Calendar

Nov
3
Sun
Almost Country with John Knott @ Nicola's Books
Nov 3 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

John Knott shares his essays, which present a story of getting to know a place intimately and learning to deal with challenges from the human and natural worlds, from developers and county officials to windstorms, a hatch of seventeen-year cicadas, flying squirrels in the attic, and a bullfrog that takes up residence for the winter in the basement floor drain.

About the Author

John R. Knott, Jr., was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on July 9, 1937, the son of John R. Knott and Wilma Henshaw Knott.  He graduated from Central High School in 1955 and did his undergraduate work at Yale University, graduating magna cum laude with high honors in English in 1959.  In 1959-60 he held a Carnegie Fellowship at Yale, taking one graduate course and teaching undergraduate English.  During that year he married Anne Percy Knott of Memphis.  He went to Harvard University for his graduate work with a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (1960-61), earning a Ph.D. in English in 1965 after serving as a Teaching Fellow in General Education and in English.  He remained at Harvard as an Instructor in English for two years before joining the Department of English of the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor in 1967.  By that time he and his wife Anne had four children: Catherine Henshaw Knott, Ellen Dent Knott, Walker Percy Knott, and Anne Minor Knott.

At Michigan John Knott was promoted to Associate Professor in 1971 and Professor in 1976.  He specialized in English Renaissance literature for much of his career, teaching a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, including Milton, Spenser, Shakespeare, and the Puritan imagination.  He twice received recognition for his teaching in the form of LSA Excellence in Education awards.  He published numerous articles and chapters and three scholarly books on Renaissance literature: Milton’s Pastoral Vision (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971); The Sword of the Spirit (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980), with the help of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities; and Discourses of Martyrdom in English Literature: 1563-1694 (Cambridge University Press, 1993), with the help of a Michigan Humanities Award.  In the 1990’s his teaching and research interests gradually shifted to literature and the environment.  He published a critical book that grew out of a course he developed in the literature of the American wilderness, Imagining Wild America (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2001) and subsequently Imagining the Forest: Narratives of the Upper Midwest (University of Michigan Press, 2012).  He has edited or co-edited several collections dealing with the environment, including The Huron River: Voices from the Watershed (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2000) and Michigan: Our Land, Our Water Our Heritage (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2008, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy.

John Knott’s service at Michigan has included Assoc. Dean (1977-80) and Acting Dean (1980-81) of LSA; Chair of the Department of English (1982-87); Interim Director of the Humanities Institute (1987-88); and Interim Director of the Program in the Environment (2001-2).  As chair of English he started the MFA program in creative writing.  He served on the planning committee for the Institute for the Humanities and acted as interim director during its startup year.  Several years before his retirement from the faculty in 2006 he chaired the planning and implementation committees that established the joint LSA/SNRE Program in the Environment, which replaced the SNRE undergraduate program, and directed the program for its first year and a half.

Nov
4
Mon
Q and A with Editor Parneshia Jones @ Angell Hall, Room 3154
Nov 4 @ 9:00 am – 10:00 am

Parneshia Jones is the author of Vessel: Poems (Milkweed Editions), winner of the Midwest Book Award. After studying creative writing at Chicago State University, earning an MFA from Spalding University, and studying publishing at Yale University, Jones has been honored with the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Margaret Walker Short Story Award, and the Aquarius Press Legacy Award. Named one of the “25 Writers to Watch” by the Guild Complex and one of “Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago” by Newcity Magazine, her work has been anthologized in She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems, edited by Caroline Kennedy and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, edited by Nikky Finney; and featured on PBS Newshour, the Academy of American Poets, and espnW. A member of the Affrilachian Poets, she serves on the board of Cave Canem and Global Writes. She currently holds positions as Sales and Community Outreach Manager and Poetry Editor at Northwestern University Press. Parneshia Jones lives in Chicago.

Emerging Writers: Writing Picture Books for Children @ AADL Westgate, West Side Room
Nov 4 @ 7:00 pm – 8:45 pm

Writing a story for children is a special art, and these short manuscripts can sometimes take as long to complete as a full-length novel. In this workshop, New York Times bestselling and Caldecott-winning author Philip C. Stead will discuss how to write books that kids love.

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.

Nov
5
Tue
Anand Giridharadas: Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World @ Robertson Auditorium, Ross School of Business
Nov 5 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about the culprits of and solutions for the largest issues facing the world today.

The Erb Institute is proud to host an evening with Anand Giridharadas, author of the National Best Seller, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. This candid conversation will examine the role of business in society, the flaws of philanthropy and the possibility of changing the world from the ground up. We’ll discuss climate change—culprits, challenges and collaboration for progress—social inequality—who’s winning, who’s losing and why—and what needs to change.

Seating will be on a first come first served basis. Book signing in partnership with Literati to immediately follow the event.

The Moth Storyslam: Gumption @ Greyline
Nov 5 @ 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.

GUMPTION: Prepare a five-minute story about go-getting. Moments of courage and the peaks and pratfalls of a daring spirit. Scaling mountains or admitting to mistakes. Nerves of steel or jelly legs. Tell us about your gutsiest gambles and the mettle that forged them. You’ve got moxie, kid!

 

Nov
6
Wed
Pizza and Poetry Night: Jeff Kass: Teacher/Pizza Guy @ Nicola's Books
Nov 6 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Jeff Kass is bringing the poetry and we are supplying the pizza. Teacher/Pizza Guy is a funny and relatable collection for readers, thinkers, educators, and pizza lovers everywhere. Kass will be joined by local high school poets.

