Local writer (and Observer contributor) Patti Smith hosts a story time for adults, with storyteller Ken MacGregor and others. Pajamas encouraged. For adults only.
7 p.m., Bookbound, Courtyard Shops. Free. 369-4345.
Detroit News arts feature writer Michael Hodges reads from his new book about the “architect of Detroit,” best known for his auto factory designs, who also designed Hill Auditorium and other U-M landmarks.
7-8 p.m., CDL McKune rm., 221 S. Main, Chelsea. Free. Preregistration requested. 475-8732.
Literati is thrilled to welcome back poet Rob Halpern who will be reading from his new collection Weak Link
Rob Halpern lives between San Francisco and Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he teaches at Eastern Michigan University and Huron Valley Women’s Prison. His most recent book of poetry, prose, essays, letters, and manifestos is Weak Link (Atelos 2019). Other books include Common Place (Ugly Duckling Presse 2015) and Music for Porn (Nightboat Books 2012).
Literati is excited to welcome author Dorene O’Brien who will be sharing her new story collection What It Might Feel Like to Hope.
About What It Might Feel Like to Hope:
What It Might Feel Like to Hope, the second collection from award-winning author Dorene O’Brien, is a masterful and eclectic mix of stories that considers the infinitely powerful, and equally naive and damning force that is human hope. A couple tries to come to terms with one another as they travel west in the uncomfortable twilight of their youth; a mortician and an idealistic novelist spar about the true nature of death; an aspiring author hopes to impress Tom Hanks with zombies; a tarot reader deals out the future of Detroit. Showcasing her diverse talents, O’Brien offers a panoply of characters and settings that dwells beyond the borders of certainty, in a place where all that has been left to them is an inkling of possibility upon which they must place all their hopes. These stories offer a variety of tones, forms, and themes in which O’Brien displays an amazing range and control of her craft, all while exploring the essential nature of humanity with nuance, empathy, and at times a touch of skepticism.
Dorene O’Brien is a Detroit-based writer and teacher whose stories have won the Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, the New Millennium Writings Fiction Prize, and the Wind Fiction Prize. Her story, “#12 Dagwood on Rye,” was chosen by writer and fiction judge Jim Crace from among 4,000 entries as first-place winner of the international Bridport Prize. She has earned fellowships from the NEA and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories have been nominated for two Pushcart prizes, have been published in special Kindle editions and have appeared in The Best of Carve Magazine. Her work also appears in Madison Review, Short Story Review, The Republic of Letters, Southern Humanities Review, Detroit Noir, Montreal Review, Passages North, Baltimore Review, Cimarron Review, and others. Voices of the Lost and Found, her first fiction collection, was a finalist for the Drake Emerging Writer Award and won the USA Best Book Award for Short Fiction. Her second collection, What It Might Feel Like to Hope, was first runner-up in the Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Prize.
Iranian American journalist Jason Rezaian, Washington Post Tehran bureau chief, was convicted of espionage in Iran in 2015.
4-5:30 p.m., Mendelssohn Theatre, 911 North University. Free. 998-7666.
Literati is pleased to partner with the Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judiac Studies at the University of Michigan to have copies of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century available for purchase. This year’s Belin Lecture is at the Forum Hall Palmer Commons.
29th David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish Affairs
2018 marks the 70th anniversary of two momentous events in 20th-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remain tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global antisemitism, and American foreign policy. Yet today American Jews are increasingly divided on the subject of Israel and human rights. Many on the Jewish Right and the Jewish Left increasingly imagine Zionism and international human rights as intrinsically incompatible – though they differ in their reasoning. Drawing on his recent book, Rooted Cosmopolitans, Professor Loeffler will discuss the deeper historical roots of this divide and its implications for the future of American Jewish politics.
James Loeffler is associate professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Virginia and former Robert A. Savitt Fellow at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Lecture by Ben Shapiro, conservative political commentator and writer. He is editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire and former editor-at-large of Breitbart News. Q&A.
7 p.m., Rackham Auditorium. Free; tickets required in advance. Yafumich.com, shapiroatmichigan@gmail.com.
BRING ABOUT SIX COPIES OF YOUR WORK. COPIES WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU.
Hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and Dave Jibson; see our blog at Facebook/Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room, 115 S. Main St. Free. 7346652757.info@crazywisdom.net www.crazywisdom.net
Storytellers Josie Barnes Parker and Laura Pershin Raynor join musicians Betsy Beckerman and Sara Melton Keller for an evening of funny and touching tales and tunes.
By sharing stories of adventures with their fathers, Josie and Laura explore universal themes, while Sara and Betsy mix it up with hammered dulcimer, guitar, and banjo tunes. Join these women as they celebrate Women’s History Month with this unique and humor-filled evening.
Invite your favorite friends for a girls’ night!
7-8:30 p.m., AADL Downtown multipurpose rm. Free. 327-4200.
ONE PAUSE POETRY SALON is (literally) a greenhouse for poetry and poets, nurturing an appreciation for written art in all languages and encouraging experiments in creative writing.
We meet every Weds in the greenhouse at Argus Farm Stop on Liberty St. The poems we read each time are unified by form (haiku, sonnet, spoken word), poet, time / place (Tang Dynasty, English Romanticism, New York in the 70s) or theme / mood (springtime, poems with cats, protest poems). We discuss the poems and play writing games together, with time for snacks and socializing in between.
Members are encouraged to share their own poems or poems they like – they may or may not relate to the theme of the evening. This is not primarily a workshop – we may hold special workshop nights, but mostly we listen to and talk about poems for the sake of inspiring new writing.
Whether you are a published poet or encountering poetry for the first time, we invite you to join us!
$5 suggested donation for food, drinks and printing costs.
8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.
