Calendar

Aug
1
Wed
Fiction at Literati: Lucy Tan: What We Were Promised @ Literati
Aug 1 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is thrilled to welcome author Lucy Tan who will be sharing with us her debut novel What We Were Promised. Lucy will be joined with author Lillian Li for a post-reading discussion. 

About What We Were Promised:
Set in modern Shanghai, a debut by a Chinese-American writer about a prodigal son whose unexpected return forces his newly wealthy family to confront painful secrets and unfulfilled promises.
After years of chasing the American dream, the Zhen family has moved back to China. Settling into a luxurious serviced apartment in Shanghai, Wei, Lina, and their daughter, Karen, join an elite community of Chinese-born, Western-educated professionals who have returned to a radically transformed city.

One morning, in the eighth tower of Lanson Suites, Lina discovers that a treasured ivory bracelet has gone missing. This incident sets off a wave of unease that ripples throughout the Zhen household. Wei, a marketing strategist, bows under the guilt of not having engaged in nobler work. Meanwhile, Lina, lonely in her new life of leisure, assumes the modern moniker taitai-a housewife who does no housework at all. She is haunted by the circumstances surrounding her arranged marriage to Wei and her lingering feelings for his brother, Qiang. Sunny, the family’s housekeeper, is a keen but silent observer of these tensions. An unmarried woman trying to carve a place for herself in society, she understands the power of well-kept secrets. When Qiang reappears in Shanghai after decades on the run with a local gang, the family must finally come to terms with the past and its indelible mark on their futures.

From a silk-producing village in rural China, up the corporate ladder in suburban America, and back again to the post-Maoist nouveaux riches of modern Shanghai, What We Were Promised explores the question of what we owe to our country, our families, and ourselves.

Lucy Tan grew up in New Jersey and has spent much of her adult life in New York and Shanghai. She received her B.A. from New York University and her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was awarded the 2016 August Derleth Prize. Her fiction has been published in journals such as Asia Literary Review and Ploughshares, where she was winner of the 2015 Emerging Writer’s Contest. This is her first novel.

Lillian Li received her BA from Princeton and her MFA from the University of Michigan. She is the recipient of a Hopwood Award in Short Fiction, as well as Glimmer Train‘s New Writer Award. Her work has been featured inGuernica, Granta and Jezebel. She is from the D.C. metro area and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Aug
2
Thu
Anthony DeBenedet: Playful Intelligence: The Power of Living Lightly in a Serious World @ Nicola's Books
Aug 2 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Local physician Anthony DeBenedet discusses his new book that explores the effects and benefits of qualities such as imagination, humor, and wonder. Signing. DeBenedet is also at Literati Aug. 14 (see listing).
7 p.m., Nicola’s, Westgate shopping center. Free. 662-0600.

Aug
4
Sat
Books, Crafts, and Cats! With jessi Gage, J.D. Barker, and J.A. Thomas @ Think Outside the Books
Aug 4 @ 11:00 am – 4:00 pm

Readings by fiction writers Jessi Gage (romance), J.D. Barker (thriller), and J.A. Thomas (romantic mysteries). Also, a silent auction of signed books, used book sale, and cat-themed crafts. Kids invited to read to adoptable cats. Snacks. Fundraiser for Crafty Cat Rescue, a no-kill shelter.
11 a.m.-4 p.m., Think Outside the Books, 2547 Ellsworth, Ypsilanti. Free admission. 680-2418 or craftycatrescue@gmail.com.

Aug
5
Sun
Ann Arbor Poetry: Open Mike @ Espresso Royale
Aug 5 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Poetry open mike.
7-9 p.m. (sign-up begins at 6:30 p.m.), Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.

 

Aug
6
Mon
Fiction at Literati: Daniel Abbott: The Concrete @ Literati
Aug 6 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is thrilled to welcome author Daniel Abbott who will be reading from his debut novel The Concrete.

About The Concrete:
Set on the gritty southeast side of Grand Rapids, Michigan, an impoverished area known for drugs and violence, The Concrete centers around the home of Jackson and Mae Carter, foster parents of two boys–Isaac, who is white, and Miles, who is black–who share dark and intersecting histories that neither one is aware of. As the boys try to escape the grim reality of the violent streets–i.e. “the concrete”–in different ways–Isaac through basketball, Miles though music–the novel shifts back and forth in time, in the process revealing the story of an entangled community plagued by trauma and death, trying to confront the ghosts of its past, and seize a better life. A multi-point-of-view work of realistic and often graphic literary fiction, The Concrete is a striking debut that grapples with the effects of childhood trauma on teens, lost dreams, human sexuality, and the difficulties of marriage.

Daniel Abbott received his BA from Grand Valley State University and his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He lives with his family in Grand Rapids, MI.

