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Jan. 8 & 15. Open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit that also produces a weekly public radio show. Ten storytellers are selected at random to tell a 3-5 minute story–this month’s themes are “Backwards”(Jan. 8) & “Drive” (Jan. 15)–judged by a 3-person team recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Seating limited, so arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. General admission tickets $10 in advance only at themoth.org beginning a week before each event. 764-5118.
Join us for a signing with C.A. Collins, of her new book Sunshine through the Rain. Ms. Collins was born and raised in the Deep South where sweet tea, seafood gumbo, and “bless your heart” were commonplace. Ms. Collins was recently published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Crazy Family. Sunshine through the Rain follows Christie Ann Cook, a cynical, wise-beyond-her-years, truth-telling young girl who is coming of age in the Deep South during the civil rights movement, women’s rights, and Roe v. Wade. Christie narrates her story mixing equal measures of drama and humor.
Ticket Information:
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Event Details
Seating at the event will be first-come first-served. This event will be a standing-room crowd, so if you require a seat for medical reasons, please contact us in advance to make arrangements.
About the Book
Sunshine through the Rain follows Christie Ann Cook, a cynical, wise-beyond-her-years, truth-telling young girl who is coming of age in the Deep South during the civil rights movement, women’s rights, and Roe v. Wade. Christie narrates her story mixing equal measures of drama and humor. She is trying to determine who she is in a home where her mother’s main goal is to turn her into a Southern belle while her father tries to turn her into the boy he always wanted. Guided by Ernestine, the family’s housekeeper/nanny/saint, Christie develops her own ideas of right and wrong, and they aren’t always popular in the racially charged South. Christie takes us through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the violent death of Ernestine’s young cousin, and the rape of her college roommate. She desperately tries to make sense of a world that’s gone crazy, realizing in the end each one of us decides our own fate and the right thing and the difficult thing are most often the same thing.
About the Author
Ms. Collins was born and raised in the Deep South where sweet tea, seafood gumbo, and “bless your heart” were commonplace. Ms. Collins was recently published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Crazy Family. She began writing short stories when she was six years old, and two years ago, she decided to try her hand at writing a full-time. Before taking time off to write, she was the director of several nonprofit agencies, including United Way and Habitat for Humanity. She lives in the upper Midwest with her husband, Mike, and their Coondog, Lincoln. Ms. Collins has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice administration and a master’s degree in organizational leadership both from Concordia University Ann Arbor. Ms. Collins is currently working on a true crime account of a murder that occurred in mid-Michigan in 1977 and was closed thirty years later without a conviction. Sunshine through the Rain is her first novel.
This acclaimed writer reads from Reading with Patrick, her memoir about teaching underprivileged students in Helena (AR) and her relationship with a gifted student who was later jailed for murder. The book is this year’s Washtenaw Reads selection.
7-8:30 p.m., Rackham Auditorium. Free. 327-4200.
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
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.
