Literati partners with its neighbors at 826michigan for this one-of-a-kind event! Join for an evening of bedtime tales, all expertly written by 826michigan students from Huron High School, illustrated by world-renowned artists, and read (this one night only!) by caring supporters. Literati is celebrating the release of A Lantern of Fireflies, its latest Young Authors Publishing Project, a collection of stories that range from the suspenseful to the hilarious to the action-packed adventure, all designed to hook young readers in and then lull them to sleep. Hear these stories come to life from partnering teacher Sarah Andrew-Vaughn, illustrators Phil and Erin Stead, Oliver Uberti, 826michigan volunteers Alex Bernard and Abby Ruehlmann, and 826 National Founder Dave Eggers. Readers young and old are invited to come dressed for bedtime, too.
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John U. Bacon has written for “Time”, “The New York Times”, and “ESPN Magazine”, among other publications, earning national honors. He is the author of five books on sports and business, including End Zone, and Bo’s Lasting Lessons (with Bo Schembechler), a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Northwestern University and U-M and is a popular public speaker.
Michael Witwer will read from his book, Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons. Witwer has written a dynamic, dramatized biography of Gygax from his childhood in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to his untimely death in 2008. Gygax’s magnum opus, Dungeons & Dragons, would explode in popularity throughout the 1970s and ’80s and irreversibly alter the world of gaming. D&D is the best-known, best-selling role-playing game of all time, and it boasts an elite class of alumni–Stephen Colbert, Robin Williams, and Junot Diaz all have spoken openly about their experience with the game as teenagers, and some credit it as the workshop where their nascent imaginations were fostered. Gygax’s involvement in the industry lasted long after his dramatic and involuntary departure from D&D’s parent company, TSR, and his footprint can be seen in the genre he is largely responsible for creating.
This local children’s writer and illustrator discusses his books: The Woodcutter and the Most Beautiful Tree is about a tree who cleverly avoids the axe through 3 seasons and gets a pleasant surprise in the 4th. Lelani and the Plastic Kingdom is about a note in a plastic bottle that begins a fantastical adventure for a little girl from a small island in a big ocean. Signing.
This legendary punk rocker and award-winning writer reads from M Train, her new memoir told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she’s worked in around the world, from Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico to a meeting of an Arctic explorers society in Berlin to her favorite Greenwich Village café. Illustrated with her black-and-white polaroids, the memoir meditates on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee.
7 p.m., Michigan Theater. Tickets $24.50 & $35 in advance at ticketmaster.com; ticket purchase includes a copy of the book.
Joe Meno is a fiction writer and playwright who lives in Chicago. A winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Great Lakes Book Award, and a finalist for the Story Prize, he is the author of six novels, Office Girl, The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, Hairstyles of the Damned, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender as Hellfire. His short story collections are Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir and Demons in the Spring. His short fiction has been published in the likes of McSweeney’s, One Story, Swink, LIT, TriQuarterly, Other Voices, Gulf Coast, and broadcast on NPR. He was a contributing editor to Punk Planet, the seminal underground arts and politics magazine. His non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times and Chicago Magazine.
Nina Revoyr was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a white American father, and grew up in Tokyo, Wisconsin, and Los Angeles. She is the author of four novels. Her first book, The Necessary Hunger, was described by Time magazine as “the kind of irresistible read you start on the subway at 6 p.m. on the way home from work and keep plowing through until you’ve turned the last page at 3 a.m. in bed.” Southland, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and “Best Book of 2003,” a Book Sense 76 pick, an Edgar Award finalist, and the winner of the Ferro Grumley Award and the Lambda Literary Award. The Age of Dreaming, was a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Wingshooters was published in 2011. It was a Booklist Editors Choice for 2011 and an O: Oprah Magazine’s “Book to Watch For,” and has won an Indie Booksellers Choice Award and the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award. Her fifth novel, Lost Canyon was published in August, 2015. Nina is also co-editor of the college textbook Literature for Life: A Thematic Introduction to Reading and Writing. Nina is executive vice president and chief operating officer of a large nonprofit organization serving children affected by violence and poverty in Central and South Los Angeles. She has also been an Associate Faculty member at Antioch University, and a Visiting Professor at Cornell University, Occidental College, and Pitzer College. Nina lives in Northeast Los Angeles with her spouse and their dogs.
Benjamin Paloff will read from his second collection And His Orchestran.
Paloff grew up in Atlantic City and is a poetry editor at Boston Review. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, A Public Space, The Paris Review, and elsewhere, and he writes frequently for such publications as The Nation and the Times Literary Supplement. The recipient of grants and fellowships from the US Fulbright Program and the National Endowment for the Arts, he is also the translator of several works from Central and Eastern European literatures. He teaches at the University of Michigan.
Acclaimed local poet Carson and Oscar-winning actress Binoche discuss the current production of Antigone (see Oct. 14 listing) that stars Binoche and was translated by Carson. The program begins with a staged reading of Antigonick, Carson’s alternate translation of Antigone.
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.
Eileen Pollack will read from her latest, The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys’ Club.
The Only Woman in the Room shows us the struggles women in the sciences have been hesitant to admit, and provides hope for changing attitudes and behaviors in ways that could bring far more women into fields in which even today they remain seriously underrepresented.
Eileen Pollack is a member of the MFA faculty of the Department of English at the University of Michigan. She is the author of a collection of short fiction, The Rabbi in the Attic, and a novel, Paradise, New York.
