Calendar

Jan
22
Wed
Poetry and the Written Word: Khaled Mattawa @ Crazy Wisdom
Jan 22 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and David Jibson • Second and Fourth Wednesdays, 7-9 p.m. in the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room • Second Wednesdays are poetry workshop nights. All writers welcome to share and discuss their own poetry and short fiction. Sign up for new participants begins at 6:45 p.m.

Fourth Wednesdays have a featured reader for 50 minutes and then open mic for an hour. All writers welcome to share. Sign up begins at 6:45 p.m. Free. Contact Ed at 668-7523; eacmorso@sbcglobal.net or cwpoetrycircle.tumblr.com.

Jan. 22 • Khaled Mattawa has published five books of poems, translated several books of poetry, and edited anthologies of Arab American writing. Recently his Mare Nostrum appeared from the Quarternote Chapbook Series of Sarabande Books. He has a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He teaches creative writing at UMich and edits Michigan Quarterly Review.

 

Jan
23
Thu
Zell Visiting Writers: Rion Amilcar Scott @ UMMA Auditorium
Jan 23 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Literati is pleased to be the official bookseller for the Zell Visiting Writing Series, produced by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. 

Rion Amilcar Scott’s story collection, The World Doesn’t Require You (Norton/Liveright, August 2019), shatters rigid genre lines to explore larger themes of religion, violence, and love—all told with sly humor and a dash of magical realism.

Scott’s debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His work has been published in journals such as The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, and The Rumpus, among others. One of his stories was listed as a notable in Best American Stories 2018 and one of his essays was listed as a notable in Best American Essays 2015. He was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, and earned an MFA from George Mason University where he won both the Mary Roberts Rinehart award and a Completion Fellowship. He is currently a Kimbilio fellow and lives in Annapolis, MD.

This event is free and open to the public. Onsite book sales will be provided by Literati Bookstore.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series brings outstanding writers to campus each semester. UMMA is pleased to be the site for most of these events. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from U-M alumna Helen Zell (BA ’64, LLDHon ’13). For more information, please visit the Zell Visiting Writers Program webpage: https://lsa.umich.edu/writers

Fiction at Literati: Luke Geddes: Heart of Junk @ Literati
Jan 23 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome author Luke Geddes as part of our ongoing Fiction at Literati series and in support of his novel, Heart of Junk. Free and open to the public. Book signing to follow. 

About the book: A hilarious debut novel about an eclectic group of merchants at a Kansas antique mall who becomes implicated in the kidnapping of a local beauty pageant star.

“Luke Geddes is a master of humor. Heart of Junk deftly explores the loneliness of the human condition through a dazzling spectrum of characters. You will laugh ’til you cry, and cry ’til you laugh. This book is an instant cult classic. Meet your new favorite author.”– Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love and Tampa

Luke Geddes holds a PhD in comparative literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. Originally from Appleton, Wisconsin, he now lives Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of the short story collection I am a Magical Teenage Princess and his writing has appeared in ConjunctionsMid-American ReviewHayden’s Ferry ReviewWashington Square ReviewThe Comics JournalElectric Literature, and elsewhere.

Jan
24
Fri
Poetry at Literati: Matthew Thorburn and Mary Biddinger @ Literati
Jan 24 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Matthew Thoburn & Mary Biddinger to read from their latest collections as part of our ongoing Poetry at Literati Series. Book signing to follow. Free and open to the public. 

Matthew Thorburn is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Dear Almost, winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and son.

Mary Biddinger is the author of six poetry collections: Prairie Fever (Steel Toe Books, 2007), the chapbook Saint Monica (Black Lawrence Press, 2011), O Holy Insurgency (Black Lawrence Press, 2013), A Sunny Place with Adequate Water (Black Lawrence Press, 2014), Small Enterprise (Black Lawrence Press, 2015), and a collaboration with Jay Robinson titled The Czar (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). She is also the co-editor of a volume of essays, The Monkey and the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics (with John Gallaher, University of Akron Press, 2011). Her latest is a collection of prose poems, Partial Genius. 

Webster Reading Series: Cherline Bazile and Aozora Brockman @ UMMA Auditorium
Jan 24 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

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.

 

Jan
28
Tue
Skazat! Poetry Series: David Hinrichsen @ Sweetwaters
Jan 28 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Come kick off a new year of poetry with us at Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea Washington St. with a fabulous feature by Dennis Hinrichsen! Whether you’re a page poet, slammer, performance artist or refuse a label, we want to hear your new stuff on our open mic. We look forward to sharing great poetry (and great coffee) with you and invite you to join this free open mic and monthly reading series!

Sign up! 7:00 p.m.
7:15 p.m. – Open mic
8:00 p.m. – Featured Reader
This month’s feature: DENNIS HINRICHSEN!

