Monthly open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show. Each month 10 storytellers are selected at random from among those who sign up to tell a 3-5 minute story on the monthly theme. The 3 judges are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), The Circus, 210 S. First. $10. 764-5118.
About the book: Journalist Amy Haimerl and her husband had been priced out of their Brooklyn neighborhood. Seeing this as a great opportunity to start over again, they decide to cash in their savings and buy an abandoned house for $35,000 in Detroit, the largest city in the United States to declare bankruptcy. As she and her husband restore the 1914 Georgian Revival, a stately brick house with no plumbing, no heat, and no electricity, Amy finds a community of Detroiters who, like herself, aren’t afraid of a little hard work or things that are a little rough around the edges. Filled with amusing and touching anecdotes about navigating a real-estate market that is rife with scams, finding a contractor who is a lover of C.S. Lewis and willing to quote him liberally, and neighbors who either get teary-eyed at the sight of newcomers or urge Amy and her husband to get out while they can, Amy writes evocatively about the charms and challenges of finding her footing in a city whose future is in question. Detroit Hustle is a memoir that is both a meditation on what it takes to make a house a home, and a love letter to a much-derided city.
Amy Haimerl is a professor of journalism at Michigan State University and covers small business and urban policy for Fortune, Reuters and the New York Times. She was the entrepreneurship editor at Crain’s Detroit Business, where she covered the city’s historic bankruptcy trial. She is an alum of Fortune Small Business, CNNMoney and USAA Magazine, as well as a former Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. She lives in Detroit with her husband, Karl; two pitbulls, Maddie and Beaubien; and stray cat, Jack, who is the boss of everyone.
Reading by Huron High School English teacher R. J. Fox, a widely published poet. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
Bryon Quertermous was born and raised in Michigan. His short stories have appeared in Plots With Guns, Thuglit, and Crime Factory, among others, and in the anthologies Hardcore Hardboiled, The Year’s Finest Crime, Mystery Stories, and Uncage Me. He was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger Award from the UK Crime Writers’ Association. He lives outside of Detroit with his wife and three children.
Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 100 stories in print, online, and in various anthologies, and she won the Derringer Award for her story My Hero. She makes her home in Detroit. Visit her online at pattinase.blogspot.com and follow her at @pattinaseabbott.
All invited to listen to guild members swap stories or bring their own to tell.
All invited to join a discussion with this award-winning San Francisco-based mystery writer about her best-selling series of mysteries featuring the Paris-based PI Aimee Leduc, including the recent Murder on the Quai, a mystery about a murder linked to a transport truck of Nazi gold that disappeared in the French countryside during the height of World War II. Signing.
This Chicago writer reads from and discusses A Girl Like You, her new romantic mystery, set in 1930s Chicago, about a taxi dancer who goes undercover to help an aloof inspector investigate a murder in the dance hall where she works. Signing.
Every 1st & 3rd Sun. All poets invited to compete in a poetry slam judged by a randomly chosen panel from the audience. The program begins with a poetry open mike and (occasionally) a short set by a featured poet.
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetrySlam.
Literati is pleased to welcome Rachel Cassandra and Lauren Gucik to Literati in support of Women Street Artists of Latin America: Art without Fear.
In this groundbreaking, in-depth look at a rarely explored perspective of street art, more than twenty female artists from seven nations in Latin America discuss themes of social justice, artist process, community, visibility, feminism, and more. A bilingual edition packed with full-color photographs and interviews, this revealing exploration of contemporary street art includes work from Colombia, Peru, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico. Viva!
Rachel Cassandra is a freelance writer and designer based in San Francisco, CA. She has written for Vice, Good, Bitch, SFist, and Narratively, and she writes regularly for Juxtapoz. Find her on Twitter as CassandRachel.
Lauren Gucik is an artist and community organizer living in Oakland, CA. She graduated with a degree in Theatre Arts from Indiana University. She has worked with the SF Mime Troupe, Brava Theatre, and Precita Eyes Mural Project as a children’s art teacher. She is currently the Secretary of the Community Advisory Panel at KQED, the Bay Area’s public media station and she organizes the Dia de Los Muertos Festival of Altars with the Marigold Project.
Shannon Gibney was born in 1975, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was adopted by Jim and Sue Gibney about five months later, and grew up with her two (biological) brothers, Jon and Ben. She is a graduate from Community High School. Shannon is now a professor of English and African diaspora studies at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband, son and daughter.
See No Color:
For as long as she can remember, sixteen-year-old Alex Kirtridge has known two things: 1. She has always been Little Kirtridge, a stellar baseball player, just like her father. 2. She’s adopted. These facts have always been part of Alex’s life. Despite some teasing, being a biracial girl in a white family didn’t make much of a difference as long as she was a star on the diamond where her father—her baseball coach and a former pro player—counted on her. But now, things are changing: she meets Reggie, the first black guy who’s wanted to get to know her; she discovers the letters from her biological father that her adoptive parents have kept from her; and her body starts to grow into a woman’s, affecting her game. Alex begins to question who she really is. She’s always dreamed of playing pro baseball just like her father, but can she really do it? Does she truly fit in with her white family? Who were her biological parents? What does it mean to be black? If she’s going to find answers, Alex has to come to terms with her adoption, her race, and the dreams she thought would always guide her.
