All writers welcome to share and discuss their poetry and short fiction. Sign up for new participants begins at 6:45 p.m.
Storytellers Guild members present a program of old tales and personal stories for grownups.
Free; donations accepted.annarborstorytelling.org, facebook.com/annarborstorytellers.
All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share. Hosted by local poets and former college English teachers Joe Kelty and Ed Morin.
Literati is delighted to be the bookseller for Margot Lee Shetterly’s visit to Ann Arbor in support of her book, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. Margot will speak at Rackham Auditorium (915 E. State Street) at 4pm, and then participate in a fireside chat at Stamps Auditorium on North Campus at 6:30pm, with a signing to follow.
Audiences of all backgrounds will be captivated by the phenomenal true story of the black “human computers” who used math to change their own lives—and their country’s future. Set against the rich backdrop of World War II, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Era, and the burgeoning fight for gender equality, this talk brings to life the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who worked as mathematicians at NASA during the golden age of space travel. Teaching math at segregated schools in the South, they were called into service during the WWII labor shortages. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had jobs worthy of their skills at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, in Hampton, Virginia. Even as Jim Crow laws segregated them from their white counterparts, the women of this all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. They were part of a group of hundreds of black and white women who, over the decades, contributed to some of NASA’s greatest successes.
In this keynote, Margot Lee Shetterly talks about race, gender, science, the history of technology, and much else. She shows us the surprising ways that women and people of color have contributed to American innovation while pursuing the American Dream. In sweeping, dramatic detail, she sheds light on a forgotten but key chapter in our history, and instills in us a sense of wonder, and possibility.
Margot Lee Shetterly grew up in Hampton, Virginia, where she knew many of the women in her book Hidden Figures. She is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow and the recipient of a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grant for her research on women in computing. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Readings by WSU English professor Caroline Maun, a widely published poet whose collections include The Sleeping and What Remains, and Cruel Garters journal editor Glen Armstrong, an Oakland University writing professor who has published several chapbooks. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
RC Creative Writing alumna Carrie Smith joins our book club to talk about and sign her new novel Forgotten City. Everyone is welcome.
All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share. Hosted by local poets and former college English teachers Joe Kelty and Ed Morin.
Reading by Grand Valley State University creative writing professor Amorak Huey, a widely published poet and former Grand Rapids Press assistant sports editor whose most recent collection is Ha Ha Thump. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike
Mar. 8: All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share. Hosted by local poets and former college English teachers Joe Kelty and Ed Morin.
Mar. 22: Readings by Jennifer Clark, a Kalamazoo poet who has a forthcoming 2nd collection Johnny Appleseed: The Slice and Times of John Chapman, and InsideOut Literary Arts Project (Detroit) interim director and Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Detroit project coordinator Alise Alousi, whose work is featured in Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
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7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757
“Slugg: A Boy’s Life in the Age of Mass Incarceration” is a blueprint for survival and a demonstration of the power of love, sacrifice, and service. The son of a Kingpin and the prince of a close-knit crime family, Tony Lewis Jr.’s life took a dramatic turn after his father’s arrest in 1989. Washington D.C. stood as the murder capital of the country and Lewis was cast into the heart of the struggle, from a life of stability and riches to one of chaos and poverty. How does one make it in America, battling the breakdown of families, the plague of premature death and the hopelessness of being reviled, isolated, and forgotten? Tony Lewis’ astonishing journey answers these questions and offers, for the first time, a close look at the familial residue of America’s historic program of mass incarceration.
