Mar. 6 & 20. 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. Mar. themes: “Manners” (Mar. 6) & “Aftermath” (Mar. 20). The 3 teams of judges are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $8. 764-5118.
Drama students from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina State University present a program of short theatrical pieces, dance, and music as part of a cultural exchange program led by U-M drama professor Ashley Lucas.
8-9 p.m., Keene Theatre, East Quad, 701 East University. Free. 647-4354.
Three authors discuss how their fiction transforms home into character. How do writers use assumptions about familiar places to find the unexpected and surprising? When is a hometown the whole trouble, and also the last, best hope for change? We’ll also talk about how the unique landscape of the upper Midwest inspires our fiction.
Prior to writing fiction and poetry, Kelly Fordon worked at the NPR member station in Detroit and for National Geographic magazine. Her fiction, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in The Boston Review, The Florida Review, Flashquake, The Kenyon Review, and various other journals. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks,On the Street Where We Live, which won the 2011 Standing Rock Chapbook Contest, and Tell Me When It Starts to Hurt, which was published by Kattywompus Press in 2013. She received her MFA in fiction writing from Queens University of Charlotte and works for InsideOut Literary Arts in Detroit as a writer-in-residence.
Born and raised in Detroit, Lolita Hernandez is the author of Autopsy of an Engine and Other Stories from the Cadillac Plant, winner of a 2005 PEN Beyond Margins Award. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Quiet Battles and snakecrossing. She is a 2012 Kresge Literary Arts fellow, and her poetry and fiction have appeared in a wide variety of literary publications. After over thirty-three years as a UAW worker at General Motors, she now teaches in the creative writing department in the University of Michigan Residential College.
Laura Hulthen Thomas’s short fiction and essays have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The Cimarron Review, Nimrod International Journal, Epiphany, and Witness. She received her MFA in fiction writing from Warren Wilson College. She currently heads the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College, where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction.
Readings by writers featured in the 10th annual edition of Prison Creative Arts Project magazine that features work by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers.
4 p.m., Pierpont Commons East Room. Free. 615-3204, 647-6771.
12 former inmates perform their new original play exploring alternatives to mass incarceration.
6:30-8 p.m., Keene Theatre, East Quad, 701 East University. Free. 647-4354.
Toastmasters is an international group devoted to helping each other grow in our abilities to give speeches. The Sweetwaters Toastmasters Club meets twice monthly. We are a fun and friendly group! Toastmasters also helps you develop leadership skills if you wish to do that. Come as many times as you want for free, and decide later if you want to join. In the meantime, come make new friends and have fun!
Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea on Washington Street, 123 West Washington Street. Free. 323-286-3999. https://www.facebook.com/groups/TMSweet/
Talk by freelance journalist Kerry Myers, whose reporting on the death penalty during his tenure as editor of the Louisiana State Penitentiary news magazine won a 2007 Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award.
4 p.m., Pierpont Commons East Room. Free. 615-3204, 647-6771.
The RC RAs are proud to host a Moth Story Slam, open to all!
The theme will be “The Caveat” — do with that what you will 
🙂
Find out more about the moth here: https://themoth.org/about
We will be having a workshop on March 22nd, 7-8pm in the Greene Lounge, open to anyone who wants to come listen to some stories, talk to other storywriters, bounce off ideas, be inspired by prompts, or practice their stories!
Apr. 3 & 17. 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. Apr. themes: “Awards” (Apr. 3) & “Mail” (Apr. 17). The 3-person judging teams are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $8. 764-5118.
Apr. 7 & 8. U-M drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs RC students in Tennessee Williams’ one-act play about an American ex-prizefighter who arrives in an unnamed South or Central American town and meets a variety of surreal characters from history, myth, and literature over the course of 10 hallucinatory scenes.
7 p.m., U-M Matthaei Botanical Gardens, 1800 N. Dixboro. Free, but limited seating. Metered parking. 647-4354.
