Calendar

Storytellers Guild members present a program of old tales and personal stories for grownups.  Free; donations accepted.annarborstorytelling.org, facebook.com/annarborstorytellers. 665-2757.

Michigan Notable Book Author Mardi Jo Link will discuss her memoirs, Bootstrapper: From Broke to Badass on a Northern Michigan Farm and The Drummond Girls, as well as some of her new projects and the craft of writing.

Mardi’s memoir, “Bootstrapper: From Broke to Badass On a Northern Michigan Farm” was an Indie Next pick, was given the 2013 Booksellers Choice Award from the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association, an Elle magazine’s Reader’s Prize, the Housatonic Book Award for Nonfiction, and was named a Michigan Notable Book. Film rights have been sold to Academy Award-winning actress, Rachel Weisz.

She has also written the true crime books, When Evil Came to Good Hart, Isadore’s Secret:Sin, Murder, and Confession in a Northern Michigan Town, and Wicked Takes the Witness Stand:A Tale of Murder and Twisted Deceit in Northern Michigan, which were each Heartland bestsellers. Her essays have appeared in Bellingham Review, Bear River Review, Creative Nonfiction, the Detroit Free Press, Publishers Weekly, Terrain, and Traverse Magazine, among other places.

Mardi Jo Link was born in Detroit and grew up in Bay City and studied journalism and agriculture at Michigan State University. She was a founder of the magazine, ForeWord Reviews, in Traverse City, Michigan, and earned her master’s degree in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.

She is the mother of three grown sons and lives in Traverse City, Michigan, with her husband, Pete, and their dog, Gretchen.

The top 12 qualifiers from the weekly slams over the past several months compete for a spot on the team that will represent Ann Arbor in the National Poetry Slam held in Decatur (GA) in August. Also, a performance by featured reader is Tim “Toaster Henderson,” a renowned Chicago slam poet who has represented Berkeley at the National Poetry Slam and the Individual World Poetry Slam .
7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $10 (students, $8) in advance at a2poetry.org, $15 (students, $14) at the door. (503) 396-3472..

Detroit children’s book writer Jean Alicia Elster, author the African American coming-of-age tale The Colored Car, discusses the art of writing and presents awards to the winners of the AADL short story contest for 3rd-5th graders. Refreshments.
2-3 p.m., AADL multipurpose room

Every 1st & 3rd Sun. All poets invited to compete in a poetry slam judged by a randomly chosen panel from the audience. The program begins with a poetry open mike and (occasionally) a short set by a featured poet.
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetrySlam.

Awards for the Winter Term writing contests administered by the Hopwood Awards Program will be announced. A lecture by Susan Choi will follow the announcement of the awards. Susan Choi’s first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, and her second novel, American Women, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. With David Remnick she co-edited the anthology Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Her latest novel is My Education (2013).

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.

2016 topics:

May 17: “Escape.”

June 21: “Fathers.”

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7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), The Circus, 210 S. First. $10. 764-5118.

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.

RC Alumni, current students, faculty and staff – join together for a day of sharing information to connect, renew, discover and celebrate our community.