Wil Haygood will read from his latest, Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and The Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America.
Wil Haygood is currently the Wiepking Visiting Distinguished Professor in the department of media, journalism, and film at Miami University, Ohio. For nearly three decades he was a journalist, serving as a national and foreign correspondent at The Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and then at The Washington Post, where he wrote the story “A Butler Well Served by this Election,” which became the basis for the award-winning motion picture The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels. Haygood’s book The Butler: A Witness to History has been translated into a dozen foreign languages. For his work on Showdown, Haygood was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. His biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sammy Davis Jr., and Sugar Ray Robinson have all garnered wide acclaim.
Three local children’s book illustrators discuss their work. Deb Pilutti’s Bear and Squirrel Are Friends explores the possibility of friendships between predators and prey. Deborah Marcero’sSadie’s Story concerns a funny witch who helps Sadie deal with her disappointment when her two best friends go on vacation together without her. Cathy Gendron’s The Nutcracker Comes to America tells how a 19th-century Russian ballet came to be a holiday tradition in contemporary America. Signing.
An open mike for poets, who are welcome to read their own work or a favorite poem by another writer. Followed by a reading by a featured poet TBA.
Stefan Szymanski will read from his latest, Money and Soccer.
Stefan Szymanski is professor of economics and the MBA Dean at the Cass Business School, City University London. He is the coauthor of Fans of the World, Unite!: A (Capitalist) Manifesto for Sports Consumers, National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer and Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football.
Ann Arbor Storytellers Guild members host a storytelling program. Audience members are encouraged to bring a 5-minute story to tell.
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.
All poets invited to compete in a poetry slam judged by a randomly chosen panel from the audience. The program begins with a poetry open mike and (occasionally) a short set by a featured poet.
8-11 p.m. (sign-up begins at 7:30 p.m.), $5 suggested donation. A2poetry.com.
