides little job security and few health and retirement benefits, and the owners refuse to share power with the players, making change difficult. And the process of becoming an elite football player–from high school to college and through the pros–leaves athletes with few marketable skills and little preparation for their first Sunday off the field.

With compassion and objectivity, Not for Long reveals the life and mind of high school, college, and NFL athletes, shedding light on what might best help players transition successfully out of the sport.

Robert W. Turner II earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is Assistant Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership at George Washington University. Dr. Turner played football professionally in the now defunct United States Football League, the Canadian Football League, and briefly in the National Football League.

Sep
6
Thu
Fiction at Literati: Sarah Zettel @ Literati
Sep 6 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is thrilled to welcome author Sarah Zettel who will be reading from her new novel The Other Sister.

About The Other Sister:
Two sisters. One murder plan.
An intense psychological thriller full of family secrets, perfect for fans of The Woman in the Window and Watch Me Disappear.
Everyone thought reckless, troubled Geraldine Monroe was the bad sister-especially when she fled town after her mother’s death twenty-five years ago.
But people don’t know the truth.

Marie Monroe knows. She was there for their father’s cruel punishments, the constant manipulation, the lies. Everyone thinks she’s the perfect daughter-patient and kind, and above all obedient. No one would suspect her of anything. Especially not murder. Now Geraldine’s home again, and she and Marie have united in a plan for the ultimate revenge. But when old secrets and new fears clash, everyone is pushed to the breaking point . . . and the sisters will learn that they can’t trust anyone-not even each other.

“An exhilarating ride full of twists and turns, this page-turner will leave you guessing until the very end!” -Steena Holmes, New York Times bestselling author of The Forgotten Ones
“Sarah Zettel’s THE OTHER SISTER is as dark and twisted as they come; a compelling and sinister psychological thriller in which every character is deeply flawed, their desire for revenge understandable and relatable. With its intricate web of secrets long buried, readers won’t be able to stop turning the pages!” -Karen Dionne, author of The Marsh King’s Daughter

Sarah Zettel is an award-winning author. She has written eighteen novels and multiple short stories over the past seventeen years in addition to practicing tai chi, learning to fiddle, marrying a rocket scientist and raising a rapidly growing son.

Sep
7
Fri
Poetry at Literati: Ruth Behar @ Literati
Sep 7 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is excited to welcome poet Ruth Behar who will be reading and sharing from her newest collection Everything I Kept: Todo Lo Que Guardé 

About Everything I Kept: Todo Lo Que Guardé ​​​​​​​
Moving between the speech and silence of a woman struggling to speak freely, Ruth Behar embarks on a poetic voyage into her own vulnerability and the sacrifices of her exiled ancestors as she tries to understand love, loss, regret, and the things we keep and carry with us. Behar’s vivid renderings of wilted gardens, crashing waves, and firefly-lit nights recall the imagery of her inspiration, Dulce María Loynaz, who is often known as the Cuban Emily Dickinson. Presented in a beautiful bilingual English-Spanish edition–Behar serves as her own translator–Everything I Kept/Todo lo que guardé will haunt readers with the cries and whispers which illuminate the human spirit and the spectrum of emotions that make for a life and lives well-remembered.

Ruth Behar is the Victor Haim Perera collegiate professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan.

Sep
8
Sat
Booktoberfest! @ Thomson-Shore
Sep 8 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Join us for a celebration of authors, books, art, and bratwurst.

Booktoberfest will feature industry experts from around the country, offering advice and insight for authors, as well as fun and educational activities for the whole family.

Authors can even pitch their books to a panel of experts for a chance to win a publishing package from Thomson-Shore! (Must sign up for the pitch contest ahead of time by visiting thomsonshore.com/booktoberfest.)

Enjoy a day of music, food, and fun, while learning about the ever-changing world of publishing and bookmaking. A portion of proceeds will benefit 826 Michigan.

Sep
10
Mon
Ann Pearlman: Infidelity: A Memoir @ Literati
Sep 10 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is excited to welcome author Ann Pearlman who will be sharing her new memoir Infidelity.

About Infidelity:
“Thirty years. Thirty years of my life have been gifted to this man. How do I prevent making the rest of my life a testament to his infidelity? If I leave him, it’s because of this. If I stay, I will always think of it. How do I make my story different from Mother’s, from Lala’s? How do I make it right for me?”
She thought they were the perfect couple. She authored Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair with Your Spouse and appeared on Oprah, Donahue, and Sally Jessy Raphael as an expert on the joys of sexual monogamy. She was a marriage and family therapist who counseled patients coping with cheating spouses. She believed she had escaped her family legacy of marital infidelity. She was wrong. After thirty years of marriage and three children, Ann Pearlman discovered her husband’s affair with another woman.
In Infidelity, Pearlman tells the true story of the devastating effect of adultery across three generations of American women, beginning with her grandmother, Lala, whose husband fell in love with another woman during the Depression and maintained the relationship until his death. The unfortunate legacy continued with Lala’s daughter, Nora, who wed a womanizing entrepreneur, Pearlman’s father. An award-winning author, columnist, psychotherapist, marriage and family therapist, Pearlman draws on sociological and anthropological works as well as her own experience to write out her rage, pain, depression, doubts, and, eventually, her journey back to confidence and strength.

