Calendar

Aug
22
Thu
Book Club Bonanza: Celebrating Literati’s Monthly Book Clubs @ Literati
Aug 22 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

A special joint meeting of our monthly Literati, Poetry, and Feminist Book Clubs! 

Each club will meet in our second-floor events space to discuss August’s picks as usual. As always, you can purchase book club selections for 15% off the retail price. 

During the event, each club’s moderator will also talk about their monthly book club to all guests–each club’s mission, selection process, upcoming picks for the fall, and more. Guests from these three book clubs will then have the opportunity to meet & greet over provided refreshments. 

This a great opportunity to come to your normal book club while learning about our other book clubs, or–if you’re new to our book clubs–a chance to go through a complete meeting for one of them while learning about (and meeting participants from) all 3! 

Feminist Book Club

We strive to foster a fun, thoughtful, and safe environment in which to discuss current issues surrounding feminism and equality.

This month, we’ll discuss The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpente

Poetry Book Club

Next to fostering a greater appreciation for poetry by reading poems aloud and sharing reflections, our other primary goal is to ensure that the book club space is safe, inclusive, and exciting

This month’s pick is A Piece of Good News, by Katie Peterson.

Literati Book Club

This month’s pick is Orange World and Other Stories, by Karen Russell!

Aug
23
Fri
Robert Mills: JFK: The Last Speech @ Literati
Aug 23 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Robert Mills to discuss JFK: The Last Speech, which explores the dramatic relationship between two seminal Americans–President John F. Kennedy and the poet Robert Frost–which reached its tragic climax in a surprising encounter with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War. Born out of these events is Kennedy’s remarkable speech about poetry and power, which alters the life course of a group of Amherst College classmates who witness this compelling address and continue to exemplify in their contemporary lives a portrait of the challenges facing America.

Roger M. Mills MD is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of Pennsylvania medical school and completed his internal medicine training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. After serving in the United States Navy, he was a Research Fellow in cardiology at Harvard Medical School. He had a 30-year career in academic clinical cardiology, beginning in 1975 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA and including the University of Florida, where he was the medical director of the heart failure – heart transplant service and Professor of Medicine in the Cardiology Division. Before joining Scios in 2005, he was a staff cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic.

He lives in Dexter, MI with his wife, Katherine and their dog, Posie.

Aug
25
Sun
Ann Arbor Storytellers Guild @ AADL Downtown (3rd floor, Freespace)
Aug 25 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

All invited to listen to guild members swap stories or bring their own to tell, at the AASG monthly meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

Aug
26
Mon
Doc Fletcher: The History of Tiger Stadium: A Love Letter to Baseball at Michigan and Trumbull @ Saline District Library
Aug 26 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

“It was a night game, the field a shade of green that was the most beautiful color I’d ever seen, the smells, sounds, and sights of the pre-game action delightfully overwhelming… the air filled with the bouquet of hot dogs, spilt beer, and a cigar aroma much like that of the House of Windsor stogies preferred by my Dad. Cries of the vendors peddling those items pierced the air. Several Tigers were engaged in a game of pepper along the box seats down the right field foul line, as nearby Bill Freehan tossed a ball back ‘n forth with a teammate, entertaining the fans by playfully catching the ball behind his back.”

Doc Fletcher’s latest book is, “The History of Tiger Stadium: A Love Letter to Baseball at Michigan & Trumbull”, honoring The Cathedral at The Corner where – together with great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, siblings, children, godchildren, and friends – we have cheered our Detroit Tigers. Although the structure is gone, the memories remain.

Doc will share stories from the book of the characters on the field, in the stands, and those in the neighborhoods surrounding the ballpark, as well as the broadcasters who brought the action to us when we couldn’t be there ourselves.

 

Jia Tolentino: Trick Mirror @ Literati
Aug 26 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Jia Tolentino back to Ann Arbor in support of her debut collection of essays, Trick Mirror. A book signing to follow. Free and open to the public. 

Early praise for Trick Mirror: 

“It’s easy to write about things as you wish they were–or as others tell you they must be. It’s much harder to think for yourself, with the minimum of self-delusion. It’s even harder to achieve at a moment like this, when our thoughts are subject to unprecedented manipulation, monetization, and surveillance. Yet Tolentino has managed to tell many inconvenient truths in Trick Mirror–and in enviable style. This is a whip-smart, challenging book that will prompt many of us to take a long, hard look in the mirror. It filled me with hope.”– Zadie Smith

“In Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino’s thinking surges with a fierce, electric lyricism. Her mind is animated by rigor and compassion at once. She’s horrified by the world and also in love with it. Her truths are knotty but her voice is crystalline enough to handle them. She’s always got skin in the game; she knows we all do. Her intelligence is unrelenting and full-blooded, a heart beating inside every critique. She refuses easy morals, false binaries, and redemptive epiphanies, but all that refusal is in the service of something tender, humane, and often achingly beautiful–an exploration of what we long for, how we long for it, and all the stories we tell ourselves along the way.” –Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering

“It has been a consolation these last few years to know that no matter what was happening, Jia Tolentino would be writing about it, with a clear eye and a steady hand, a quick wit and a conscience, and in some of the best prose of her generation.” –Patricia Lockwood, author of Priestdaddy

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Raised in Texas, she studied at the University of Virginia before serving in Kyrgyzstan in the Peace Corps and receiving her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan. She was a contributing editor at The Hairpin and the deputy editor at Jezebel,and her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Grantland, Pitchfork, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn.

Aug
27
Tue
Stories from North Star Reach @ Literati
Aug 27 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Listen to teenage campers, counselors and staff share stories about the impact camp has had on their lives.