About the Book

Teacher/Pizza Guy is a collection of autobiographical poems from the 2016–17 school year in which Jeff Kass worked as a full-time English teacher and a part-time director for a literary arts organization and still had to supplement his income by delivering pizzas a few nights a week. In the collection, Kass is unapologetically political without distracting from the poems themselves but rather adds layers and nuances to the fight for the middle class and for educators as a profession.

The timing of this book is beyond relevant. As a public high school teacher in America, Kass’s situation is not uncommon. In September 2018, Time published an article detailing the ways in which many public school teachers across the country and in a variety of environments work multiple jobs to help make ends meet. Teacher/Pizza Guy chronicles Kass’s experience of teaching, directing, feeding people, and treading the delicate balance of holding himself accountable to his wife and kids, his students, his customers, and his own mental and physical health while working three jobs in contemporary America. The journey of that year was draining, at times daunting, at times satisfying, but always surprising. Many of the ideas for these poems were initially scribbled onto the backs of pizza receipts or scratched out during precious free moments amidst the chaos of the school day. A driving force behind the book is Philip Levine’s poem “What Work Is,” which Kass believes attempts to examine not only the dignity and complexity of what we think physical, tangible work is but also the exhausting, albeit sometimes fulfilling nature of emotional work.

About the Author

Jeff Kass teaches tenth-grade English and creative writing at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is the founder of the Literary Arts Program at Ann Arbor’s teen center, The Neutral Zone, where he was program director for twenty years. He is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Knuckleheads, the poetry collection My Beautiful Hook-Nosed Beauty Queen Strut Wave, and the thriller Takedown. He lives in Ann Arbor with the author Karen Smyte and their children, Sam and Julius

Poetry Salon: One Pause Poetry @ Argus Farm Stop
Nov 6 @ 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.

 

 

 

Nov
7
Thu
Zell Visiting Writers Series: Anelise Chen: Roundtable @ Angell Hall, Room 3154
Nov 7 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Anelise Chen is the author of So Many Olympic Exertions (Kaya Press 2017), an experimental novel that blends elements of sportswriting, memoir, and self-help. A finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, the novel challenges modes of contemporary mythmaking and the validity and usefulness of our current narratives of success.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series brings outstanding writers to campus each semester. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from U-M alumna Helen Zell (BA ’64, LLDHon ’13). For more information, please visit the Zell Visiting Writers Program webpage: https://lsa.umich.edu/writers

Chen’s essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, such as the NY Times, New Republic, Village Voice, and BOMB Magazine. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Blue Mountain Center, Banff Centre, the Wurlitzer Foundation, and she is currently a 2019-2020 Literature Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Columbia University.

Chen is currently at work on a hybrid memoir, Clam Down (One World Random House), based on her mollusk column for the Paris Review. Bringing to mind Helen MacDonald, Rebecca Solnit, and Maggie Nelson, Chen transforms the ordinary clam into an unlikely metaphor for deep self-examination—how the specific shells we build for ourselves reflect our experiences of grief, assimilation, and connection.

Ignite: Ann Arbor @ AADL Downtown (Multi-purpose Room)
Nov 7 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Enlighten us, but make it quick!

How would you share your passion in 5 minutes, with just 20 slides? We asked Ann Arbor this question; Ignite | Ann Arbor is the response. Watch your neighbors engage in this international phenomenon of fast-paced geekery!  Discover what your community geeks have to say – whether it’s food, tech, business, music, art, history or something strange and new, it’s sure to be a feverish night filled with discovery!

2019 Speaker List

Living with Tourette Syndrome: I say “I CAN” when others say “YOU CAN’T”
Larry Biederman

Mashed, Fried, or Baked: Serving up the Spud’s Story
Kayla Peck

We’re Not Angry… We’re Human!
Alishea Sutton

My 50 Before 50 Challenge
Lisa Lipscomb

Reinventing the Wheel: The Automotive Industry on the Brink of Disruption
Steven Sherman

When Home Leaves Check Your Back Pocket
Natalie McKinney

Compute Like It’s 1980! (tentative)
James Kruth

Hear This Photo: One Year As a Music Photographer
Lizz Wilkinson

Pearls of the Pacific
Cathy-Alice Koyanagi

Eat More Veggies, Spend Less Money
Raya Danielle York

The Olympic Vocalist
Monica Ely

Not Your Grandfather’s Ham Radio
Dan Romanchik, KB6NU

Exploring Nonconformity through Graphic Novels
Julie Cruz

How to Raise a Generation to Love the Outdoors
Annie Fortunato

Nov
8
Fri
Bill Lopez: Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid @ Nicola's Books
Nov 8 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Lopez will join us for the evening to examine the lasting damage done by a daylong act of collaborative immigration enforcement in Washtenaw County, Michigan. He will share his title Separated, where Lopez discusses deportation’s rippling negative effects on families, communities, and individuals and reveals efforts to cope with trauma, avoid homelessness, handle worsening health, and keep families together.

About the Book

In Separated,  Lopez examines the lasting damage done by a daylong act of collaborative immigration enforcement in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Exploring the chaos of enforcement through the lens of community health, Lopez discusses deportation’s rippling negative effects on families, communities, and individuals and reveals efforts to cope with trauma, avoid homelessness, handle worsening health, and keep families together.

About the Author

William Lopez is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and collaborates and organizes with the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights and Washtenaw ID Project. He lives in Ann Arbor with his partner and two children.

lsa logoum logoU-M Privacy StatementAccessibility at U-M