About Elemental: A Collection of Creative Nonfiction:
Elemental: A Collection of Michigan Creative Nonfiction comes to us from twenty-three of Michigan’s most well-known essayists. A celebration of the elements, this collection is both the storm and the shelter. In her introduction, editor Anne-Marie Oomen recalls the “ritual dousing” of her storytelling group’s bonfire: “wind, earth, fire, water-all of it simultaneous in that one gesture. . . . In that moment we are bound together with these elements and with this place, the circle around the fire on the shores of a Great Lake closes, complete.”
The essays approach Michigan at the atomic level. This is a place where weather patterns and ecology matter. Farmers, miners, shippers, and loggers have built (or lost) their livelihood on Michigan’s nature-what could and could not be made out of our elements. From freshwater lakes that have shaped the ground beneath our feet to the industrial ebb and flow of iron ore and wind power-ours is a state of survival and transformation. In the first section of the book, “Earth,” Jerry Dennis remembers working construction in northern Michigan. “Water” includes a piece from Jessica Mesman, who writes of the appearance of snow in different iterations throughout her life. The section “Wind” houses essays about the ungraspable nature of death from Toi Dericotte and Keith Taylor. “Fire” includes a piece by Mardi Jo Link, who recollects the unfortunate series of circumstances surrounding one of her family members.
Elemental‘s strength lies in its ability to learn from the past in the hope of defining a wiser future. A lot of literature can make this claim, but not all of it comes together so organically. Fans of nonfiction that reads as beautifully as fiction will love this collection.
Anne-Marie Oomen is author of Love, Sex, and 4-H, House of Fields, Pulling Down the Barn, and Uncoded Woman, among others. She teaches at Solstice MFA at Pine Manor College, Interlochen’s College of Creative Arts, and at conferences throughout the country.
Literati is excited to welcome author Julie Dobrow who will be sharing her new biography, After Emily.
About After Emily:
Despite Emily Dickinson’s world renown, the story of the two women most responsible for her initial posthumous publication–Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham–has remained in the shadows of the archives. A rich and compelling portrait of women who refused to be confined by the social mores of their era, After Emily explores Mabel and Millicent’s complex bond, as well as the powerful literary legacy they shared.
Mabel’s tangled relationships with the Dickinsons–including a thirteen-year extramarital relationship with Emily’s brother, Austin–roiled the small town of Amherst, Massachusetts. After Emily’s death, Mabel’s connection to the family and reputation as an intelligent, artistic, and industrious woman in her own right led her to the enormous trove of poems Emily left behind. So began the herculean task of transcribing, editing, and promoting Emily’s work, a task that would consume and complicate the lives of both Mabel and her daughter. As the popularity of the poems grew, legal issues arose between the Dickinson and Todd families, dredging up their scandals: the affair, the ownership of Emily’s poetry, and the right to define the so-called “Belle of Amherst.”
Utilizing hundreds of overlooked letters and diaries to weave together the stories of three unstoppable women, Julie Dobrow explores the intrigue of Emily Dickinson’s literary beginnings. After Emily sheds light on the importance of the earliest editions of Emily’s work–including the controversial editorial decisions made to introduce her singular genius to the world–and reveals the surprising impact Mabel and Millicent had on the poet we know today.
Julie Dobrow is a professor with appointments in the department of Child Study and Human Development and the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University and serves as director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Her writing has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine and the Huffington Post, among other publications. She lives outside of Boston.
The Mark Webster Reading Series showcases work by second-year MFA students in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program.
Usually held on Friday evenings, Webster Readings present two readers (most often one poet and one fiction writer), each introduced by a fellow poet or fiction writer also in the graduating cohort.As the culminating event for students of the program, Webster Readings are hosted in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art and held in Helmut Stern Auditorium. An opportunity to hear from emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting, these readings are free and open to the public.
The Mark Webster Reading Series remembers the poetry and life of Mark Webster. Webster’s work is available in the Hopwood Room.
Today: Ian Burnette and Carl Lavigne
The Webster Readings are organized by second-year students, and feature their poetry and prose. Post-graduate Zell fellows are regularly invited to introduce and/or open for writers scheduled to visit local bookstore Literati.
Today: Katarina Bishop and Thea Chacamaty.
