All invited to listen to guild members swap stories or bring their own to tell.
Kirsten Pagacz, former 20-year OCD sufferer, felt a real sense of responsibility to share what she learned about OCD with other OCD sufferers and their families. That’s exactly why she wrote the self-help book, “Leaving the OCD Circus,” published by Red Wheel, Weiser, Conari Press who are located in Newburyport, Mass. Kirsten knew pitching her book idea was a long shot, especially as a first time author, but at one time, getting out of the clutches of OCD and living a joyful, healthy, well-balanced life was a long shot, too!
Pagacz says, her motivation to get up at 5am every morning to write content for her book, before starting her long work day at Retro-a-go-go!, was always to help other sufferers get onto the path of their big happy life, faster than she did.
Literati is pleased to partner with our friends at the Children’s Literacy Network for Bookplates, an event with beloved children’s author Alfred Slote; journalist and author of Endzone, John U. Bacon; and Emmy Award-winning producer, director, writer, and editor Jonathan Hock.
To puchase tickets, or for any questions about this event, please reach out to the Children’s Literacy Network here. The mission of CLN is to give all children in Washtenaw County an equal opportunity to develop a love of reading and books. Their programs include the following, which have provided over 200,000 books to children and families: Staying in Closer Touch, Uniting incarcerated parents and their children through reading; Mothers and Babies, It’s never too early to start reading; Read to Kids, Parents and their pre-schooler earn books for the family; Summer Book Program, Summertime reading to help narrow the achievement gap; and Summer Bookmobile, Bringing books to under-resourced neighborhoods.
Literati is pleased to be the bookseller for Susan Stellin and Graham MacIndoe’s visit to Ann Arbor. Susan and Graham will discuss their book Chancers: Addiction, Prison, Recovery, Love at the University of Michigan, sponsored by the Crime and Justice Minor Program.
In this powerful dual memoir, a reporter and a photographer tell their gripping story of falling in love, the heroin habit that drove them apart, and the unlikely way a criminal conviction brought them back together.
From their harrowing portrayal of the ravages of addiction to the stunning chain of events that led to Graham’s arrest and imprisonment at Rikers Island, Chancersunfolds in alternating chapters that offer two perspectives on a relationship that ultimately endures against long odds. Susan, a tenacious reporter, follows Graham down the rabbit hole of the American criminal justice system, determined to keep him from becoming another casualty of the war on drugs. Graham gives a stark, riveting description of his slide from brownstone Brooklyn to a prison cell, his gut-wrenching efforts to get clean, and his fight to avoid getting exiled far away from his son and the life he built over twenty years.
Beautifully written, brutally honest, yet filled with suspense and hope, Chancerswill resonate with anyone who has been touched by the heartache of addiction, the nightmare of incarceration, or the tough choice of leaving or staying with someone who is struggling on the road to recovery.
Literati is thrilled to welcome artist Michele Oka Doner in support of her most recent work, Into the Mysterium, a book that reveals the wondrous marine creatures deep in the heart of the endangered oceans that cover most of our planet.
With the oceans covering over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, our planet can be called a marine planet. Beneath the waves are millions of remarkable creatures—beautiful big whales, dangerous jellyfish, legions of phytoplankton—but also, perhaps least known, are the marine invertebrates who make up an essential part of marine life. At the University of Miami, Florida, one museum is devoted to the study of Atlantic and Eastern Pacific marine invertebrates—over 93,000 specimens. Many of them were pulled from the Gulf of Panama, throughout the Caribbean, the Florida Keys, and the eastern Pacific over the last fifty years. They represent creatures that may never be seen again as the oceans grow ever more polluted and as global warming wreaks havoc on these ecosystems. Here, in lavishly beautifully photographs, nearly 100 of the rarest, most wondrous, mystifying, and entrancing specimens are brought into the light. From rare seahorses to now extinct corals, these invertebrates leave one gasping again at the extraordinary beauty and mystery of our world.
