Calendar

Sep
1
Sun
RC Drama: Twelfth Night @ Arboretum (Peony Garden entrance)
Sep 1 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

A special performance for students of Shakespeare in the Arb on Labor Day weekend. Play is Twelfth Night, directed by Graham Atkin and Carol Gray, with Kate Mendeloff of the Residential College. Takes place in Nichols Arboretum, 1610 Washington Hts., Ann Arbor. Free but student ID required.

Now in its 19th year, Shakespeare in the Arb is directed by Kate Mendeloff of the U-M Residential College, Carol Gray, and Graham Atkin, and performed by U-M students and community players.

For member and non-member questions and information, visit mbgna.umich.edu

Shakespeare in the Arb came into existence in the summer of 2001, when Residential College Drama faculty member Kate Mendeloff was asked to direct an outdoor production as part of a three year Ford Motor Company grant for Arts in the Nichols Arboretum. She chose Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for its structure — the characters were transformed by the power of the natural world. The production was such a popular success that Mendeloff remounted it the following summer, and “Shakespeare in the Arb” became an Ann Arbor tradition!

The unique experience of Shakespeare in the Arb comes from the environmental staging of the plays. There is no fixed stage; instead, the audience follows the action through different locations in the Arboretum. The staging takes advantage of the vistas and valleys, the special arrangements of the natural settings.

The wide open space of the Arb becomes a panoramic stage, creating a more realistic setting than if every scene was played out directly in front of you. As one critic commented, “The actors used the vastness of its Arb stage to full advantage, making entrances from behind trees, appearing over rises and vanishing into the woods.”

Every year, many UM students, alumni, and faculty members gather to act in Shakespeare in the Arb. The RC offers Spring term class credit to students who participate. The experience blends community, student, and professional-style participation in a theatrical production with the delicate ecology and beautiful environment of the Arb, providing dynamic educational value for participating students.

Auditions occur every April, with rehearsals starting in the Spring term. Performances occur over 3 weekends in June. For information about participation, please contact founder Kate Mendeloff.

To find information about this year’s production of Shakespeare in the Arb, go to Matthei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum (MBGNA) , or like Shakespeare in the Arb on Facebook for updates on the production!

Ann Arbor Poetry: Zaphra Stupple and Native Child @ Espresso Royale
Sep 1 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Ann Arbor Poetry hosts an open mic every 1st and 3rd Sunday, with feature poets whenever we can get them.
$5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
Zaphra Stupple is a poet and multimedia artist living in Michigan. They are the author of There Will Still Be The Body (Red Beard Press, 2018). They were the 2017 Ann Arbor youth poet laureate. They were featured in Ann Arbor’s annual poetry show, Poetry Night, and are one third of the accompanying book, Joy, Despite. Their work has been published in The Offing, HEArt Journal, |tap| magazine, The Journal, and Vinyl, among others.

Kelly “Native Child” Mays is a licensed therapist, word warrior, award winning poet, annishnabe kwe, mother, wife, survivor. She incorporates poetry into her activism, therapy, and into her everyday life. A Detroit native, she is proud of both her American Indigenous ancestry and her African American Ancestry. She competed at the National Poetry Slam 2017 in Denver, CO, and in 2018. She was winner of the 2017 Round Robin Motown Mic and a 2018 and 2019 Motown Spoken Word Artist if the year finalist. She was featured in Cathexis Northwest Press in their September 2018 online journal. In 2019 she ranked 17 overall in the Rustbelt Regional Poetry competition out of 80 poets. She describes her poetry as quiet storms and her daughters as her greatest poems ever written.

 

Sep
3
Tue
John U. Bacon: Overtime @ Hill Auditorium
Sep 3 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Tickets available here.

Literati Bookstore is thrilled to welcome national bestseller John U. Bacon to the historic Hill Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan as he launches his latest book, Overtime: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College FootballFollowing an introduction by Sam Webb and Ira Weintraub of WTKA’s The Michigan Insider, John will give a book talk and answer audience questions.

The event is general admission, free and open to the public, but getting a free ticket secures your admission. You can also get a free ticket plus pre-order a signed copy of Overtime for the price of the book plus tax–those paid, pre-ordered copies will be picked up at the event.  A book signing will follow the event, and guests will be released by row to join the signing line. Guests must have a copy of Overtime they wish to have signed to join the signing line. Guests with pre-signed copies may join the signing line to have those copies personalized. 

