Literati is pleased to welcome Ken Foster in support of the his New York Times-bestselling memoir, The Dogs Who Found Me. We’re grateful to the Humane Society of Huron Valley for co-sponsoring this event, and we encourage you to donate dry dog and cat food to their wonderful Bountiful Bowls program, which helps people keep pets instead of surrendering them to a shelter. Food donations will be accepted at the event.
Now regarded as a classic in dog literature, Ken Foster’s memoir chronicles his journey from first-time dog owner to rescuer—and all the lessons and mistakes he made along the way. Bookended by the tragedies of 9/11 and Katrina, Foster finds that dogs open his eyes to the benefits of compassion, selflessness, and the chaotic beauty of living each day in the moment.
But more than Foster’s own story, readers remember the dogs. Among them are Duque, a Costa Rican stray; Brando, Foster’s first adopted dog and a supposed pit bull mix who outgrew his Manhattan studio apartment; Rocco, a clownish red pit bull whose owner mistakenly gives him away to the wrong person; Zephyr, a cheerful Rottweiler mix who awakens Foster by sitting on his chest when his heart stops working; and Sula, the tiny lost pit bull who showed up at Foster’s door one day and stayed.
Whether bearing witness to national tragedy, grieving the death of a friend, or dealing with his own mortality, Foster finds strength in his dogs, and in the reciprocal nature of rescue.
“Generosity and gratitude power this compelling account of the reciprocal nature of rescue. Ken Foster illuminates a profound lesson about saving a life: Doing it makes you able to do it.”–Amy Hempel, author of The Dog of the Marriage and Reasons to Live
Ken Foster is the editor of two anthologies, including Dog Culture, and the author ofDogs I Have Met and I’m a Good Dog. His collection of short stories, The Kind I’m Likely to Get, was a New York Times Notable Book. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, andThe Believer. He has taught at The New School, Florida State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi. In 2008, he founded The Sula Foundation, which promotes responsible dog ownership among the pit bull population and sponsors education and outreach in the New Orleans area. He lives in New Orleans, with at least three dogs.
Readings by several poets who have appeared in the RHINO poetry journal, including Monica Rico, Jennifer Metsker, Julie Babcock, Simon Mermelstein, John Buckley, Ashwini Bhasi, and others. In celebration of RHINO’s 40th anniversary. The program begins with a brief open mike for poets, who are welcome to read their own work or a favorite poem by another writer.
Peter Ho Davies is the author of two novels, The Fortunes and The Welsh Girl (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize), and two short story collections, The Ugliest House in the World (winner of the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize) and Equal Love (A New York Times Notable Book).
His work has appeared in Harpers, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Guardian and Washington Post among others, and has been widely anthologized, including selections for Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. In 2003 Granta magazine named him among its Best of Young British Novelists.
Davies is also a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a winner of the PEN/Malamud Award.
Born in Britain to Welsh and Chinese parents, he now makes his home in the US. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University, and is currently on the faculty of the Helen Zell MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Literati is proud to be the bookseller for the United Way of Washtenaw County’s 2016 Campaign Kickoff. H. Luke Shaefer, co-author of $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, will address the growing economic disparity in Washtenaw County. Individual tickets cost $29 and can be purchased here.
H. Luke Shaefer is an associate professor of social work and public policy at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. His research focuses on the effectiveness of the United States social safety net in serving low-wage workers and economically disadvantaged families. His recent work explores rising levels of extreme poverty in the United States, the impact of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other means-tested programs on material hardships, and barriers to unemployment insurance faced by vulnerable workers.
We are delighted to welcome Nathan Hill in support of The Nix, a 2016 BEA buzz pick and a staff pick here at Literati.
A Nix can take many forms. In Norwegian folklore, it is a spirit who sometimes appears as a white horse that steals children away. In Nathan Hill’s remarkable first novel, a Nix is anything you love that one day disappears, taking with it a piece of your heart. It’s 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson—college professor, stalled writer—has a Nix of his own: his mother, Faye. He hasn’t seen her in decades, not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she’s reappeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the internet, and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl, who married her high-school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: she’s facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel’s help.