An evening of Buddhist storytelling with Rafe Martin. Listen to Buddhist Jataka Tales. He will be joined by longtime Zen Buddhist teacher and storyteller, Haju Sunim, and Zen storyteller Sandong Kurt Iselt. Children and families welcome, as well as all those who are curious about the wondrous stories that underpin Buddhism and Buddhist teachings. Rafe will be available for book signings after the event. $25. $15/ages 16 and under. Contact Zen Buddhist Temple at 761-6520; annarbor@zenbuddhisttemple.org or zenbuddhisttemple.org.
All invited to listen to guild members swap stories or bring their own to tell.
2-4 p.m., Ann Arbor District Library 3rd fl. Freespace, 343 S. Fifth Ave. Free. annarborstorytelling.org .
Readings by writers featured in Surrendurance, the 11th annual edition of Prison Creative Arts Project book that features work by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers. Also, a performance by the U-M Men’s Glee Club. Book sale.
3 p.m., Pierpont Commons East Room. Free. 647-6771.
Harmful rhetoric towards journalists and the press casts doubt about the future of a free press and the safety of reporters. This was evident following the murders of five staff members at the Capital Gazette and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As democratic nations fall short in protecting press freedom, what are the implications for journalists of all nations? In an alarming numbers, reporters around the world are persecuted, jailed, exiled and even killed for exposing the truth.
Knight-Wallace international journalists Elena Milashina of Novaya Gazeta, Itai Anghel of Israeli TV, and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times will discuss how threats and state censorship impact their work. In a discussion led by the University’s media law and First Amendment scholar Professor Leonard Niehoff, they will share their experiences reporting from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa and discuss what can be done to protect journalists and foster press freedom around the world.
The Eisendrath Symposium honors Charles R. Eisendrath, former director of Wallace House, and his lifelong commitment to international journalism.
About the Speakers
Elena Milashina was a 2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow and is an award winning investigative journalist for Russia’s independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. After the killing of Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, Milashina became the key source of information about grave rights abuses in Chechnya. She investigates and brings to attention accounts of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial executions, torture, and persecution of relatives of alleged insurgents, women’s rights in Chechnya and beyond. She also plays a key role in the independent investigation into the murder of Chechen human rights defender Natalia Estemirova. Milashina exposed a major crackdown on gay men in Chechnya in spring 2017, has investigated the catastrophe of the Kursk submarine, and hostage crises in Moscow (Nord–Ost) and Beslan. She has documented atrocities committed by both sides during the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict and pressed for an end to impunity. She has repeatedly received death threats from the Chechen authorities.
Itai Anghel is a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellow and a correspondent and documentary filmmaker for UVDA, a weekly investigative current affairs and documentary program on Israeli TV, Channel 2, where he also worked as a senior foreign affairs correspondent. Previously, he was a correspondent and chief editor of foreign affairs at Galatz (GLZ) Radio Station. He received the Sokolov Award, the highest award for outstanding journalism in Israel, in 2017, and he is a five-time recipient of the “Best TV Documentary in Israel” award from the Israeli Forum of Documentary Filmmakers.
Jawad Sukhanyar is a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellow and a reporter for The New York Times in Afghanistan. He joined the Times in 2011 and is now the longest serving reporter in the paper’s Kabul bureau. Sukhanyar covers human rights and women’s issues and also covered the 2014 disputed Afghan presidential election. He worked as a researcher on a book about a couple who escaped an Afghan honor killing for the author Rod Nordland. Until 2011, he was a freelance reporter and researcher for various foreign news organizations. He also served as interpreter and researcher on a biography of former Afghan president Hamid Karzai for the author Bette Dam.
About the Moderator
Leonard Niehoff is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where he teaches courses in Media Law, First Amendment, and the history of banned books, among other things. He is the author of more than one-hundred articles, many in the field of free speech, and is currently at work on a book about the First Amendment. He has also practiced media and First Amendment law for over thirty years, representing numerous print publications, broadcasters, online media, and journalists. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.
Free and open to the public.
For questions about the event email: WallaceHouseEvents@umich.edu
This event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Michigan Radio and the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies are co-sponsors of the event.
This local writer reads from and discusses You’d Be Mine, her debut romance novel about the relationship between a sweet country music heiress and a country superstar with a bad boy image who convinces her to join his tour. Signing.
7 p.m., Nicola’s, Westgate shopping center. Free. 662-0600