A map of walkable parking structures can be found here

About OvertimeFor the past year, John U. Bacon has received unprecedented access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising?

Overtime delivers a riveting and revealing insider’s account of the Harbaugh era, a deeply reported human portrait of a big-time college football program.

In the spirit of HBO’s Hardknocks, Overtime follows the Wolverine coaches, players, and staffers through the 2018 season, including Harbaugh, offensive stars Shea Patterson and Karan Higdon, NFL-ready defensive standouts Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr., and Chase Winovich, second-stringers striving to find their place on the team, and their parents’ reactions to it all. Bacon met with them every week during a season that saw the Wolverines ride a ten-game winning streak to #4 in the nation, then take a beating at the hands of arch-rival Ohio State, led by controversial coach Urban Meyer, Harbaugh’s foil. Overtime also previews the crucial 2019 campaign ahead.

Above all, this is a human story. In Overtime we not only discover what these public figures are like behind the scenes, we learn what the experience means to them as they go through it – the trials, the triumphs, and the unexpected answers to a central question: Is it worth it?

John U. Bacon is the author of the national bestseller The Great Halifax Explosion and four bestselling books about college football, including Three and OutFourth and LongEndzone, and Bo’s Lasting Lessons, co-authored with Michigan coach Bo Schembechler. A former feature writer for the Detroit News, his writing has been recognized three times in The Best American Sports Writing series. He appears often on NPR and national television, including ESPN’s 2019 documentary series on college football. He has taught at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the University of Michigan. A popular public speaker, he lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and son.

Questions? Email John@LiteratiBookstore.com

The Moth Storyslam: Neighborhoods @ Greyline
Sep 3 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Open-mic storytelling competitions. Open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night’s theme. Come tell a story, or just enjoy the show!

6:30pm Doors Open | 7:30pm Stories Begin

*Tickets for this event are available one week before the show, at 3pm ET.

*Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please be sure to arrive at least 10 minutes before the show. Admission is not guaranteed for late arrivals. All sales final.

Media Sponsor: Michigan Radio.

NEIGHBORHOODS: Prepare a five-minute story about communities.Nosy grandma two doors down, kids on the stoop, block parties and other local flavors. The guy at the corner store, the church down the road, the playground down the block. Keeping up with the Joneses, glass houses, cups of sugar, banging on the ceiling, parking spot battles or the girl-next door.

 

Sep
4
Wed
Reception: Cynthia Sowers: Daughters of Memory: Paintings and Poems on the Nine Muses @ RC Art Gallery (East Quad)
Sep 4 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Daughters of Memory: Paintings and Poems on the Nine Muses is an interdisciplinary show of works by Cindy Sowers exploring the elusive sources for the ancient figures of the Muses, as well as the appropriation of these figures by different artists through the ages.

Reception for the Artist: September 6, approximately 4:30pm. Refreshments will be served.

Cindy Sowers received her B.A. from Oakland University, her M.A. from University of Michigan in Comparative Literature, and her Ph.D. also from the University of Michigan in Comparative Literature. During her Masters program in 1973, she started teaching at the Residential College in the First Year Seminar and French programs. Her dissertation, The Shared Structure of Craft and Song: A Study of Homer’s Narrative Art, revealed passions for narrative and visual analysis comparatively understood that would characterize her teaching thereafter. She participated in an interdisciplinary group composed of Residential College humanities and fine arts faculty who together constructed the Arts and Ideas in the Humanities concentration. Cindy’s recent course offerings have included critical approaches to the literature and visual arts of classic modernism, postmodernism, Shakespeare and Rome, the heritage of Greece, the psychoanalytic interpretation of the arts, and many others. She combines analyses of literary texts, visual arts, and philosophy to hone in on the animating spirit of a cultural moment and space. She has presented at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2006 U-M residency, as part of the RC Faculty Colloquium, for the LSA Comparative Literature and the Colloquium on Critical Theory sponsored by the LSA Department of English Language and Literature, and at the Residential College’s 50th Anniversary celebration. She has received the Ford Foundation Fellowship, the Rackham Prize twice, the U-M Excellence in Teaching Award, the Matthews Underclass Teaching Award, and is a member of the Medieval Academy of America. Cindy retires from her position as a Senior Lecturer and Lecturer IV, having served in the Residential College for 46 years. She has an active art practice, and her work will be displayed in the RC Art Gallery in a fall 2019 exhibition. She also maintains a personal website, cynthiasowers.rc.lsa.umich.edu, where she publishes essays, poetry, and visual artwork.

