Literati is pleased to welcome Ann S. Epstein in support of her novel, On the Shore.
Set in 1917–1925, On the Shore follows the upheaval in an immigrant Jewish family when a son lies about his name and age to fight in WWI. Without telling his family, 16-year-old Shmuel Levinson (a.k.a. Sam Lord) strives to prove his manhood and escape his father’s pressure that he become a rabbi by enlisting in the Navy. His smart but rebellious younger sister, Dev, mourns his disappearance, while chafing against her father’s expectation that she marry instead of pursuing a career in science. Their successful uncle, Gershon Mendel, confronts failure when he ventures beyond their sheltered Lower East Side community to search for the missing boy. On the Shore offers a poignant look at the strained relationships that trouble the multi-generation immigrant families of today as well as yesteryear.
Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, and creative nonfiction. She is the winner of the 2017 Walter Sullivan Prize for Rising Talent. Her novels include On the Shore (Vine Leaves Press, 2017), A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (Alternative Book Press, 2017, in press), and Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press, 2018, in press). Her stories appear in Sewanee Review, PRISM International, Ascent, The Long Story, Saranac Review, Passages North, Red Rock Review, William and Mary Review, Tahoma Literary Review, The Copperfield Review, The Normal School, Carbon Culture, Earth’s Daughters, theNewerYork, Clark Street Review, Emrys Journal, and The Offbeat. In addition to creative writing, she has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology and M.F.A. in textiles, which influence the content and imagery of her work. Her books and stories often have historical settings where fact and fiction are liberally mixed, and she is gratified to have forgotten what is and is not real by the time a work is finished. Her nonfiction explores the people, places, and events that shape us, especially the residue left by family and friends.
Veteran poet Frederick Gleysher, a U-M grad who was tutored by Robert Hayden, reads from and discusses his The Parliament of Poets, an epic poem set partially on he moon, at the Apollo 11 landing site, the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo, the Geek god of poetry summons the poets of all nations, ancient and modern, to fashion a new vision of universal life.
Literati is delighted to welcome James Kakalios in support of his new book, The Physics of Everyday Things: The Extraordinary Science Behind an Ordinary Day.
Physics professor, bestselling author, and dynamic storyteller James Kakalios reveals the mind-bending science behind the seemingly basic things that keep our daily lives running, from our smart phones and digital “clouds” to x-ray machines and hybrid vehicles.
Most of us are clueless when it comes to the physics that makes our modern world so convenient. What’s the simple science behind motion sensors, touch screens, and toasters? How do we glide through tolls using an E-Z Pass, or find our way to new places using GPS? In The Physics of Everyday Things, James Kakalios takes us on an amazing journey into the subatomic marvels that underlie so much of what we use and take for granted.
Breaking down the world of things into a single day, Kakalios engages our curiosity about how our refrigerators keep food cool, how a plane manages to remain airborne, and how our wrist fitness monitors keep track of our steps. Each explanation is coupled with a story revealing the interplay of the astonishing invisible forces that surround us. Through this “narrative physics,” The Physics of Everyday Things demonstrates that—far from the abstractions conjured by terms like the Higgs Boson, black holes, and gravity waves—sophisticated science is also quite practical. With his signature clarity and inventiveness, Kakalios ignites our imaginations and enthralls us with the principles that make up our lives.
Literati is pleased to welcome Laura Hulthen Thomas in support of her debut collection, States of Motion.
Newton’s Laws of Motion describe the relationship between a body and its response to the forces acting upon it. For the men and women in States of Motion, imbalance is a way of life. Set in Michigan small towns both real and fictional, the stories in Laura Hulthen Thomas’s collection take place against a backdrop of economic turmoil and the domestic cost of the war on terror. As familiar places, privilege, and faith disappear, what remains leaves these broken characters wondering what hope is left for them. These stories follow blue collars and white, cops and immigrants, and mothers and sons as they defend a world that is quickly vanishing.
The eight stories in States of Motion follow tough, quixotic characters struggling to reinvent themselves even as they cling to what they’ve lost. A grieving father embraces his town’s suspicions of him as the sole suspect in his daughter’s disappearance. A driving instructor struggles to care for his abusive mother between training lessons with two flirtatious teens. A behavioral researcher studying the fear response must face her own fears when her childhood attacker returns to ask for her forgiveness. Conditioned by their traumatic pasts to be both sympathetic and numb to suffering, the characters in these stories clutch at a chance to find peace on the other side of terror. From the isolated roadways of Michigan’s countryside to the research labs of a major university, the way forward is both one last hope and a deep-seated fear.
