Calendar

Jan
2
Tue
The Moth Storyslam @ Greyline
Jan 2 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Jan 2 & 16. 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 teams of 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.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $8. 764-5118.

 

Jan
7
Sun
Ann Arbor Poetry: Jamie Morgan @ Espresso Royale
Jan 7 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

This Washtenaw International High School English teacher and forensics coach has competed in several regional poetry slams. Her most famous poem, “Credentialed Casualty,” recounts her experience receiving active shooter training and the ethical implications of making split-second life and death decisions about the students supposedly in her care. Preceded by a poetry open mike.
7 p.m. Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.

 

Jan
8
Mon
Emerging Writers: Understanding Story Arc @ AADL Westgate
Jan 8 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Jan
10
Wed
Poetry and the Written Word: Open Mike @ Crazy Wisdom
Jan 10 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share.
7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757

 

Jan
13
Sat
Carrie Smith: Unholy City, Jeff Kass: Takedown, and C.M. Gleason: Murder in the Lincoln White House @ Aunt Agatha's
Jan 13 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Join our triple header on Sunday, January 13 at 2, when we welcome book club favorite and RC creative writing alumna  Carrie Smith, who has a new Claire Codella novel out, Unholy City; C.M. Gleason, who is joining the mystery community with her first mystery Murder in the Lincoln White House; and popular teacher and poetry slammer, Jeff Kass, whose first mystery Takedown was just published by the new press at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Rebecca Biber: Technical Solace @ Bookbound
Jan 13 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

This local poet reads from Technical Solace, her new collection of poems that “explore the struggles of growing up, growing older, of being in solitude and with others, along with birds and history, children and dying, Supreme Court decisions, the Holocaust, and artichokes,” says writer Alex Chambers. Light refreshments. Signing.
7 p.m., Bookbound, 1729 Plymouth, Courtyard Shops. Free. 369-4345.

Jan
16
Tue
The Moth Storyslam: Achilles Heel @ Greyline
Jan 16 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Jan 2 & 16. 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 teams of 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.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $8. 764-5118.

 

Jan
17
Wed
Poetry at Literati: Raymond McDaniel: Cataracts @ Literati
Jan 17 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is thrilled to welcome back poet Raymond McDaniel who will read from his new collection Cataracts

About Cataracts:
Poetry as Escher: shifting perspective, a landscape that doesn’t stand still, and questions that fold in on themselves.

“A registering, a remembering, a naming, a seeing behind and beyond seeing: The Cataracts is a book of blindness and insight, offering a tenderly, sometimes painfully, scrutinized world. With gorgeous catalogs, reticulated narratives, and aphoristic summings-up, McDaniel offers a mode of neo-Stoic inquiry into ethics and epistemology, of ‘logopoeia, ‘ the dance of the intellect. Here too are sharpened senses, alert to ‘the emerald blur’ of a richly greened world, to ‘the sea the stupid wall exists to stop, ‘ to trip-wired words and moonlit reflections. McDaniel is an astute, generous poet of human stupidity and longing, and his is a mature, ramifying sensibility, alive to the profound tension between the many and the one, the pressure of multitudes and the requirement to declare oneself. These poems both name the wounds and refuse easy balm. As the title of one stunning long poem has it, ‘This Is Going to Hurt.'” –Maureen McLane

“Raymond McDaniel has always been the most brilliant of poets–razor sharp in intellect, take-no-prisoners in form. What is new in The Cataracts is a broader, more hospitable ease with the legible forms of feeling, with even–remarkable!–the partial lineaments of narrative. Make no mistake: this is narrative-with-leverage; the poet’s dazzling mind-play is perfectly intact. Among the other gifts these poems have to offer is a penetrating inquiry into the physics, the metaphysics, and the brutal socioeconomics of sight. From its ravishing title poem to its most excoriating political critiques, this is a book for which I am profoundly grateful.” –Linda Gregerson

Raymond McDaniel is the author of Special Powers and AbilitiesSaltwater Empire and Murder (a violet), a National Poetry Series selection. Born in Florida, McDaniel now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, teaches at the University of Michigan, and writes for The Constant Critic.

Jan
19
Fri
Webster Reading Series: Sam Krowchenko and Kyle Hunt @ Stern Auditorium
Jan 19 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. 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.

This week’s reading features Sam Krowchenko and Kyle Hunt.

Sam Krowchenko’s writing has appeared in Salon, Full-Stop, and Michigan Quarterly Review, among other venues. A bookseller at Literati, he also hosts Shelf Talking, the store’s official podcast.

Kyle Hunt is a poet from West Texas and Middle Tennessee. He has work published with Toe Good, previously known as Toe Good Poetry.

Jan
21
Sun
Frank Carollo and Amy Emberling: Hot from the Oven: Zingerman’s Bakehouse Cookbook! @ AADL Mallets Creek
Jan 21 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

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.

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