Literati is pleased to be the bookseller for this Osher Lifelong Learning Institute event with Scott Ellsworth, author of The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball’s Lost Triumph. You can find more information about the event here. The Secret Game won the 2016 PEN/ESPN Book Award, and was named a best book of the year by Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune.
Literati is pleased to welcome Chris Dombrowski in support of his memoir Body of Water: A Sage, a Seeker, and the World’s Most Alluring Fish.
Chris Dombrowski was playing a numbers game: two passions—poetry and fly-fishing; two children, one of them in utero; and an income hovering perilously close to zero. Enter, at this particularly challenging moment, a miraculous email: can’t go, it’s all paid for, just book a flight to Miami. Thus began a journey that would lead to the Bahamas and to David Pinder, a legendary bonefishing guide. Bonefish are prized for their elusiveness and their tenacity. And no one was better at hunting them than Pinder, a Bahamian whose accuracy and patience were virtuosic. He knows what the fish think, said one fisherman, before they think it. By the time Dombrowski meets Pinder, however, he has been abandoned by the industry he helped build. With cataracts from a lifetime of staring at the water and a tiny severance package after forty years of service, he watches as the world of his beloved bonefish is degraded by tourists he himself did so much to attract. But as Pinder’s stories unfold, Dombrowski discovers a profound integrity and wisdom in the guide’s life.
“A brilliant book. Destined to be a classic.”—Jim Harrison
Born in Michigan, Chris Dombrowski earned his MFA from the University of Montana. His publications include two collections of poems, By Cold Water (2009) and Earth Again (2013). His poetry and nonfiction have been widely published in leading journals and magazines. Also a well-established fly-fishing guide, Dombrowski lives in Missoula, Montana.
Brutally Honest Storytelling Open Mic is a live storytelling event where the audience is free to be real as they want to be. No experience necessary. New storytellers or experienced storytellers – everyone has stories. OR just come to listen, that’s okay too!
Stories have a 5 minute time limits. Notes are okay!
Hosted by Shannon Cason (The Moth, Snap Judgment, RISK!, WBEZ’s Homemade Stories). Shannon is a host, MainStage storyteller and GrandSlam champion with The Moth. He is a regular on RISK! and NPR’s Snap Judgment. Shannon also hosts his own storytelling podcast with WBEZ Chicago called Shannon Cason’s Homemade Stories. He is a husband, father, and from Detroit.
The Blind Pig, 208 N. First St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104. $7 (age 20 & under, $10).patriciarwheeler@gmail.com http://www.shannoncason.com/
Nov. 1 & 15. All adults and teens in grade 9 & up invited to work on their novel for this nonprofit promotion (also known as NaNoWriMo) challenging teens and adults to write a 50,000-word novel by the end of November.
Reading by Art Academy of Cincinnati creative writing professor poet Matt Hart, an award-winning poet who has 2 new books, the book-length serial poem Radiant Action, a philosophical meditation on life in our time and the timelessness of the desire to be always in awe, and the companion collection Radiant Companion. The program begins with open mike readings.
Literati is pleased to once again partner with the University of Michigan’s Sweetland Center for Writing in support of their Word2: Writer to Writer programming. Professor Philip J. Deloria is this installment’s featured guest.
Sweetland’s Word Squared: Writer to Writer series lets you hear directly from University of Michigan professors about their challenges, processes, and expectations as writers and also as readers of student writing. Each semester,Word² pairs one esteemed University professor with a Sweetland faculty member for a conversation about writing.
Word² sessions are broadcast live on WCBN radio. These conversations offer students a rare glimpse into the writing that professors do outside the classroom. You can hear instructors from various disciplines describe how they handle the same challenges student writers face, from finding a thesis to managing deadlines. Professors will also discuss what they want from student writers in their courses, and will take questions put forth by students and by other members of the University community. If there’s anything you’ve ever wanted to ask a professor about writing, Word² gives you the chance.
Professor Deloria is the Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor of American Culture and History, former LSA Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education, and past Director of the Program in American Culture and the AC Native American Studies program. He has served as president of the American Studies Association, a council member of the Organization of American Historians, and a Trustee of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of American Culture and the Department of History.
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.
Note: Beginning in August, the Storyslam is held twice a month, on the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), The Circus, 210 S. First. $10. 764-5118.
Literati is thrilled to be the bookseller for the Zell Visiting Writers Series at the University of Michigan. More information about the Helen Zell Writers’ Program, including a full calendar of visiting writers, can be found here. The November 17th installment of ZVWS will feature award-winning author Colm Tóibín.
Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. His seventh novel, Brooklyn, was recently adapted into a major motion picture, and his most recent novel, Nora Webster, received the Hawthornden Prize in 2015. Tóibín has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize on three different occasions, and been awarded the Los Angeles Times Novel of the Year, the Lamda Literary Award, the Costa Novel Award, and the Irish PEN Award, among many others. A celebrated essayist as well, Tóibín’s latest nonfiction book, On Elizabeth Bishop, offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of the American poet, who was one of his most important literary influences.
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.
Presented by Neutral Zone. Doors open at 6:30. Advance tickets are $5 for students, $10 for adults($7/12 at the door). . For tickets are more info: eyelev21@aol.com.