Dennis Hinrichsen is the author of three chapbooks and seven previous full-length collections. His most recent work is is [q / lear], a chapbook from Green Linden Press, and Skin Music, winner of the 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review Press. His previous books include Rip-tooth (2010 Tampa Poetry Prize), Kurosawa’s Dog (2008 FIELD Poetry Prize), and Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights (1999 Akron Poetry Prize). Other awards include the 2015 Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Prize from Map Literary for Electrocution, A Partial History as well as the 2016 Third Coast Poetry Prize and a 2014 Best of the Net Award. New work of his can be found in two anthologies from Michigan State University Press, Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice, and RESPECT: An Anthology of Poems on Detroit Music. From May 2017 – April 2019, he served as the first Poet Laureate of the Greater Lansing [MI] area.

Feb
4
Tue
Fiction at Literati: Jennifer Acker: The Limits of the World @ Literati
Feb 4 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome debut novelist Jennifer Acker in support of The Limits of the World.

About the book: Spanning four generations and three continents, The Limits of the World illuminates the vast mosaic of cultural divisions and ethical considerations that shape the ways in which we judge one another’s actions. A dazzling debut novel–written with rare empathy and insight–it is a powerful depiction of how we prevent ourselves, unwittingly and otherwise, from understanding the people we are closest to.

The Limits of The World is such a smart, compassionate and elegant novel, so deeply invested in morality and the subtleties of families, cultures, and continents, that it feels delicious and exciting to recall that this is Jennifer Acker’s debut.”–Lauren Groff, author of Florida

Jennifer Acker is founder and editor in chief of The Common. Her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, Guernica, The Yale Review, and Ploughshares, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and organizes LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. The Limits of the World is her debut novel.

Feb
5
Wed
Poetry and the Written Word: Poetry Workshop @ Crazy Wisdom
Feb 5 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and David Jibson • Second and Fourth Wednesdays, 7-9 p.m. in the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room • Second Wednesdays are poetry workshop nights. All writers welcome to share and discuss their own poetry and short fiction. Sign up for new participants begins at 6:45 p.m.

Fourth Wednesdays have a featured reader for 50 minutes and then open mic for an hour. All writers welcome to share. Sign up begins at 6:45 p.m. Free. Contact Ed at 668-7523; eacmorso@sbcglobal.net or cwpoetrycircle.tumblr.com.

 

Feb
6
Thu
Zell Visiting Writers: Rya Kaminsky @ UMMA Auditorium
Feb 6 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Literati is pleased to be the official bookseller for the Zell Visiting Writing Series, produced by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. 

Ilya Kaminsky’s widely acclaimed parable in poems, Deaf Republic (Graywolf, 2019), reads like a two-act political drama in which lyric poems trace the experiences of citizens living under martial law. A New Yorker review called it a work of “profound imagination.” Poems from Deaf Republic were awarded Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize and the Pushcart Prize.

Kaminsky is also the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), and Musica Humana (Chapiteau Press, 2002). Kaminsky has won the Whiting Writer’s Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and the Foreword Magazine’s Best Poetry Book of the Year award. Recently, he was on the short-list for the Neusdadt International Literature Prize. His poems have been translated into numerous languages and his books have been published in many countries including Turkey, Holland, Russia, France, Mexico, Macedonia, Romania, Spain and China, where his poetry was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize. His poems have been compared to work by Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Marina Tsvetaeva.

He is the editor of several anthologies, among them The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Ecco, 2010), co-edited with Susan Harris, which John Ashbery praised as “immediately indispensable;” A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith(Tupelo Press, 2012), co-edited with Katherine Towler; Gossip and Metaphysics: Russian Modernist Poets and Prose (Tupelo Press, 2014), co-edited with Katie Farris and Valzhyna Mort; and In the Shape of the Human Body I am Visiting the Earth: Poems from Far and Wide (McSweeney’s, 2017) with Dominic Luxford and Jesse Nathan. With Jean Valentine, he has co-translated Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series brings outstanding writers to campus each semester. UMMA is pleased to be the site for most of these events. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from U-M alumna Helen Zell (BA ’64, LLDHon ’13). For more information, please visit the Zell Visiting Writers Program webpage: https://lsa.umich.edu/writers

Feb
7
Fri
Fiction at Literati: Madeline Miller: Circe @ Literati
Feb 7 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We’re pleased to welcome acclaimed author and Orange Prize for Fiction recipient Madeline Miller in support of her beloved novel, Circe. This event is free and open to the public. Seating will be limited and will be first come / first served. We will seek accommodate additional standing room guests in an overflow area with audio from the event. 

About the book: Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.

Madeline Miller was born in Boston and attended Brown University where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. She lives in Narbeth, PA with her husband and two children. The Song of Achilles was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction and has been translated into twenty-five languages.

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