Literati is pleased to host Teen Spirit, an award-winning publication of the Skyline High School Writing Center. Teen Spirit is a literary magazine that allows students to share their writing, art, photography, songs, and videos with our broader community, providing them an authentic audience for their work. This event will feature several exceptional Skyline student writers reading their fiction, poetry, and essays from the fifth edition of Teen Spirit publicly for the first time.
The Skyline Writing Center is a student-centered peer tutoring and mentoring organization that provides high-quality writing support to students every hour of every school day. Each year, 30 qualified juniors and seniors are trained to work with all students on a wide variety of genres at any stage of the writing process. Since opening in 2012, the Writing Center has made more than 5,000 student contacts. Jeffrey Austin, a Skyline English teacher, is the program’s founder and director.
An intro to birding migration in Michigan. We will discuss the importance of field marks, bird sounds, flyways, weather, books and online media in the world of birding. Bring your questions and desire to learn birding basics. No experience necessary.
Emily Strelow has an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Washington in Seattle and an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science. Her first novel, The Wild Birds, was published March of 2018 with Rare Bird Books. She was born and raised in Oregon’s Willamette Valley but now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For the last decade she combined teaching writing with doing seasonal avian field biology. While doing field jobs she camped and wrote in remote areas in the desert, mountains and by the ocean. She is a mother to two boys, a naturalist, and a writer.
Literati is excited to partner with the University of Michigan Medical School to present Iatrogenesis: Essays on Becoming a Physician, a collection of essays written by U-M medical students.
About Iatrogenesis:
In Iatrogenesis: Essays on Becoming a Physician, medical students share coming-of-age stories that illustrate the rigorous, rewarding, and sometimes unforgiving journey into medicine. In Greek, iatro- means doctor, and -genesis means origin: Iatrogenesis thus describes any effect, good or bad, brought forth by a physician’s actions. This essay compendium looks beyond a physician’s impact on patients, instead turning inward to examine the impact of medical training on student doctors. These essays written by University of Michigan medical students span from the donning of the White Coat to graduation. Along the way, each writer weaves a story, the threads of which unite in a tapestry highlighting the universality of this coming-of-age journey. These essays breathe life into each stage of medical apprenticeship, displaying the full spectrum of human emotion as medical students find ways to reinvent themselves as the physicians of tomorrow.
In Greek, iatro- means doctor, and -genesis means origin: Iatrogenesis thus describes any effect, good or bad, brought forth by a physician’s actions. This essay compendium looks beyond a physician’s impact on patients, instead turning inward to examine the impact of medical training on student doctors. These essays breathe life into each stage of medical apprenticeship, displaying the full spectrum of human emotion as medical students find ways to reinvent themselves as the physicians of tomorrow.
WAR STORM Tour at Literati Bookstore, featuring Victoria Aveyard!
Literati Bookstore is pleased to partner with Epic Reads to celebrate the electrifying conclusion to the Red Queen series with Victoria Aveyard, Brittany Cavallaro, and Susan Dennard! This event will feature a discussion with the authors. A ticketed signing line is to follow.
****IMPORTANT EVENT AND TICKETING DETAILS*****
Admission to the discussion portion of this event, due to Literati’s size, is LIMITED. Only those with the free, limited, Event Admission Pass ticket option will be guaranteed admission to this portion of the event. Guests who are able to secure an Event Admission Pass will also have the chance to be first in the signing line, but *will be required to purchase a copy of War Storm (or The Case for Jamie or Sightwitch) on site to do so.* Booksellers will be present to sell copies in the event space. Doors will open at 6:30.
If you’re not able to secure the limited Event Admission Pass while they last, fear not! You can still join the signing line following the reading and meet the authors.
Once all Event Admission Passes are gone, a ticket option for entry to a post-event signing line will become available. While this ticket does not include admission to the author discussion, Signing Line Ticket holders will receive a hardcover copy of War Storm, to be picked up at the store when you join the signing line, and are guaranteed to have a chance to meet the authors and have their books signed! The Signing Line Ticket will have an assigned “seat number,” which will be your spot in the signing line. Literati will have additional titles from all the authors for sale in-store for Signing Line Ticket holders.
