Literati is proud to partner with the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health to have copies of Dr. Leonardo Trasande’s Sicker, Fatter, Poorer and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha’s What the Eyes Don’t See available for purchase at this event.
Come meet with Dr. Leonardo Trasande and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha at their book talk. Dr. Trasande’s book “Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future . . . and What We Can Do About It” and Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s book “What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City” feature important messages about environmental exposures to contaminants that have been associated with adverse health effects.
About Sicker, Fatter, Poorer:
Lurking in our homes, hiding in our offices, and polluting the air we breathe is something sinister. Something we’ve turned a blind eye to for far too long. Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a pediatrician, professor, and world-renowned researcher, tells the story of how our everyday surroundings are making us sicker, fatter, and poorer.
Dr. Trasande exposes the chemicals that disrupt our hormonal systems and damage our health in irreparable ways. He shows us where these chemicals hide–in our homes, our schools, at work, in our food, and countless other places we can’t control–as well as the workings of policy that protects the continued use of these chemicals in our lives. Drawing on extensive research and expertise, he outlines dramatic studies and emerging evidence about the rapid increases in neurodevelopmental, metabolic, reproductive, and immunological diseases directly related to the hundreds of thousands of chemicals that we are exposed to every day. Unfortunately, nowhere is safe.
But, thanks to Dr. Trasande’s work on the topic, and his commitment to effecting change, this book can help. Through a blend of narrative, scientific detective work, and concrete information about the connections between chemicals and disease, he shows us what we can do to protect ourselves and our families in the short-term, and how we can help bring the change we deserve.
About What the Eyes Don’t See:
Here is the inspiring story of how Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, alongside a team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders, discovered that the children of Flint, Michigan, were being exposed to lead in their tap water–and then battled her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Paced like a scientific thriller, What the Eyes Don’t See reveals how misguided austerity policies, broken democracy, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. And at the center of the story is Dr. Mona herself–an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother whose family’s activist roots inspired her pursuit of justice.
What the Eyes Don’t See is a riveting account of a shameful disaster that became a tale of hope, the story of a city on the ropes that came together to fight for justice, self-determination, and the right to build a better world for their–and all of our–children.
Literati is honored to welcome author Anissa Gray who will be reading from and discussing her debut novel The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls.
About The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls:
The Butler family has had their share of trials–as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest–but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives.
Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband Proctor are arrested, and in a heartbeat the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. The worst part is, not even her sisters are sure exactly what happened.
As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister’s teenage daughters. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as page-turning as it is important.
Anissa Gray is an Emmy and duPont-Columbia award-winning journalist at CNN Worldwide, responsible for helping to guide coverage of some of the most consequential stories of our time. She began her career at Reuters as a reporter, based in New York, covering business news and international finance. Born in St. Joseph, Michigan, Gray studied English and American literature at New York University. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her wife.
Reading by Mike Zhai, founder of One Pause Poetry Salon. The program begins with open mike readings.
7-8:30 p.m., Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea, 123 W. Washington. Free. 994-6663.
YDL is honored to welcome Holocaust survivor, professor, and author Irene Butter. Her memoir, Shores Beyond Shores, details her journey during the Holocaust and explores how the heart keeps its humanity during inhumane times. Dr. Butter has inspired students from across the country with her message of the importance of caring for one another, regardless of our color, religion, or race. Book sale and signing to follow. Youth welcome.
The Ypsilanti District Library- Whittaker Branch, 5577 Whittaker Road, Ypsilanti. Free. 734-482-4110.info@ypsilibrary.org https://www.ypsilibrary.org/event/an-evening-with-irene-butter/
Tom Brzezina has had work in Chiron, Rusty Truck, Red Fez, Third Wednesday, Peninsula Poets, and The 5-2. His poems draw heavily upon drug experiences of his youth, the underbelly of society, and growing up in Detroit. He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, dog, and way too many books.
Lynn Gilbert is a founding editor of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and currently associate editor of Third Wednesday in Ann Arbor. Her poems have been published in The Texas Observer, Kansas Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse, Southwestern American Literature, Peninsula Poets, and Water Music: The Great Lakes State Poetry Anthology, which she co-edited.
Crazy Wisdomn Bookstore and Tea Room, 114 S. Main St. Free. 7346652757.info@crazywisdom.net www.crazywisdom.net
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.
Literati is excited to welcome author Vernon Smith who will be sharing his new novel The Green Ghetto.
About The Green Ghetto:
Mitchell Hosowich is pleased as a puppy with two tails that the great American rust-out has rendered parts of Detroit rural again, wild. For him, the “Green Ghetto,” as the bureaucrats have come to call it, is a safe place to grow some fairly decent Detroit dope. But when two DEA agents start sniffing around his spread, only to wind up dead, Mitchell finds himself with a lot of explaining to do. Left with two stiffs, a dead dog, a shot cow, and fifty-nine missing marijuana plants, Mitchell decides not to wait around for the law to come down on him. Instead, he goes after his stolen pot, a chase that becomes a tense, and at times hilarious, cross-border road trip to nearby rural Canada. Set in a hyper post-9/11 culture, The Green Ghetto explores the universal theme of being compromised. But mostly, it is the story of how America got here from there in the war on drugs, terror, and words.
Windsor native Vern Smith grew up twenty minutes from the green ghetto – an actual Detroit phenomenon. His fiction has appeared in Concrete Forest: The New Fiction of Urban Canada (McClelland & Stewart), as well as the Insomniac Press anthologies, Iced, Hard Boiled Love, and Revenge. His novelette, “The Gimmick,” was a finalist for Canada’s highest crime-writing honor, the Arthur Ellis Award. A veteran of four newspapers and three magazines, Smith’s non-fiction has appeared in The Detroit Free Press, The Ottawa Citizen, The Vancouver Sun, Eye, Broken Pencil, and Quill & Quire, among other publications. He most recently managed CJAM 99.1 FM, where he founded the twenty-four-hour radio marathon Joe Strummer Day to Confront Poverty in Windsor-Detroit. He now lives on the edge of Chicago where urban Illinois meets the prairie.
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 Colin Shephard and poetry by Augusta Funk.
7 p.m., UMMA Auditorium, 525 S. State. Free. 764-6330.
7 p.m. Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
Literati is delighted to host the contributors to Community High School’s recently published literary magazine, VOICE: Issue 1, for a night of poetry and prose readings!
VOICE is a student-run journal of literary and visual arts at Community High School located in Ann Arbor, MI. Its first edition was published in December 2018. It features poetry, prose (fiction and essays), and art by Community High School students.
Readers Include….
Chloe Di Blassio is a student and artist at Community High School in Ann Arbor. She began drawing when she was 2 years old and has never stopped since. She works primarily with the figure, capturing small moments of emotional subtleties and inward gazes.
Nicole Tooley is a senior at Community High School. She grew a love for words in her literature and creative writing classes at school. In her spare time when she’s not composing short poems or reading a good memoir, she can probably be found dancing.