North Star Reach is a medically-supported camp on 105-acres in Pinckney, Michigan, serving children with serious health challenges and their families. Since 2016, through activity-packed residential summer camp and weekend spring and fall family camp programs, we have hosted more than 1,500 campers, including children living with sickle cell anemia, congenital heart disorders, and organ transplants. We are a not-for-profit organization dependent upon generous donors to serve all children at no cost to their families. To learn more about North Star Reach, visit www.northstarreach.org.

Aug
28
Wed
Sinister Schemes, Scandal and Murder: Historical Mysteries Author Panel @ Nicola's Books
Aug 28 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Agatha award nominee L.A. Chandlar, Agatha Award winner Dianne Freeman and New York Times Best-selling author C.M. Gleason to discuss the sinister schemes, scandal and murder that take place in their Historical Mystery novels. Won’t you join us for tea?

L.A. Chandlar, The Pearl Dagger

As the Great Depression loosens its grip on New York City, Mayor La Guardia and his team meet their greatest foe in the fight against organized crime…

Agatha award nominee L.A. Chandlar is an author and motivational speaker on the fight to keep creativity alive, demystifying creativity in the workplace and personally. She lives in New York City with her family. Visit her at lachandlar.com.

Dianne Freeman, A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder

How far will some go to safeguard a secret? In the latest novel in Dianne Freeman’s witty and delightful historical mystery series, the adventurous Countess Harleigh finds out…

Dianne Freeman is the acclaimed author of the Countess of Harleigh Mystery series. She is an Agatha Award and Lefty Award winner, as well as a nominee for the prestigious Mary Higgins Clark Award from Mystery Writers of America. She spent thirty years working in corporate accounting and finance and now writes full-time. Born and raised in Michigan, she and her husband now split their time between Michigan and Arizona. Visit her at www.DiFreeman.com.

C.M. GLEASON, Murder in The Oval Library

With the Confederate Army firing on Fort Sumter, the Civil War has begun—and an invasion of Washington, D.C., from Secessionist Virginia seems imminent. As the population evacuates, the President is in desperate need of men to defend the capital.

But even as dawn breaks with no Rebel strike, a single act of violence intrudes within the White House. One of the Frontier Guard lies dead in the oval library, throat slit ear to ear. There is a murderer among them…

C.M. Gleason is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Stoker & Holmes series for teens, in addition to the Lincoln White House mysteries. She lives in the Midwest and is hard at work on her next novel. Learn more at: cmgleason.com.

Poetry Salon: One Pause Poetry @ Argus Farm Stop
Aug 28 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

ONE PAUSE POETRY SALON is (literally) a greenhouse for poetry and poets, nurturing an appreciation for written art in all languages and encouraging experiments in creative writing.

We meet every Weds in the greenhouse at Argus Farm Stop on Liberty St. The poems we read each time are unified by form (haiku, sonnet, spoken word), poet, time / place (Tang Dynasty, English Romanticism, New York in the 70s) or theme / mood (springtime, poems with cats, protest poems). We discuss the poems and play writing games together, with time for snacks and socializing in between.

Members are encouraged to share their own poems or poems they like – they may or may not relate to the theme of the evening. This is not primarily a workshop – we may hold special workshop nights, but mostly we listen to and talk about poems for the sake of inspiring new writing.

Whether you are a published poet or encountering poetry for the first time, we invite you to join us!

$5 suggested donation for food, drinks and printing costs.

8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.

 

 

 

Aug
29
Thu
Fiction at Literati: Lillian Li: Number One Chinese Restaurant, and Akil Kumarasamy: Half Gods @ Literati
Aug 29 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We’re pleased to welcome Lillian Li and Akil Kumarasamy back to Literati Bookstore for an event celebrating the paperback release of their novels, Number One Chinese Restaurant, and Half Gods, respectively.  Book signing to follow. Free and open to the public. 

Lillian Li received her BA from Princeton and her MFA from the University of Michigan. She is the recipient of a Hopwood Award in Short Fiction, as well as Glimmer Train‘s New Writer Award. Her work has been featured in Guernica, Granta and Jezebel. She is from the D.C. metro area and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Number One Chinese Restaurant is her first novel.

Akil Kumarasamy is a writer from New Jersey. Her fiction has appeared in Harper’s MagazineAmerican Short FictionBoston Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has been a fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the University of East Anglia. Half Gods is her first book.

Sep
1
Sun
Ann Arbor Poetry: Zaphra Stupple and Native Child @ Espresso Royale
Sep 1 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Ann Arbor Poetry hosts an open mic every 1st and 3rd Sunday, with feature poets whenever we can get them.
$5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
Zaphra Stupple is a poet and multimedia artist living in Michigan. They are the author of There Will Still Be The Body (Red Beard Press, 2018). They were the 2017 Ann Arbor youth poet laureate. They were featured in Ann Arbor’s annual poetry show, Poetry Night, and are one third of the accompanying book, Joy, Despite. Their work has been published in The Offing, HEArt Journal, |tap| magazine, The Journal, and Vinyl, among others.

Kelly “Native Child” Mays is a licensed therapist, word warrior, award winning poet, annishnabe kwe, mother, wife, survivor. She incorporates poetry into her activism, therapy, and into her everyday life. A Detroit native, she is proud of both her American Indigenous ancestry and her African American Ancestry. She competed at the National Poetry Slam 2017 in Denver, CO, and in 2018. She was winner of the 2017 Round Robin Motown Mic and a 2018 and 2019 Motown Spoken Word Artist if the year finalist. She was featured in Cathexis Northwest Press in their September 2018 online journal. In 2019 she ranked 17 overall in the Rustbelt Regional Poetry competition out of 80 poets. She describes her poetry as quiet storms and her daughters as her greatest poems ever written.

 

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