In order to eliminate long lines and waiting periods, Literati will announce via twitter (@Literatibkstore) when we are ready for select groups, according to their line number, to begin lining up at the store for signing–starting likely around 8:30pm.
If you do not purchase the advance Signing Line Ticket, a purchase of War Storm, The Case for Jamie, or Sightwitch in our store during business hours on May 21st will also grant admission into the signing line, *following* all guests who purchased tickets in advance.
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About WAR STORM:
Mare Barrow learned this all too well when Cals betrayal nearly destroyed her. Now determined to protect her heartand secure freedom for Reds and newbloods like herMare resolves to destroy the kingdom of Norta once and for all… starting with the crown on Mavens head.
But no battle is won alone, and before the Reds may rise as one, Mare must side with the boy who broke her heart in order to destroy the boy who almost broke her. Cals powerful Silver allies, alongside Mare and the Scarlet Guard, prove a formidable force. But Maven is driven by an obsession so deep, he will stop at nothing to have Mare as his own again, even if it means destroying everythingand everyonein his path.
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FAQ
Q: Wait, so who is getting their books signed first?
A: Event Admission Pass holders, who have reserved admission, will go first provided they also purchase a copy of War Storm, The Case for Jamie, or Sightwitch at Literati, followed by Signing Line Ticket guests, whose ticket amounts to an advanced purchase of War Storm.
Q: I have an Event Admission Pass, do I have an assigned seat?
A: No, admission passes grant first-come, first-serve access to limited seating for the event. Doors open at 6:30.
Q: I have an Event Admission Pass, do I need to purchase a separate Signing Line Ticket?
A: No! Because you are attending the discussion portion of the event, you will be able to be the first to line up to have a book signed, with a purchase of War Storm, the Case for Jamie, or Sightwitch. Literati Booksellers will be present in the event space to sell copies of these books after you are admitted to the event.
Q: I have an Event Admission Pass, can I buy a copy of the War Storm, before the event, such as on the release date, and bring it with me to enter the signing line after I attend the event?
A: Yes, provided you purchase this copy at Literati. Please hang out to your receipt, and bring it (and your ticket, of course) to Literati on the 21st. Books will go on sale on 5/15.
Q: I have an Event Admission Pass, when will I get my book signed?
A: Admission to the limited seating in the event space for Event Admission Pass holders is first-come, first-serve, and we will release guest by rows to join the signing line before Signing Line Ticket guests, provided they have purchased a copy of War Storm, The Case for Jamie, or Sightwitch at Literati in order to enter the line.
Q: I have a Signing Line Ticket, do I get to see/am I admitted to the discussion portion of the event?
A: Due to limited space in our store, the signing line ticket only provides access to the signing line following the event. We may be able to admit the earliest Signing Line Ticket numbers to limited standing room only space in our second floor events space, and will contact those ticket holders who may qualify, directly.
Q: I have a Signing Line Ticket, when do I pick up my copy of War Storm?
A: We ask that you pick up your book when you join the signing line. We will have books reserved for all ticketed guests to the signing line. When you join the line, Literati booksellers will provide you with your book and assist you in preparing your book for the signing. You may also buy additional titles the day of (for additional questions about this policy, please email us at events@literatibookstore.com).
Q: I have a Signing Line Ticket, when do I get my book signed? / Why is there a seat number on my ticket?
A: We will begin the signing line promptly following the event. Your seat number is your place in line. In order to eliminate long lines and wait times, we will announce, via our twitter (@LiteratiBkStore), when were ready to welcome guests according to their seat numbers to come line up. A tweet may read, for example: “Signing Line Ticket nos. 31-45 may now line up along our mural wall on 4th street!”
Q: Can I join the signing line without having to purchase a ticket in advance?
A: Yes. If you purchase a copy of War Storm, The Case for Jamie, or Sightwitch in our store the day of the event before the store closes (or can provide a receipt of a previous purchase), you can join the signing line after ticketed guests have their books signed.
Q: Can I bring other books to be signed / how many books may I have signed?
A: Yes. To reduce wait times for all guests, we ask that you limit the amount of books to be signed to 4 per person.
