Every 1st & 3rd Sun. 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.
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetrySlam.
Awards for the Winter Term writing contests administered by the Hopwood Awards Program will be announced. A lecture by Susan Choi will follow the announcement of the awards. Susan Choi’s first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, and her second novel, American Women, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. With David Remnick she co-edited the anthology Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Her latest novel is My Education (2013).
Monthly open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show. Each month 10 storytellers are selected at random from among those who sign up to tell a 3-5 minute story on the monthly theme. The 3 judges are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
2016 topics:
May 17: “Escape.”
June 21: “Fathers.”
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7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), The Circus, 210 S. First. $10. 764-5118.
Local short story writer Alex Kourvo and young adult novelist Bethany Neal host an open house for writers to connect with one another and/or work on their projects.
Local writer Gregory Fournier discusses his new true crime book about John Norman Collins and the Washtenaw County coed killings of the late 1960s for which he was convicted.
3-5 p.m., Brewed Awakenings, 7025 E. Michigan Ave., suite M, Saline. Free. 681-0078.
Readings by winners of the One Pause Poetry high school poetry contest.
7 p.m., Nicola’s Books, 2513 Jackson, Westgate shopping center. Free.info@onepausepoetry.com, 585-5567.
The five finalists in the contest for designation as the Ann Arbor youth poet laureate read from their poetry. The finalists were chosen from among the applicants by a panel of local poets-Scott Beal, Keith Taylor, Angel Nafis, Danez Smith, and Dee Matthews-some of whom are on hand tonight to select the winner. The winner receives a contract to have a debut collection of poems published by Penmanship Books in New York.
7-9 p.m., AADL multipurpose room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. Free. 327-8301.
Literati is pleased to partner with One Pause Poetry in showcasing the work of Rickey Laurentiis, Gretchen Marquette, Airea Matthews, and Ladan Osman.
Rickey Laurentiis is the author of Boy with Thorn, selected by Terrance Hayes for the2014 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and named one of the Top 16 Best Poetry Books by Buzzfeed. The recipient of a 2013 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2012 Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, his other honors include fellowships from the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Cave Canem Foundation, and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy.
Gretchen Marquette is the author of May Day, and has published poems in Harper’s, the Paris Review, and Tin House. She lives and teaches in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Airea D. Matthews is a 2015 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow and the executive editor of The Offing. She is currently the Assistant Director of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she earned her MFA. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2015, American Poet,The Missouri Review, The Baffler, Callaloo, Indiana Review, WSQ and elsewhere. Her performance work has been featured at the Cannes Lions Festival, PBS’ RoadTrip Nation and NPR.
Ladan Osman is the author of The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony. Her work has appeared in American Life in Poetry, Artful Dodge,Narrative Magazine, Prairie Schooner, RHINO, and Vinyl Poetry. Her chapbook, Ordinary Heaven, appears in Seven New Generation African Poets: A Chapbook boxed set. She lives in Chicago.
Every 1st & 3rd Sun. 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.
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetrySlam.