To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that take him across generations and countries, and stretch all the way back to Norway, the original home of the mysterious Nix. In doing so, Samuel will not only confront Faye’s losses, but also his own lost love, and relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself. From the suburban Midwest to New York City to the 1968 riots that rocked Chicago, and beyond, The Nix explores—with sharp humor and a fierce tenderness—the resilience of love and home, even in times of radical change
“The Nix is a mother-son psychodrama with ghosts and politics, but it’s also a tragicomedy about anger and sanctimony in America. Even the minor characters go to extremes—among them, a Home Ec teacher from Hell and an unrepentant plagiarist with presidential aspirations. ‘A maestro of being awful,’ the son calls his mom. ‘Every memory is really a scar,’ she tells him. For this mother and son, disappointment is ‘the price of hope’—a cost they will both bear. Nathan Hill is a maestro of being terrific.” — John Irving
“Pay attention. This is what a Great American Novel looks like. The Nix is culturally relevant, politically charged, historically sweeping, sad, full of yearning, sometimes dark but mostly hilarious. Nathan Hill is a literary powerhouse who will deservedly earn many comparisons to John Irving and Jonathan Franzen.” — Benjamin Percy
“Once in a while a novel arrives at the perfect moment to reflect, skewer, and provide context for the world as we know it. This—now—is that novel.” — Christina Baker Kline
Nathan Hill‘s short stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, AGNI, Gulf Coast, The Denver Quarterly, Fugue, The Gettysburg Review, and many other journals. He was the winner of the annual Fiction Prize from the journal Fiction, a finalist for the Donald Barthelme Prize in Short Prose, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the recipient of an Artist Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
Literati is thrilled to launch Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein.
Children of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and frighteningly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster. Children of the New World grapples with our unease in this modern world and how our ever-growing dependence on new technologies has changed the shape of our society. Alexander Weinstein is a visionary new voice in speculative fiction for all of us who are fascinated by and terrified of what we might find on the horizon.
“Taken together, these stories present a fully-imagined vision of the future which will disturb you, provoke you, and make you feel alive. Weinstein is brilliant, incisive and fearless.” —Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
“In each of the gripping stories in Children of the New World, Alexander Weinstein offers a glimpse into an unnerving, not-so-distant, and all-too-possible future. Weinstein explores what-ifs with both wit and sensitivity, and his cautionary tales demand to be read (before it’s too late).” —Judy Budnitz, author of Nice Big American Baby
Alexander Weinstein is the Director of The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the author of the short story collection Children of the New World (Picador 2016). His fiction and translations have appeared in Cream City Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Notre-Dame Review, Pleiades, PRISM International, World Literature Today, and other journals. He is the recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and his fiction has been awarded the Lamar York, Gail Crump, Hamlin Garland, and New Millennium Prize. His stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and appear in the anthologies 2013 New Stories from the Midwest, and the 2014 & 2015 Lascaux Prize Stories. He is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and a freelance editor, and leads fiction workshops in the United States and Europe.
Sept. 14: All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share. Hosted by local poets and former college English teachers Joe Kelty and Ed Morin.
Literati is thrilled to be the bookseller for the Zell Visiting Writers Series at the University of Michigan. More information about the Helen Zell Writers’ Program, including a full calendar of visiting writers, can be found here. The September 15th installment of ZVWS will feature John Freeman and Valeria Luiselli.
John Freeman was the editor of Granta until 2013. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Tales of Two Cities: The Best of Times and Worst of Times in Today’s New York. He is an executive editor at the Literary Hub, founder of the annual literary journal Freeman’s, and teaches at the New School. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Paris Review.