Q: Can I join the signing line without either ticket option, or without purchasing War Storm, The Case for Jamie, or Sightwitch at Literati?
A: No.
Literati is thrilled to welcome novelist Jessica Knoll who will be sharing her new book book, The Favorite Sister.
About The Favorite Sister:
When five hyper-successful women agree to appear on a reality series set in New York City called Goal Diggers, the producers never expect the season will end in murder…
Brett’s the fan favorite. Tattooed and only twenty-seven, the meteoric success of her spin studio–and her recent engagement to her girlfriend–has made her the object of jealousy and vitriol from her castmates.
Kelly, Brett’s older sister and business partner, is the most recent recruit, dismissed as a hanger-on by veteran cast. The golden child growing up, she defers to Brett now–a role which requires her to protect their shocking secret.
Stephanie, the first black cast member and the oldest, is a successful bestselling author of erotic novels. There have long been whispers about her hot, non-working actor-husband and his wandering eye, but this season the focus is on the rift that has opened between her and Brett, former best friends–and resentment soon breeds contempt.
The Favorite Sister explores the invisible barriers that prevent women from rising up the ranks in today’s America–and offers a scathing take on the oft-lionized bonds of sisterhood, and the relentless pressure to stay young, relevant, and salable.
Jessica Knoll is the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive, which has been optioned for film by Lionsgate with Reese Witherspoon set to produce. She has been a senior editor at Cosmopolitan and the articles editor at Self. She grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and graduated from The Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her bulldog, Beatrice . The Favorite Sister is her second novel.
Performance by this award-winning local slam poet, community activist, and Neutral Zone literary arts director. Raynor is known for her emotional honesty, particularly in exploring how past trauma affects present action. The program begins with open mike readings.
7-8:30 p.m., Sweetwaters, 123 W. Washington. Free. 994-6663.
U-M English professor emeritus Richard Tillinghast reads from his latest book, Journeys into the Mind of the World, an essay collection that purports to explore “the mind of the world” by examining chosen locations-Ireland, England, India, the Middle East, Tennessee, and Hawaii-and their unique historical, cultural, artistic, religious, and ethnic dimensions. Also, widely published Detroit poet Kevin Gerard Rashid reads from his work, which is known for its blend of sharp observations, humor, and lyricism. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757.
Literati is thrilled to welcome author Michael Zadoorian who will be sharing his latest novel, Beautiful Music.
About Beautiful Music:
Set in early 1970s Detroit, a divided city still reeling from its violent race riot of 1967, Beautiful Music is the story of one young man’s transformation through music. Danny Yzemski is a husky, pop radio-loving loner balancing a dysfunctional homelife with the sudden harsh realities of freshman year at a high school marked by racial turbulence.
But after tragedy strikes the family, Danny’s mother becomes increasingly erratic and angry about the seismic cultural shifts unfolding in her city and the world. As she tries to hold it together with the help of Librium, highballs, and breakfast cereal, Danny finds his own reason to carry on: rock and roll. In particular, the drum and guitar-heavy songs of local legends like the MC5 and Iggy Pop. In the vein of Nick Hornby and Tobias Wolff, yet with a style very much Zadoorian’s own, Beautiful Music is a touching story about the power of music and its ability to save one’s soul.
Michael Zadoorian is the author of the critically praised The Leisure Seeker–now a film starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland, released by Sony Pictures Classics this year. Zadoorian is a recipient of a Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Literary Arts, the Columbia University Anahid Literary Award, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and the Michigan Notable Book Award. His other books are Second Hand: A Novel,and the story collection The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit. His fiction has appeared in the Literary Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, American Short Fiction, Witness, Great Lakes Review, and the North American Review. He lives with his wife in the Detroit area.
Literati is excited to host author Scott Stern who will be discussing his latest book The Trials of Nina McCall Smith: Sex, Survelliance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison “promiscous” Women.
About The Trials of Nina McCall Smith:
The nearly forgotten story of the American Plan, one of the largest and longest-lasting mass quarantines in American history, told through the lens of one young woman’s story.