Ann Pearlman has won vast critical and commercial success for her fiction and nonfiction books. Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair With Your Spouse garnered the attention of the Oprah Winfrey Show and was featured on many other talk shows. Her memoir, Infidelity, was nominated for National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, and made into a Lifetime movie by Lionsgate. Inside the Crips, with a foreword by Ice T, took readers into the life of a Crip gang member and the California Prison system. Her first novel, The Christmas Cookie Club, became an international bestseller, spawning cookie exchanges and a follow-up cookbook. A Gift for My Sister won first place in the Sharp Writ Book Awards, 2013. She lives in Ann Arbor, MI.

Sep
11
Tue
Fiction at Literati: Mikkel Rosengaard: The Invention of Ana and Maxim Loskuloff: Come West and See @ Literati
Sep 11 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

About The Invention of Ana:
With the infectious narration of Nick Hornby and the vibrant lyricism of Junot Díaz, this breathtaking debut brimming with youthful brio chronicles a young man’s friendship with a most peculiar artist.

On a rooftop in Brooklyn one spring night, a young intern and would-be writer, newly arrived from Copenhagen, meets the intriguing artist and mathematician Ana Ivan. Clever and funny, with an air of mystery and melancholia, Ana is living like a prime number: fierce and unbroken and divisible only by herself. She is also bad luck, she confesses; she is from a cursed Romanian lineage.

Before long, the intern finds himself seduced by Ana’s enthralling stories–of her unlucky countrymen, of her parents’ romance during the worst years of Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship, of a daylight savings transition gone horribly wrong. Ana also introduces him to her latest artistic endeavor: following the astronomical rather than the Gregorian calendar, she is trying to alter her sense of time–an experiment that will lead her to live in complete darkness for one month.

Descending into the blackness with Ana, the intern slowly loses touch with his own existence, entangling himself in the lives of Ana; her starry-eyed mother, Maria; and her obsessive math-prodigy father, Ciprian. Peeling back the layers of Ana’s past, he eventually discovers the perverse tragedy that has haunted her family for decades and has shaped her journey from the streets of Bucharest to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and finally to New York City.

The Invention of Ana blurs the lines between narrative and memory, perception and reality, identity and authenticity. In his stunning debut novel, Mikkel Rosengaard illuminates the profound power of stories to alter the world around us–and the lives of the ones we love.

About Come West and See:
Come West and See is a work both timely and timeless. Set in the Redoubt, an isolated triangle of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming where an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge escalates into a separatist uprising, these stories explore the loneliness, insecurity, and frustration inherent to love and heartbreak. A lakeside wedding drunkenly devolves into a cruel charade; an unemployed carpenter joins a militia after his wife leaves him; and a former soldier raises the daughter of a dead comrade in a bunker beneath an abandoned farm. Come West and See explores divisions both personal and political, offering startling insights into the wounds of the American people and a powerful new vision of the West.

Mikkel Rosengaard’s first novel, The Invention of Ana, has been published in five languages. He is a two-time recipient of the Danish Arts Foundation’s Literary Fellowship, and his work has appeared in the Architectural Review, PBS’s Art21, Hyperallergic, and many other publications. He grew up in Elsinore, Denmark, and lives in New York City.

A graduate of New York University’s MFA program, Maxim Loskutoff has been honored with the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Global Writing Fellowship in Abu Dhabi, and the M Literary Fellowship in Bangalore. He lives in western Montana.

Sep
12
Wed
Poetry and the Written Word: Poetry Workshop @ Crazy Wisdom
Sep 12 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Poetry workshop. All writers welcome to share and discuss their poetry or short fiction.
BRING ABOUT SIX COPIES OF YOUR WORK.  COPIES WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU.
Hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and Dave Jibson
see our blog at Facebook/Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room, 114 S. Main St. Free. 7346652757.info@crazywisdom.net www.crazywisdom.net

 

Sep
13
Thu
Lauren Friedman: 50 Ways to Wear Accessories @ Literati
Sep 13 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is excited to welcome artist and stylist Lauren Friedman who will be presenting her latest book 50 Ways to Wear Accessories.

About 50 Ways to Wear Accessories:
This sparkling celebration of accessories from the author of the 50 Ways to Wear series offers top-notch tips for rocking statement pieces–think earrings, bracelets, hats, belts, purses, and more–in unexpected ways. Learn how to accessorize any outfit for a snowy day, a fancy event, a job interview. With fun illustrations that show how to achieve each look, advice on different ways to wear each featured item and style, and tips on mixing and matching different items, patterns, and prints, 50 Ways to Wear Accessories is a must-have resource to optimize any wardrobe and head out the door with panache.

Lauren Friedman is an artist, stylist, and the author/illustrator of 50 Ways to Wear a Scarf (2014), 50 Ways to Wear Denim (2016), and her newest title, 50 Ways to Wear Accessories, released in Fall 2018, all published by Chronicle Books. She is also the creator of the My Closet in Sketches project, an illustrated style blog launched in 2010. Lauren’s work as a professional illustrator has appeared in numerous publications, including Lucky MagazineTravel and Leisure Magazine, and The Washington Post. When she is not working, you can find Lauren reading, dancing, and taking long walks in the woods. A native of Ann Arbor, Lauren returned to her home town in May of 2017 and lives on the West Side.

Sep
14
Fri
Webster Reading Series: Rachel Girty and Lorenzo Diaz-Druz @ UMMA
Sep 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. 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.

Readings by U-M creative writing grad students, including prose by Rachel Girty and poetry by Lorenzo Diaz-Cruz. 
7 p.m., UMMA Auditorium, 525 S. State. Free. 764-6330

 

 

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