Local writer (and Observer contributor) Patti Smith hosts a story time for adults, with storyteller Ken MacGregor and others. Pajamas encouraged. For adults only.
7 p.m., Bookbound, Courtyard Shops. Free. 369-4345.
Detroit News arts feature writer Michael Hodges reads from his new book about the “architect of Detroit,” best known for his auto factory designs, who also designed Hill Auditorium and other U-M landmarks.
7-8 p.m., CDL McKune rm., 221 S. Main, Chelsea. Free. Preregistration requested. 475-8732.
Literati is thrilled to welcome back poet Rob Halpern who will be reading from his new collection Weak Link
Rob Halpern lives between San Francisco and Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he teaches at Eastern Michigan University and Huron Valley Women’s Prison. His most recent book of poetry, prose, essays, letters, and manifestos is Weak Link (Atelos 2019). Other books include Common Place (Ugly Duckling Presse 2015) and Music for Porn (Nightboat Books 2012).
Literati is excited to welcome author Dorene O’Brien who will be sharing her new story collection What It Might Feel Like to Hope.
About What It Might Feel Like to Hope:
What It Might Feel Like to Hope, the second collection from award-winning author Dorene O’Brien, is a masterful and eclectic mix of stories that considers the infinitely powerful, and equally naive and damning force that is human hope. A couple tries to come to terms with one another as they travel west in the uncomfortable twilight of their youth; a mortician and an idealistic novelist spar about the true nature of death; an aspiring author hopes to impress Tom Hanks with zombies; a tarot reader deals out the future of Detroit. Showcasing her diverse talents, O’Brien offers a panoply of characters and settings that dwells beyond the borders of certainty, in a place where all that has been left to them is an inkling of possibility upon which they must place all their hopes. These stories offer a variety of tones, forms, and themes in which O’Brien displays an amazing range and control of her craft, all while exploring the essential nature of humanity with nuance, empathy, and at times a touch of skepticism.
Dorene O’Brien is a Detroit-based writer and teacher whose stories have won the Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, the New Millennium Writings Fiction Prize, and the Wind Fiction Prize. Her story, “#12 Dagwood on Rye,” was chosen by writer and fiction judge Jim Crace from among 4,000 entries as first-place winner of the international Bridport Prize. She has earned fellowships from the NEA and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories have been nominated for two Pushcart prizes, have been published in special Kindle editions and have appeared in The Best of Carve Magazine. Her work also appears in Madison Review, Short Story Review, The Republic of Letters, Southern Humanities Review, Detroit Noir, Montreal Review, Passages North, Baltimore Review, Cimarron Review, and others. Voices of the Lost and Found, her first fiction collection, was a finalist for the Drake Emerging Writer Award and won the USA Best Book Award for Short Fiction. Her second collection, What It Might Feel Like to Hope, was first runner-up in the Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Prize.
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, 115 S. Main St. Free. 7346652757.info@crazywisdom.net www.crazywisdom.net
Storytellers Josie Barnes Parker and Laura Pershin Raynor join musicians Betsy Beckerman and Sara Melton Keller for an evening of funny and touching tales and tunes.
By sharing stories of adventures with their fathers, Josie and Laura explore universal themes, while Sara and Betsy mix it up with hammered dulcimer, guitar, and banjo tunes. Join these women as they celebrate Women’s History Month with this unique and humor-filled evening.
Invite your favorite friends for a girls’ night!
7-8:30 p.m., AADL Downtown multipurpose rm. Free. 327-4200.
ONE PAUSE POETRY SALON is (literally) a greenhouse for poetry and poets, nurturing an appreciation for written art in all languages and encouraging experiments in creative writing.
We meet every Weds in the greenhouse at Argus Farm Stop on Liberty St. The poems we read each time are unified by form (haiku, sonnet, spoken word), poet, time / place (Tang Dynasty, English Romanticism, New York in the 70s) or theme / mood (springtime, poems with cats, protest poems). We discuss the poems and play writing games together, with time for snacks and socializing in between.
Members are encouraged to share their own poems or poems they like – they may or may not relate to the theme of the evening. This is not primarily a workshop – we may hold special workshop nights, but mostly we listen to and talk about poems for the sake of inspiring new writing.
Whether you are a published poet or encountering poetry for the first time, we invite you to join us!
$5 suggested donation for food, drinks and printing costs.
8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.
Literati is proud to be partnering with the Helen Zell Writers Program to host poet Marilyn Chin at the University of Michigan Art Museum Helmut Stern Auditorium.
Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong. She is the author of four previous poetry collections and a novel. Her work has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, and Best American Poetry, among other publications. She is the winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, five Pushcart Prizes, fellowships from the United States Artists Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among other honors. Presently, she serves as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and lives in San Diego.
Literati is thrilled to welcome novelist Halle Butler who will be reading and discussing her latest book The New Me.
About The New Me:
Im still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind.
Thirty-year-old Millie just can’t pull it together. Misanthropic and morose, she spends her days killing time at a thankless temp job until she can return home to her empty apartment, where she oscillates wildly between self-recrimination and mild delusion, fixating on all the little ways she might change her life. Then she watches TV until she drops off to sleep, and the cycle begins again. When the possibility of a full-time job offer arises, it seems to bring the better life she’s envisioning – one that involves nicer clothes, fresh produce, maybe even financial independence – within reach. But with it also comes the paralyzing realization, lurking just beneath the surface, of just how hollow that vision has become. Darkly hilarious and devastating, The New Me is a dizzying descent into the mind of a young woman trapped in the funhouse of American consumer culture.
“The New Me is a bouncy, profane, highly addictive novel about work, female friendship, and other alienations. Halle Butler’s insane talent shimmers on every page of this deadpan misanthrope’s ode. A must-read!”
–Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold Fame Citrus and Battleborn
“Halle Butler has a way of looking at our twenty-first-century neoliberalist condition that simultaneously exposes its brutality and renders that same brutality absurd, hilarious, fizzy with humor. She’s an incisive, curmudgeonly bard of the uniquely precarious times we live in, and it is crucial that you read her immediately.”
–Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
Halle Butler is the author of Jillian. She has been named a National Book Award Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a Granta Best Young American Novelist.
These 2 local writers discuss their work. Title 13 is Ferro’s recent debut novel about an alcoholic bureaucrat who struggles with mounting paranoia, his relationships with concerned family members, his dying grandmother, and a budding office romance. Awaiting Identification is Fox’s 2018 novel, set against the backdrop of a Devil’s Night party in Detroit, about 5 disparate characters whose paths cross en route to their respective demises. Signing.
7 p.m., Nicola’s, Westgate shopping center. Free. 662-0600.
