Local short story writer Alex Kourvo and young adult novelist Bethany Neal discuss the complicated relationship between plot and character development. 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. 29.
7-8:45 p.m., AADL Westgate Branch. Free. 327-8301
Jessica Shattuck is the award-winning author of The Hazards of Good Breeding, which was a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award, and Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Glamour, Mother Jones, Wired, and The Believer, among other publications. A graduate of Harvard University, she received her MFA from Columbia University. She lives with her husband and three children in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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.
Yale Law School constitutional law professor James Forman Jr., a former Washington, D.C., public defender, discusses his book. In 1997, Forman founded the Maya Angelou Public Charter School, an alternative school for dropouts and youth who had previously been arrested. Signing.
4-5:30 p.m., 1225 South Hall, 701 S. State. Free. 764-4705.
Literati is honored to partner with the University Musical Society and the Penny Stamps Speaker Series to host author Claudia Rankine at the Michigan Theater for a conversation with editor P. Carl entitled Theatre Matters; Activism, Imagination, Citizenship. This event is the keynote for the No Safety Net series.
Claudia Rankine is the author of five books, including the highly praised collection Citizen: An American Lyric. She currently is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Pomona College.
About Citizen:
A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine’s long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
Claudia Rankine’s bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV–everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person’s ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named “post-race” society.
Zingerman’s Bakehouse co-owners Frank Carollo and Amy Emberling discuss their new cookbook, which features 65 of their most popular recipes.
3-5 p.m., AADL Malletts Creek. Free. 327-8301.
U-M English professor Aida Levy-Hussen reads from her new book and discusses it with U-M English and women’s studies professor Victor Mendoza.
5:30-7 p.m., 100 U-M Hatcher Grad Library Gallery, enter from the Diag. Free.
Have you ever pulled a ratatouille and found a rat on your head? Do you ever question the larger impact of a cup of coffee? Have you gotten fed up with constantly being kidnapped? Ever daydream about America’s history if women were the founders?
Do you enjoy question leads that ultimately serve as clickbait in order to intrigue potential audience members?
Then we are the place for you! RC Players is hosting our semi-annual comedic Evening of Scenes performance Friday, Jan. 26 and Saturday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. in the Keene Theater, located in the basement of our dear East Quad. As always, our production is as free as the wind beneath my wings!
Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your parents, tell your dogs and cats and lizards and rats (they can find themselves in the subject matter of one of the scenes)! Feel free to share this event, or invite people who would love a good laugh in a theater.
Have you ever pulled a ratatouille and found a rat on your head? Do you ever question the larger impact of a cup of coffee? Have you gotten fed up with constantly being kidnapped? Ever daydream about America’s history if women were the founders?
Do you enjoy question leads that ultimately serve as clickbait in order to intrigue potential audience members?
Then we are the place for you! RC Players is hosting our semi-annual comedic Evening of Scenes performance Friday, Jan. 26 and Saturday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. in the Keene Theater, located in the basement of our dear East Quad. As always, our production is as free as the wind beneath my wings!
Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your parents, tell your dogs and cats and lizards and rats (they can find themselves in the subject matter of one of the scenes)! Feel free to share this event, or invite people who would love a good laugh in a theater.
The 2018 Hopwood Underclassmen Awards will be announced and celebrated by Hopwood director Michael Byers. Six RC students have won awards. After the presentation of these awards, Antonya Nelson will offer a reading.
Antonya Nelson is the author of four novels, including Living to Tell and Bound, and seven short story collections, including Some Fun, Nothing Right, and, most recently, Funny Once. Her short stories have appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Quarterly West, Harper’s, and other magazines. They have been anthologized in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She teaches in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, as well as in the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program.
Reading and discussion of several poems around the themes of occasions (Jan. 31), and dogs (Feb. 21). Followed by collaborative writing games and exercises. Attendees invited to read their poems. Snacks & socializing.
8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284
