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.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), The Circus, 210 S. First. $10. 764-5118.
On Jan. 9, local short story writer Alex Kourvo and young adult novelist Bethany Neal discuss how to book from rough draft to finished manuscript. For adult and teen (grade 6 & up) fiction and nonfiction writers. Also, Kourvo and Neal host an open house for writers to connect with one another and/or work on their projects at 7 p.m. on Jan. 23.
7-8:45 p.m., AADL Westgate Branch, Westgate shopping center, 2503 Jackson. Free. 327-8301.
Storytellers Guild members present a program of old tales and personal stories for grownups.
Free; donations accepted. annarborstorytelling.org, facebook.com/annarborstorytellers. 665-2757.
Readings by U-M creative writing grad students, including Michigan fiction writer Yasin Abdul-Muqit and Colorado poet Ambalila Hemsell.
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.
Every 1st & 3rd Sun. Readings by featured poets, preceded by a poetry open mike.
Reading by Ting Gou, a U-M medical student and award-winning poet who recently published her debut chapbook, The Other House. .
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
“Plato’s Self-Moving Myth: The Circulation of Plato’s Charioteer from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance”
Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Professor of Classical Studies
January 17, 12:30pm
Institute for the Humanities, 202 S. Thayer
In this lecture, Ahbel-Rappe discusses her book in progress, in which she investigates the reception of Plato’s Phaedrus, and especially the famous myth of the soul (Phaedrus 246-249), from late antiquity to the Renaissance, tracing the phenomenon of this text’s migration into exegetical traditions and languages far removed from the original site of Plato’s dialogue. The study relies on the core idea of the text network and asks if the text itself an agent of its own migration.
Recent work on text networks (Selden, McCracken, Lopez) investigating such multi-linguistic migratory texts as the Alexander Romance, Life of Aesop, or Barlaam and Josephat, focus on the trajectory of a text, a text that takes on its life and makes its home as an immigrant in foreign lands, among foreign tongues. What astonishes about these texts is that they often perform their very subject matter, and it has gone unnoticed that the myth of the charioteer in Plato’s Phaedrus fits this profile. What she means is that the myth is an allegory for the soul, whereas Plato defines the soul at Phaedrus 246 as a self-mover. The story itself, a tale of the embodied soul being out of place in the world and wandering through cycles of birth and death, finds its textual analogue as the text takes on a corporeality, a presence in space and time, and a diffuse, variegated voicing.
Former Humanities Institute fellow Sara Ahbel-Rappe is Professor of Classical Studies. She has written several books that focus on the trajectory of the Platonic tradition, from the Sokratikoi Logoi to the “last pagan professor,” Damascius. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study, the Mellon Foundation, and Center for Hellenic Studies.
The book club offers an intimate, small-group discussion with RC alumnus Rick Petrie, Tuesday, January 17 at 6 pm. We will discuss The Drifter before Nick’s reading from his newest book, Burning Bright, at 7 pm.
Limited to 12 people. To participate, you must purchase the book discussion title from Nicola’s (at a 15 percent discount) and pre-order or purchase the new release title (at a 10 percent discount).
To sign up, contact the store directly at 734-662-0600.
Nick Petrie received his MFA in fiction from the University of Washington, won a Hopwood Award for short fiction while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan Residential College, and his story At the Laundromat won the 2006 Short Story Contest in theThe Seattle Review, a national literary journal. A husband and father, he runs a home-inspection business in Milwaukee.
“Lots of characters get compared to my own Jack Reacher, but Petrie’s Peter Ash is the real deal.”–Lee Child.
In the new novel featuring war veteran Peter Ash, an action hero of the likes of Jack Reacher or Jason Bourne (Lincoln Journal-Star), Ash has a woman’s life in his hands and her mystery is stranger than he could ever imagine.
War veteran Peter Ash sought peace and quiet among the towering redwoods of northern California, but the trip isn’t quite the balm he’d hoped for. The dense forest and close fog cause his claustrophobia to buzz and spark, and then he stumbles upon a grizzly, long thought to have vanished from this part of the country. In a fight of man against bear, Peter doesn’t t favor his odds, so he makes a strategic retreat up a nearby sapling.
There, he finds something strange: a climbing rope, affixed to a distant branch above. It leads to another, and another, up through the giant tree canopy, and ending at a hanging platform. On the platform is a woman on the run. From below them come the sounds of men and gunshots.
Just days ago, investigative journalist June Cassidy escaped a kidnapping by the men who are still on her trail. She suspects they’re after something belonging to her mother, a prominent software designer who recently died in an accident. June needs time to figure out what’s going on, and help from someone with Peter’s particular set of skills.
Only one step ahead of their pursuers, Peter and June must race to unravel this peculiar mystery. What they find leads them to an eccentric recluse, a shadowy pseudo-military organization, and an extraordinary tool that may change the modern world forever.
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.
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.
