Dt.Theater will present “Unschuld” (Innocence).
“The Glass Sandwich” – string quartets by Philip Glass, Dvorak, Schubert and Beethoven; Trios by Piazzolla, Faure, Saint-Saens and Kummer performed by RC Chamber Musicians
RC theater students present a program of short plays TBA.
RC Chamber Musicians perform music by Ewazen, Rossini, Borodin, Brahms, Weber, Schubert and Gliere.
Dt.Theater will present “Unschuld” (Innocence).
Jennifer Burd has published lyric poetry and haiku in a variety of print and online journals. She is the author of a book of poems, Body and Echo, and a book of creative nonfiction, Daily Bread: A Portrait of Homeless Men & Women of Lenawee County, Michigan. She has co-written (with Laszlo Slomovits) a children’s play based on Patricia Polacco’s picture book I Can Hear the Sun, which was produced in 2015 by Ann Arbor’s Wild Swan Theater. Jennifer received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and she teaches online courses through the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. She works as an editor and writer for HighScope Educational Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Laszlo Slomovits is one of the twin brothers in Ann Arbor’s nationally-known children’s folk music duo, Gemini (GeminiChildrensMusic.com). A fine singer and multi-instrumentalist, Laszlo has given concerts throughout the U.S. and a number of his award-winning songs are featured in songbooks music teachers use throughout the country. In addition to his music for children, Laszlo has set to music the work of many poets. His recordings of these song-settings include five CDs of the poetry of ancient Sufi mystics, Rumi and Hafiz as well as “White Picture” by the Holocaust-era Czech poet Jiri Orten and “Cry of Freedom,” the poetry of contemporary American poet Linda Nemec Foster.
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.
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.
Literati is delighted to host the launch of Chris McCormick’s debut, Desert Boys.
A vivid and assured work of fiction from a major new voice, following the life of a young man growing up, leaving home, and coming back again, marked by the stark beauty of California’s Mojave Desert and the various fates of those who leave and those who stay behind. This series of powerful, intertwining stories illuminates Daley Kushner’s world–the family, friends and community that have both formed and constrained him, and his new lief in San Francisco. Back home, the desert preys on those who cannot conform: an alfalfa farmer on the outskirts of town; two young girls whose curiosity leads to danger; a black politician who once served as his school’s confederate mascot; Daley’s mother, an immigrant from Armenia; and Daley himself, introspective and queer. Meanwhile, in another desert on the other side of the world, war threatens to fracture Daley’s most meaningful–and most fraught–connection to home, his friendship with Robert Karinger. A luminous debut, Desert Boys traces the development of towns into cities, of boys into men, and the haunting effects produced when the two transformations overlap. Both a bildungsroman and a portrait of a changing place, the book mines the terrain between the desire to escape and the hunger to belong.
“This is a book about place, or really like so many books about place (Dubliners, Winesburg, Ohio) two places, in this case two Californias―San Francisco on the one hand; the less familiar but finely evoked small desert community from which the narrator originates on the other. But it’s also a book about shame, two shames, the shame of where we come from, and the shame of leaving it. Through a series of quietly intimate confessions we learn how torn the teller is between past and present, small town and big city, and McCormick captures this tension beautifully in the contrast between his laconic, but frankly feeling prose and his restless formal innovation. Wise and vulnerable by turns, this is a quietly stunning debut.”―Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
Chris McCormick was raised in the Antelope Valley. He earned his B.A. at the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.F.A. at the University of Michigan, where he was the recipient of two Hopwood Awards. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Nicola’s Books is an official Children’s Book Week store and we have put together a great Special Story Time for you. We will have local picture book authors Shanda Trent and Melanie Zwegers coming who will read their books and as a special treat The Library Mouse will also stop by for a visit! So bring you youngsters and have some fun.
Melanie M Zwegers is a writer and illustrator of children’s literature. She is a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan and graduated with honors and two degrees from the University of Michigan. She now lives and works in Northville, Michigan with the support and encouragement of her wonderful husband, family, and friends.
Shanda Trent has worked with young children for 30 years. She has read thousands of picture books–to her own daughters, to small groups of toddlers and preschoolers, and classrooms of elementary children. She knows what kids love, and what brings them back to a beloved book again and again. Her first book was ‘Farmer’s Market Day’ and her newest is ‘Giddy-Up Buckaroo’.
Every child can be a writer—and Library Mouse shows them how! Beloved children’s books author and illustrator Daniel Kirk wonderfully brings to life the story of Sam, a library mouse. Sam’s home was in a little hole in the wall behind the children’s reference books, and he thought that life was very good indeed; for Sam loved to read. He read picture books and chapter books, biographies and poetry, and ghost stories and mysteries. Sam read so much that finally one day he decided to write books himself! Sam shared his books with other library visitors by placing them on a bookshelf at night…until there came the time that people wanted to meet this talented author. Whatever was Sam to do? The joy of reading, writing, and sharing is brought to life in this warmhearted tale.