 

Jessica Care Moore: We Want Our Bodies Back @ AADL Downtown (Fourth Floor)
Sep 4 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

jessica Care moore, an internationally renowned poet, playwright, performance artist, and producer from Detroit, will preview her newest work: “We Want Our Bodies Back.”  Moore first came to national prominence when she won the “It’s Showtime at the Apollo” competition a record breaking five times in a row.  She is the 2013 Alain Locke Award Recipient from the Detroit Institute of Arts, and her poetry has been heard at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the London Institute of Contemporary Arts.  She is the CEO of Moore Black Press, Executive Producer of Black WOMEN Rock!, and founder of the literacy-driven Jess Care Moore Foundation.

This event includes a book signing and books will be for sale.

Poetry Salon: One Pause Poetry @ Argus Farm Stop
Sep 4 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

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.

 

 

 

Sep
6
Fri
Randall Monroe in Conversation with Jim Ottaviani @ Rackham Auditorium
Sep 6 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS

Literati Bookstore is thrilled to welcome Randall Munroe to Rackham Auditorium in downtown Ann Arbor in support of his latest book, How to: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems. The program will feature a presentation, conversation, and Q&A. A book signing will follow. Detailed instructions for the book signing to come.

Tickets are general admission and include a hardcover copy of How to, to be picked up at the venue the evening of the event. Literati will have additional copies of Randall Munroe’s previous titles available for purchase. Parking in downtown Ann Arbor on Friday evenings can be difficult. Surface spots are sparse, but a detailed map of available (and walkable) parking structures can be found here.

For any task you might want to do, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It’s full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.

Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you’re a baby boomer or a 90’s kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you’re done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth’s mantle, or launching it into the Sun.

By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn’t just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and amusing illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.

Randall Munroe is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer, the science question-and-answer blog What If, and the popular webcomic xkcd. A former NASA roboticist, he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the internet full-time. He lives in Massachusetts.

Event Questions? Email john@literatibookstore.com

Sep
9
Mon
Emerging Writers: Top Ten Writing Myths @ AADL Westgate, West Side Room
Sep 9 @ 7:00 pm – 8:45 pm

Do writers have to write every day? Is writer’s block real? Can you write a book in your spare time? In this workshop, Bethany Neal and Alex Kourvo look at the top ten myths of a writer’s lifestyle, and get real about what it takes to make writing your career.

This is part of the monthly Emerging Writers Workshops, which offer support, learning, and advice for local authors. Each month, two weeks after the workshop, there is a meet-up where the instructors will read samples of your work and offer advice and assistance in a casual, supportive atmosphere.

Do you have a completed manuscript? Consider submitting it to the library’s imprint Fifth Avenue Press.

 

Fiction at Literati: Rachel DeWoskin: Banshee @ Literati
Sep 9 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Rachel Dewoskin back to our store in support of her new novel, Banshee, which Cheryl Strayed calls “Sexy and sad, dark and funny, ruthless and kind, this is Rachel Dewoskin’s ferociously feminist masterpiece,” as part of our ongoing Fiction at Literati series. Free and open to the public. A book signing to follow. 

About the book:Samantha Baxter has a full, sane life–creative job, lovely family, and all the trappings of middle-age happiness. But when she gets a diagnosis that terrifies her, a lifetime of polite pleasing and putting others first ignites in her a surprising, pure rage. Maybe Sam will survive the surgery, and maybe not, but either way, she’ll spend the next three weeks burning her life down: sleeping with a student her daughter’s age, speaking every truth she’s ever swallowed, and refusing to apologize for her wildest, most essential self.

Rachel DeWoskin is the author of Someday We Will Fly (Penguin, 2019); Blind (Penguin, 2014); Big Girl Small (FSG, 2011); Repeat After Me (The Overlook Press, 2009); and Foreign Babes in Beijing (WW Norton, 2005). She is on the core fiction faculty at the University of Chicago, and is an affiliated faculty member of the Centers for East Asian Studies and Jewish Studies.

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