Every 1st & 3rd Sun. Readings by featured poets, preceded by a poetry open mike.
Reading by Ashwini Bhasi, a widely published local poet who describes her work as “poems to make sense of the mind-body connection of her chronic pain, life in India, and the duality of her experiences as a scientific data analyst and poet
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
Local short story writer Alex Kourvo and young adult novelist Bethany Neal discuss the basic techniques of good fiction. 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 Feb. 20.
7-8:45 p.m., AADL Westgate Branch, Westgate shopping center, 2503 Jackson. Free. 327-8301.
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.
Literati is pleased to continue our partnership with TEDxUofM as the on-site bookseller for the conference. The 8th annual TEDxUofM conference will be held on Wednesday, February 8th from 6-9pm at the Power Center for the Performing Arts. Join us for an evening filled with unique stories and revolutionary ideas as we celebrate “ideas worth spreading” from across the University of Michigan community.
Learn more and buy your ticket today at tedxuofm.com/attend. Student tickets are available for $12, non-student tickets are available for $20.
Storytellers Guild members present a program of old tales and personal stories for grownups.
Free; donations accepted. annarborstorytelling.org, facebook.com/annarborstorytellers. 665-2757.
Members of the Ann Arbor Storytellers Guild present a program of stories for adults and teens in grade 6 & up.
7-8:30 p.m., AADL multipurpose room (lower level), 343 S. Fifth Ave. Free. 327-4555
Readings by U-M creative writing grad students, including Indiana poet Tara Jay and St. Paul poet Danez Smith.
7 p.m., UMMA Auditorium, 525 S. State. Free. 615-3710.
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 John Buckley, a recent U-M creative writing MFA.
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
Literati is thrilled to be the bookseller for staff-favorite Rebecca Solnit’s visit to Ann Arbor. Rebecca Solnit will deliver the Jill S. Harris memorial lecture related to her book Hope in the Dark, followed by a question and answer period with the audience. ASL interpretation will be provided.
In Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit has written about hope as not optimism, the belief that everything will be fine, but as uncertainty: as an uncertain future that leaves us room to act, as the possibility that we can shape that future in some way. Drawing from histories of popular power and civil society, of forgotten victories and remarkable campaigns, she has made the case for remembering our power, for using it, and for not assuming we know what will happen—the case against the certainty that underlie both optimism and pessimism. In her book A Paradise Built in Hell, she looked at how ordinary people are often resourceful, altruistic, and empathic in disaster, forming fleeting democracies and finding purpose and meaning. In this talk she’ll look at the state of hope in the present moment and what disasters like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina can tell us about political crises and civil society, drawing on both books and more recent political events.
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of eighteen or so books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including a trilogy of atlases and the books Men Explain Things to Me; The Faraway Nearby; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at Harper’s.