Valeria Luiselli was born Mexico City in 1983 and grew up in South Africa. She is the author of two novels, The Story of My Teeth and Faces in the Crowd, as well as the essay collection Sidewalks. Her work has been translated into many languages and has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Granta, and McSweeney’s. In 2014, Faces in the Crowd was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award.
Literati Bookstore is thrilled to welcome Olympic gold medalist Anthony Ervin and author Constantine Markides to discuss Ervin’s memoir, Chasing Water. More event details to come, stay tuned.
Chasing Water tells the dramatic, surprising, and sometimes provocative path that Anthony Ervin has taken to become one of those captivating Olympic heroes. Not your typical sports memoir, Chasing Water also contains arresting black-and-white drawings and a graphic story extra, as well as an inventive and mercurial narrative style that morphs chapter by chapter to reflect Ervin’s restless, multifaceted life. Ervin won a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games at the age of nineteen. He is an athlete branded with a slew of titles including being the first US Olympic swimmer of African American descent, along with Jewish heritage, who also grew up with Tourette’s syndrome. He shocked the sporting world by retiring soon after claiming two world titles following the 2000 Olympics. Auctioning off his gold medal for charity, he set off on a part spiritual quest, part self-destructive bender that involved Zen temples, fast motorcycles, tattoo parlors, and rock ’n’ roll bands. Then Ervin resurfaced in 2012 to not only make the US Olympic team twelve years after his first appearance, but to continue his career by swimming faster than ever before, and faster than anyone else. He is currently training for the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
“Here Ervin and swim trainer and journalist Markides combine talents to create a biography that is part first-hand narrative by Ervin, with Markides filling in the details and providing context. The formula works, pulling readers into Ervin’s experience of the thrill of victory and search for meaning….Featuring more depth, breadth, truth, and the effects of reckless choices than found in traditional athlete biographies, this gripping account is just in time for the gear up to the Rio 2016 Olympics. Readers will understand the psyche and life of elite athletes as never before, then cheer Ervin on in his attempt to make another Olympic team.”-–Library Journal
“A celebrated Olympian recounts how he rose to the top of his sport, crashed, and found redemption….This book, which tells his story through a narrative that interweaves the former gold medalist’s memories with commentary by his friend and colleague Markides, reveals the extreme highs and lows that characterized Ervin’s remarkable life and career….The author never flinches at revealing his less-than-perfect past, and the humility he demonstrates at coming to terms with his own egotism and personal shortcomings makes the book frequently compelling. A provocative and refreshingly honest redemption memoir.”–Kirkus Reviews
“Markides smartly combines his own journalistic account with a parallel narrative in which Ervin…explains his life and style. Some talents simply defy explanation, however, and Ervin may be in that category….The story of his comeback at 31 (ancient for a swimmer) is rendered more amazing by the contrast with what went before.”–Booklist
“Most memoirs from Olympians are puff pieces, ghost-written so blandly you fall asleep trying to make it to the end of the first chapter. Chasing Water is the opposite of that, an intimate, visceral experience you will appreciate.”–SwimSwam
“A refreshingly unexpected athlete biography void of eye-rolling, cliched, self help propaganda bullshit.”–Gary Hall, Jr., swimmer, ten-time Olympic medalist
Anthony Ervin is an American Olympian who resides in Los Angeles, where he continues to pursue his career as a professional swimmer, speaker, and coach. As the oldest competitor at the 2014 national championships, he won the title in the men’s 50-meter freestyle. He is currently training for the 2016 Olympic team.
Reading by this Indiana University creative writing professor, an acclaimed poet whose collection Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Poetry. “Gay’s praise is Whitmanesque, full of manure, mulberry-stained purple bird poop, dirty clothes and hangovers but also the pleasure of bare feet, of pruning a peach tree, of feeding a neighbor,” says an All Things Considered review.Book-signing and reception to follow with White Lotus Farms pizza for sale!
7-9 p.m., White Lotus Farms flower garden, 7217 W. Liberty. Free. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284