Laura Hulthen Thomas’s short fiction and essays have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The Cimarron Review, Nimrod International Journal, Epiphany, and Witness. She received her MFA in fiction writing from Warren Wilson College. She currently heads the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College, where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction.
Literati is pleased to welcome Gina Sorell in support of her debut novel, Mothers and Other Strangers, a Literati staff pick.
My father proposed to my mother at gunpoint when she was nineteen, and knowing that she was already pregnant with a dead man’s child, she accepted. Thus begins this riveting story of a woman’s quest to understand her recently deceased mother, a glamorous, cruel narcissist who left her only child, Elsie, an inheritance of debts and mysteries. While coping with threats that she suspects are coming from the cult-like spiritual program her mother belonged to, Elsie works to unravel the message her dying mother left for her, a quest that ultimately takes her to the South African family homestead she never knew existed.
Born in South Africa and raised in Canada, Gina Sorell now resides in Toronto, and lives in a world of words. Some of those words are: writer, namer, creative director, artist, daughter, sister, wife and mother. After two decades as a working actor of stage and screen in NYC, LA, and Toronto, Gina decided to return to her first love–writing, and graduated with distinction from UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. Gina likes to balance out the long solitary hours of novel writing, with her work as a Creative Director of Eat My Words, a SF based branding firm, where she collaborates all day long with innovators and entrepreneurs whose identity she establishes with only one word, their name.
Literati is delighted to welcome Josh Malerman back to the store in support of his new novel, Black Mad Wheel.
From the author of the hit literary horror debut Bird Box (“Hitchcockian.” —USA Today) comes a chilling novel about a group of musicians conscripted by the US government to track down the source of a strange and debilitating sound.
The Danes—the band known as the “Darlings of Detroit”—are washed up and desperate for inspiration, eager to once again have a number one hit. That is, until an agent from the US Army approaches them. Will they travel to an African desert and track down the source of a mysterious and malevolent sound? Under the guidance of their front man, Philip Tonka, the Danes embark on a harrowing journey through the scorching desert—a trip that takes Tonka into the heart of an ominous and twisted conspiracy.
Meanwhile, in a nondescript Midwestern hospital, a nurse named Ellen tends to a patient recovering from a near-fatal accident. The circumstances that led to his injuries are mysterious—and his body heals at a remarkable rate. Ellen will do the impossible for this enigmatic patient, who reveals more about his accident with each passing day.
Part Heart of Darkness, part Lost, Josh Malerman’s breathtaking new novel plunges us into the depths of psychological horror, where you can’t always believe everything you hear.
Josh Malerman is the acclaimed author of Bird Box, as well as the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band The High Strung. He lives in Michigan.
Reading by this Grand Valley State University creative writing professor, a widely published poet and former Grand Rapids Press assistant sports editor whose most recent collection is Ha Ha Ha Thump. The program begins with open mike readings.
7-8:30 p.m., Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea, 123 W. Washington. Free. 994-6663
Readings by Joliet Junior College English professor Bill Yarrow, a widely published poet who edits the Blue Fifth Review, and Zilka Joseph, a local poet known for her vividly figured explorations of the natural world whose latest collection is Sharp Blue Search of Flame. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
Literati is pleased to welcome Toby Altman and Katie Hartsock in support of their most recent publications.
Toby Altman is the author of Arcadia, Indiana (Plays Inverse, 2017) as well as five previous chapbooks, including Security Theater (Present Tense Pamphlets, 2016). His poems can or will be found in Crazyhorse, Jubilat, Lana Turner, and other journals. He is currently completing a PhD in Poetry and Poetics at Northwestern University.
Katie Hartsock‘s debut poetry collection, Bed of Impatiens, was published by Able Muse Press. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Hotels, Motels, and Extended Stays, published by Toadlily Press in their 2014 Quartet Series, and Veritas Caput (Passim Editions, 2015). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Crab Orchard Review, DIAGRAM, Hanging Loose, H_NGM_N, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere.
