All area women invited to a reading by this Michigan poet, whose 2016 collection, Sharp Blue Search of Flame, includes dark, brooding poems that reflect her Jewish Indian roots and her experiences in Eastern and Western cultures. Socializing, refreshments. Child care available for kids age 5 & under. IN has no political or religious affiliation.
1-2:30 p.m., Zion Lutheran Church, 1501 W. Liberty. Free. 662-5723
1:30-3:30 pm – Roundtable in Hebrew: Readings of texts and discussion with UM faculty and graduate students: Maya Barzilai, Yael Kenan, Nadav Linial, Marina Mayorski, Shachar Pinsker
4:00-5:30 pm – Panel in English: Discussion with the authors about shared themes and questions from U-M faculty and graduate students
Moderator: Maya Barizlai
5:30-6:30 pm – Reception with Authors
6:30-7:45 pm – Conversation with Authors: Maya Arad, Dory Manor, Ruby Namdar, and Moshe Sakal (in English. Books will be available for sale)
Moderator: Shachar Pinsker
The symposium brings four writers, who stand at the forefront of contemporary Hebrew literature in Israel and the US, in conversation with University of Michigan scholars and students. It features the highly acclaimed writers Maya Arad, Ruby Namdar, and Moshe Sakal, and the prize-winning poet, translator, and editor Dory Manor. Writers and scholars will discuss the meaning of writing Hebrew today in Israel and around the world, and the contacts between Hebrew and other languages. They will consider the challenges of translation, editing, and disseminating literature in a global context, as well as the political implications of Hebrew literature today.
The front entrance of Rackham, located on East Washington, is accessible by stairs and ramp. There are elevators on both the east and wends ends of the lobby. The assembly hall is on the fourth floor.
If you have a disability that requires an accommodation, contact the Judaic Studies office at judaicstudies@umich.edu or 734-763-9047.
It’s considered one of America’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. Many remember the night of November 24, 1971 when we learned a man named D.B. Cooper hijacked the NWA flight 305.
Now, for the first time, Joe Koenig is releasing the details of his investigation to the public in Getting the Truth: I am D.B. Cooper. Joe retired from the Michigan State Police after 26 years of service and has over 50 years of investigative experience in both public and private sectors. He was the lead investigator of the James R. Hoffa disappearance case and has investigated homicides, organized crime, financial crimes, narcotics, and public corruption. His experience includes past presidency of the Michigan National Academy Associates and a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). Most importantly in this case, which relies heavily on written correspondence, audio tapes, and personal witness testimony, Joe is a pioneer in the field of forensic linguistics. Joe will share with us stories from his time with the case and will sign copies following the event.
Literati is excited to welcome author Stephen Mack Jones who will be discussing his latest novel Lives Laid Away, follow-up to his award-winning novel August Snow.
About Lives Laid Away:
Detroit ex-cop August Snow takes up vigilante justice when his beloved neighborhood of Mexicantown is caught in the crosshairs of a human trafficking scheme.
When the body of an unidentified young Hispanic woman dressed as Queen Marie Antoinette is dredged from the Detroit River, the Detroit Police Department wants the case closed fast. Wayne County Coroner Bobby Falconi gives the woman’s photo to his old pal ex-police detective August Snow, insisting August show it around his native Mexicantown to see if anyone recognizes her. August’s good friend Elena, a prominent advocate for undocumented immigrants, recognizes the woman immediately as a local teenager, Isadora del Torres.
Izzy’s story is one the authorities don’t want getting around–and she’s not the only young woman to have disappeared during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid, only to turn up dead a few weeks later. Preyed upon by the law itself, the people of Mexicantown have no one to turn to. August Snow, the son of an African-American cop and a Mexican-American painter, will not sit by and watch his neighbors suffer in silence. In a guns-blazing wild ride across Detroit, from its neo-Nazi biker hole-ups to its hip-hop recording studios, its swanky social clubs to its seedy nightclubs, August puts his own life on the line to protect the community he loves.
Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, an award-winning playwright, and a recipient of the prestigious Hammett Prize and the Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and currently lives in the suburbs of Detroit. He worked in advertising and marketing communications for a number of years before turning to fiction.
One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends – a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
Readings by U-M creative writing grad students, including poetry by Erika Nestor and prose by ‘Pemi Aguda.
7 p.m., UMMA Auditorium, 525 S. State. Free. 764-6330
Talk by this CNN political commentator and bestselling writer, author of For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough, winner of the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Nonfiction in 2013.
2 p.m., EMU Student Center Auditorium, 900 Oakwood, Ypsilanti. Free. 487-1849.
This Georgetown University sociology professor and New York Times opinion writer–a Detroit native–discusses MLK and African American leadership in the 21st century.
2-4:30 p.m., 100 U-M Hatcher Grad Library Gallery, enter from the Diag. Free. 764-7522.
Literati is thrilled to welcome author Kristen Roupenian who will be sharing her new collection You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Stories.
About You Know You Want This:
From the author of “Cat Person”–“the short story that launched a thousand theories” (The Guardian)–comes Kristen Roupenian’s highly anticipated debut, a compulsively readable collection of short stories that explore the complex–and often darkly funny–connections between gender, sex, and power across genres.
You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them. Among its pages are a couple who becomes obsessed with their friend hearingthem have sex, then seeing them have sex…until they can’t have sex without him; a ten-year-old whose birthday party takes a sinister turn when she wishes for “something mean”; a woman who finds a book of spells half hidden at the library and summons her heart’s desire: a nameless, naked man; and a self-proclaimed “biter” who dreams of sneaking up behind and sinking her teeth into a green-eyed, long-haired, pink-cheeked coworker.
Spanning a range of genres and topics–from the mundane to the murderous and supernatural–these are stories about sex and punishment, guilt and anger, the pleasure and terror of inflicting and experiencing pain. These stories fascinate and repel, revolt and arouse, scare and delight in equal measure. And, as a collection, they point a finger at you, daring you to feel uncomfortable–or worse, understood–as if to say, “You want this, right? You know you want this.”
Kristen Roupenian graduated from Barnard College and holds a PhD in English from Harvard, as well as an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. She is the author of the short story, “Cat Person,” which was published in The New Yorker and selected by Sheila Heti for The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018. She is currently at work on a novel.
Panel discussion on U-M Afroamerican and African studies professor Naomi André’s book, with André, RC and U-M women’s studies professor Abigail Stewart, and U-M musicology professor Gabriela Cruz.
3:30 p.m., 2239 Lane Hall, 204 S. State. Free. 764-9537
Literati is excited to welcome David Stephen Calonne who will be presenting this new collection of Charles Bukowski’s work The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way: On Writers and Writing.
About The Mathematicsc of the Breath and the Way:
In The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way, Charles Bukowski considers the art of writing, and the art of living as a writer. Bringing together a variety of previously uncollected stories, columns, reviews, introductions, and interviews, this book finds him approaching the dynamics of his chosen profession with cynical aplomb, deflating pretensions and tearing down idols armed with only a typewriter and a bottle of beer. Beginning with the title piece–a serious manifesto disguised as off-handed remarks en route to the racetrack–The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way runs through numerous tales following the author’s adventures at poetry readings, parties, film sets, and bars, and also features an unprecedented gathering of Bukowski’s singular literary criticism. From classic authors like Hemingway to underground legends like d.a. levy to his own stable of obscure favorites, Bukowski uses each occasion to expound on the larger issues around literary production. The book closes with a handful of interviews in which he discusses his writing practices and his influences, making this a perfect guide to the man behind the myth and the disciplined artist behind the boozing brawler.
David Stephen Calonne is the author of several books and has edited four previous collections of the uncollected work of Charles Bukowski for City Lights: Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook, Absence of the Hero, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man, and The Bell Tolls for No One.