Michele Oka Doner is an internationally renowned artist whose career spans four decades. The breadth of her artistic production encompasses sculpture, furniture, jewelry, public art, functional objects, video, as well as costume and set design. She is well-known for creating numerous public art installations throughout the United States, including Radiant Site at New York’s Herald Square subway, Flight at Washington’s Reagan International Airport, and A Walk on the Beach at the Miami International Airport. Her artwork can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Louvre, the Yale Art Gallery, the Princeton University Art Museum, and many others. (Author photo: Bruce Weber.)
Literati is pleased to be the bookseller for the Author’s Forum’s presentationof “Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method,” a conversation with Joan Kee and David Chung.
A crucial artistic movement of twentieth-century Korea, Tansaekhwa (monochromatic painting) also became one of its most famous and successful. In this full-color, richly illustrated account—the first of its kind in English—Joan Kee provides a fresh interpretation of the movement’s emergence and meaning that sheds new light on the history of abstraction, twentieth-century Asian art, and contemporary art in general. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the most controversial and influential artistic movement in contemporary Korean art. With detailed formal analysis on the important artworks and locating them within the broader historical and intellectual framework, Joan Kee vividly portrays how Korean artists responded to the international art world and positioned Tansaekhwa as an alternative to Euro-American art. Contemporary Korean Art makes essential reading for anyone interested in the non-Western artists’ negotiations to global art in the twentieth century.
This event will be recorded
Join us for a special mystery-lovers evening as historical mystery writers Maureen Jennings and Nancy Herriman discuss their work and the history/mystery genre. This event, cosponsored by Aunt Agatha’s Mystery Bookstore, includes a book signing and books will be for sale. Note: mystery writer Tasha Alexander, also scheduled to present, is unfortunately unable to attend this event.
Born in England, Maureen Jennings emigrated to Canada as a teenager. The first acclaimed Detective Murdoch mystery was published in 1997. Six more followed, all to enthusiastic reviews.
In 2003, Shaftesbury Films adapted three of the novels into movies of the week, and four years later the Murdoch Mysteries TV series was created. It is now shown around the world.
The Detective Inspector Tom Tyler series, set in World War II-era England, got off to a spectacular start with 2011’s Season of Darkness, followed by Beware This Boyin 2012.
Her newest book, “Dead Ground in Between,” is the haunting fourth novel in the DI Tom Tyler series. Set in Britain during the darkest days of World War II, this is a must-read especially for those interested in wartime dramas.
Nancy Herriman abandoned a career in Engineering to chase around two small children and take up the pen. She hasn’t looked back. A multi-published author, she is also a former winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Daphne du Maurier award for Best Unpublished Mystery/Romantic Suspense.
Oct. 26: Readings by Kalamazoo Valley Community College English teacher Robert Haight, the author of 3 poetry collections, and Joy Gaines-Friedler, a widely published Detroit-area poet who has released 2 collections, Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
Literati is pleased to welcome poets Troy Jollimore and Heather Altfeld for a reading and signing.
Troy Jollimore’s most recent collection of poetry, Syllabus of Errors, was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best poetry books of 2015. His previous poetry books are At Lake Scugog (2011) and Tom Thomson in Purgatory, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry for 2006. He teaches philosophy at California State University, Chico, and is the author of two philosophical works,Love’s Vision and On Loyalty. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Heather Altfeld is the author of The Disappearing Theatre, chosen by Stephen Dunn for the Poets at Work prize. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, ZYZZYVA, Pleiades, Copper Nickel, The Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Watershed, and others, and she has written essays for North American Review, Superstition Review, and Poetry Northwest. Her research and areas of interest include Children’s Literature, Anthropology and Poetry, Waldorf Education for K-12, and things that have vanished. She has taught in Juvenile Hall, California Poets-in the Schools, Teachers and Writers Collaborative in New York City, and various campuses in the North State.
This bestselling children’s writer and illustrator-author of many pop-up books, including America the Beautiful and A Winter’s Tale: An Original Pop-Up Journey-discusses his work and leads a hands-on pop-up book-making activity for adults.
7 p.m., Concordia University Kreft Center Black Box Theater, 4090 Geddes at Earhart. Free, but reservations required. 995-7537.
