Calendar

From one of the great masters of the contemporary short story, There’s Something I Want You To Do is an astonishing collection of inter-related stories that showcases Charles Baxter’s unique ability to unveil the remarkable in the seemingly inconsequential moments of an eerie yet familiar life.

Charles Baxter is the author of the novels The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), The Soul Thief, Saul and Patsy, Shadow Play, and First Light, and the story collections Gryphon, Believers, A Relative Stranger, Through the Safety Net, and Harmony of the World.  The stories “Bravery” and “Charity,” which appear in There’s Something I Want You to Do, were included in Best American Short Stories. Baxter lives in Minneapolis and teaches at the University of Minnesota and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Investigative journalist Christian Parenti discusses his book that explores how climate change contributes to wars, humanitarian crises, and state failures.

This U-M Frankel Center for Judaic Studies visiting scholar discusses Still Jewish, her 2009 book about interfaith relationships and how they’re portrayed in the mass media, advice manuals, and religious literature. Dinner. Followed by services.

Kelly Link is the author of the collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and,most recently,  Get in Trouble. Her short stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She and Gavin J. Grant have co-edited a number of anthologies, including multiple volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and, for young adults, Steampunk!  and Monstrous Affections. She is the co-founder of Small Beer Press and co-edits the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Link was born in Miami, Florida. She currently lives with her husband and daughter in Northampton, Massachusetts.

All poets invited to compete in a weekly poetry slam judged by a randomly chosen panel from the audience. The program begins with a brief poetry open mike and (usually) a short set by a featured poet. (sign-up begins at 7:30 p.m.). $5 suggested donation.

Natalie Diaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Her first poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published by Copper Canyon Press. She is a recipient of a 2012 Lannan Literary Fellowship, a 2012 Native Arts Council Foundation Fellowship, the 2013 Narrative Prize, the 2014 Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University, a 2014 Bread Loaf Fellowship, and a 2014 USA Ford Fellowship. Diaz teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts Low Rez MFA. She lives in Mohave Valley, Arizona, where she directs the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program, working with the last Mojave speakers to teach and revitalize the language.

Poetry slam teams from across the state battle for a spot at the Michigan Youth Poetry Slam State Championships.