In 1918, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Nina McCall was told to report to the local health officer to be examined for sexually transmitted infections. Confused and humiliated, Nina did as she was told, and the health officer performed a hasty (and invasive) examination and quickly diagnosed her with gonorrhea. Though Nina insisted she could not possibly have an STI, she was coerced into committing herself to the Bay City Detention Hospital, a facility where she would spend almost three miserable months subjected to hard labor, exploitation, and painful injections of mercury.
Nina McCall was one of many women unfairly imprisoned by the United States government throughout the twentieth century. The government locked up tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of women and girls–usually without due process–simply because officials suspected these women were prostitutes, carrying STIs, or just “promiscuous.”
This discriminatory program, dubbed the “American Plan,” lasted from the 1910s into the 1950s, implicating a number of luminaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Earl Warren, and even Eliot Ness, while laying the foundation for the modern system of women’s prisons. In some places, vestiges of the Plan lingered into the 1960s and 1970s, and the laws that undergirded it remain on the books to this day.
Scott Stern tells the story of this almost forgotten program through the life of Nina McCall. Her story provides crucial insight into the lives of countless other women incarcerated under the American Plan. Stern demonstrates the pain and shame felt by these women and details the multitude of mortifications they endured, both during and after their internment. Yet thousands of incarcerated women rioted, fought back against their oppressors, or burned their detention facilities to the ground; they jumped out of windows or leapt from moving trains or scaled barbed-wire fences in order to escape. And, as Nina McCall did, they sued their captors. In an age of renewed activism surrounding harassment, health care, prisons, women’s rights, and the power of the state, this virtually lost chapter of our history is vital reading.
Scott W. Stern is a graduate of Yale University, with a BA and MA in American Studies, summa cum laude. His thesis, on the American Plan, won Yale’s Norman Holmes Pearson Prize. A native of Pittsburgh, Stern is continuing his studies at Yale Law School.
Literati is thrilled to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning journalsit Charlie LeDuff to share his new book Sh*tshow!: The Country’s Collapsing… and the Ratings Are Great
About Sh*tshow!:
A daring, firsthand, and utterly-unscripted account of crisis in America, from Ferguson to Flint to Cliven Bundy’s ranch to Donald Trump’s unstoppable campaign for President–at every turn, Pulitzer-prize winner and bestselling author of Detroit: An American Autopsy, Charlie LeDuff was there
In the Fall of 2013, long before any sane person had seriously considered the possibility of a Trump presidency, Charlie LeDuff sat in the office of then-Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, and made a simple but prophetic claim:The whole country is bankrupt and on high boil. It’s a shitshow out there. No one in the bubbles of Washington, DC., New York, or Los Angles was talking about it–least of all the media. LeDuff wanted to go to the heart of the country to report what was really going on. Ailes baulked. Could the hard-living and straight-shooting LeDuff be controlled? But, then, perhaps on a whim, he agreed. And so LeDuff set out to record a TV series called, “The Americans,” and, along the way, ended up bearing witness to the ever-quickening unraveling of The American Dream.
For three years, LeDuff travelled the width and breadth of the country with his team of production irregulars, ending up on the Mexican border crossing the Rio Grande on a yellow rubber kayak alongside undocumented immigrants; in the middle of Ferguson as the city burned; and watching the children of Flint get sick from undrinkable water. Racial, political, social, and economic tensions were escalating by the day. The inexorable effects of technological change and globalization were being felt more and more acutely, at the same time as wages stagnated and the price of housing, education, and healthcare went through the roof. The American people felt defeated and abandoned by their politicians, and those politicians seemed incapable of rising to the occasion. The old way of life was slipping away, replaced only by social media, part-time work, and opioid addiction.
Sh*tshow is that true, tragic, and distinctively American story, told from the parts of the country hurting the most. A soul-baring, irreverent, and iconoclastic writer, LeDuff speaks the language of everyday Americans, and is unafraid of getting his hands dirty. He scrambles the tired-old political, social, and racial categories, taking no sides–or prisoners. Old-school, gonzo-style reporting, this is both a necessary confrontation with the darkest parts of the American psyche and a desperately-needed reminder of the country’s best instincts.
Charlie LeDuff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, formerly at the New York Times and the Detroit News, and Detroit’s Fox 2 News. The author of Detroit, US Guys, and Work and Other Sins, he lives near Detroit.