Aug
7
Tue
Fiction at Literati: Margaret Bradham Thornton: A Theory of Love @ Literati
Aug 7 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is excited to welcome author Margaret Bradham Thornton who will be sharing her latest novel A Theory of Love.

About A Theory of Love:
A follow-up to her successful debut Charleston and set in the world’s most glamorous landscapes, this moving new love story from Margaret Bradham Thornton draws on a metaphor of entanglement theory to ask: when two people collide, are they forever attached no matter where they are?

Helen Gibbs, a British journalist on assignment on the west coast of Mexico, meets Christopher Delavaux, an intriguing half-French, half-American lawyer-turned-financier who has come alone to surf. Living lives that never stop moving, from their first encounter in Bermeja to marriage in London and travels to such places as Saint-Tropez, Tangier, and Santa Clara, Helen and Christopher must decide how much they exist for themselves and how much they exist for each other.

In an effort to build his firm, Christopher leads a life full of speed and ambition with little time for Helen and even less when he suspects his business partner of illegal activity. Helen, a reluctant voyeur to Christopher’s world of power and position, searches far and wide for reporting work that will “take a bite out of her soul”–refugees in Calais, a mountain climber in Chamonix, an orphaned circus performer in Cuba. A Theory of Love captures the ambivalence at the center of human experience: does one reside in the familiar comforts of solitude or dare to open one’s heart and risk having it broken? Set in some of the most picturesque places in the world, this novel questions what it means to love someone and leaves us wondering–can nothing save us but a fall?

Margaret Bradham Thornton is the author of Charleston and the editor of Tennessee Williams’s Notebooks, for which she received the Bronze ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award in autobiography/memoir and the C. Hugh Holman Prize for the best volume of southern literary scholarship published in 2006, given by the Society for the Study of Southern Literature. She is a graduate of Princeton University and lives in Florida.

Aug
8
Wed
Callie Feyen: The Teacher Diaries: Romeo and Juliet @ Literati
Aug 8 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literait is thrilled to welcome author and eduacator Callie Feyen who will be sharing her new book The Teacher Diaries: Romeo & Juliet.

About The Teacher Diaries: Romeo & Juliet:
What do teachers feel when facing William Shakespeare, tales of family feud, breathless kissing scenes-all in front of a class of teens who are keeping their heads down (and threatening to fall asleep or plot their next prank in the process)? We may never know what our own 8th or 9th grade teachers felt. But, on this count, educator Callie Feyen has done us a favor. She has written a poignant memoir-‘The Teacher Diaries: Romeo & Juliet.’ It begins with a kiss. Then, page by page, it reveals her generous, hopeful, and humorous heart. For teachers everywhere, this is a beautiful book to help them remember why they teach. For those of us who just love to get the juicy details of what someone in a challenging position really thinks, this book will satisfy (and sometimes make us laugh, or cry).

Callie Feyen likes Converse tennis shoes and colorful high heels, reading the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Twilight series. Her favorite outfit has always been a well-worn pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, but she wants hoop skirts with loads of tulle to come back into style. Her favorite line from literature comes from Sharon Creech’s Absolutely Normal Chaos “I don’t know who I am yet. I’m still waiting to find out.” Feyen has been a middle school teacher, is the Teaching and Learning Editor and Children’s Editor for Tweetspeak Poetry, and serves as the At-Risk Literacy Specialist in the Ypsilanti Public Schools.

Jennifer Pharr Davis: The Pursuit of Endurance: Harnessing the Record-Breaking Power of Strength and Resilience @ AADL Multipurpose Room
Aug 8 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

This North Carolina-based endurance hiker and motivational speaker reads from her new book, The Pursuit of Endurance: Harnessing the Record-Breaking Power of Strength and Resilience.
7-8:30 p.m., AADL Downtown Multipurpose Rm. Free. 327-4200

Aug
9
Thu
Fiction at Literati: Leah Weiss: If the Creek Don’t Rise @ Literati
Aug 9 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is pleased to welcome author Leah Weiss who will be reading and discussing her new novel If the Creek Don‘t Rise.

About If the Creek Don’t Rise:
In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She’s been married to Roy Tupkin for fifteen days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy’s wife.

Leah Weiss is a Southern writer born in North Carolina and raised in the foothills of Virginia. Her debut novel IF THE CREEK DON’T RISE will be released in August of 2017. Her short stories have been published in The Simple Life magazine, Every Day Fiction and Deep South Magazine. She retired in 2015 from a 24-year career as Executive Assistant to the Headmaster at Virginia Episcopal School. She now pursues writing full time and enjoys speaking to book clubs.

Aug
10
Fri
Rhys Rowen: Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding @ AADL
Aug 10 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

A visit from Rhys Bowen takes place at the downtown library on Friday, August 10 at 7, when Rhys will talk about her new Lady Georgie mystery, Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding.

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