Calendar

Aug
28
Wed
Poetry Salon: One Pause Poetry @ Argus Farm Stop
Aug 28 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

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.

 

 

 

Aug
29
Thu
Fiction at Literati: Lillian Li: Number One Chinese Restaurant, and Akil Kumarasamy: Half Gods @ Literati
Aug 29 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We’re pleased to welcome Lillian Li and Akil Kumarasamy back to Literati Bookstore for an event celebrating the paperback release of their novels, Number One Chinese Restaurant, and Half Gods, respectively.  Book signing to follow. Free and open to the public. 

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 in Guernica, Granta and Jezebel. She is from the D.C. metro area and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Number One Chinese Restaurant is her first novel.

Akil Kumarasamy is a writer from New Jersey. Her fiction has appeared in Harper’s MagazineAmerican Short FictionBoston Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has been a fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the University of East Anglia. Half Gods is her first book.

Sep
1
Sun
RC Drama: Twelfth Night @ Arboretum (Peony Garden entrance)
Sep 1 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

A special performance for students of Shakespeare in the Arb on Labor Day weekend. Play is Twelfth Night, directed by Graham Atkin and Carol Gray, with Kate Mendeloff of the Residential College. Takes place in Nichols Arboretum, 1610 Washington Hts., Ann Arbor. Free but student ID required.

Now in its 19th year, Shakespeare in the Arb is directed by Kate Mendeloff of the U-M Residential College, Carol Gray, and Graham Atkin, and performed by U-M students and community players.

For member and non-member questions and information, visit mbgna.umich.edu

Shakespeare in the Arb came into existence in the summer of 2001, when Residential College Drama faculty member Kate Mendeloff was asked to direct an outdoor production as part of a three year Ford Motor Company grant for Arts in the Nichols Arboretum. She chose Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for its structure — the characters were transformed by the power of the natural world. The production was such a popular success that Mendeloff remounted it the following summer, and “Shakespeare in the Arb” became an Ann Arbor tradition!

The unique experience of Shakespeare in the Arb comes from the environmental staging of the plays. There is no fixed stage; instead, the audience follows the action through different locations in the Arboretum. The staging takes advantage of the vistas and valleys, the special arrangements of the natural settings.

The wide open space of the Arb becomes a panoramic stage, creating a more realistic setting than if every scene was played out directly in front of you. As one critic commented, “The actors used the vastness of its Arb stage to full advantage, making entrances from behind trees, appearing over rises and vanishing into the woods.”

Every year, many UM students, alumni, and faculty members gather to act in Shakespeare in the Arb. The RC offers Spring term class credit to students who participate. The experience blends community, student, and professional-style participation in a theatrical production with the delicate ecology and beautiful environment of the Arb, providing dynamic educational value for participating students.

Auditions occur every April, with rehearsals starting in the Spring term. Performances occur over 3 weekends in June. For information about participation, please contact founder Kate Mendeloff.

To find information about this year’s production of Shakespeare in the Arb, go to Matthei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum (MBGNA) , or like Shakespeare in the Arb on Facebook for updates on the production!

Ann Arbor Poetry: Zaphra Stupple and Native Child @ Espresso Royale
Sep 1 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Ann Arbor Poetry hosts an open mic every 1st and 3rd Sunday, with feature poets whenever we can get them.
$5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
Zaphra Stupple is a poet and multimedia artist living in Michigan. They are the author of There Will Still Be The Body (Red Beard Press, 2018). They were the 2017 Ann Arbor youth poet laureate. They were featured in Ann Arbor’s annual poetry show, Poetry Night, and are one third of the accompanying book, Joy, Despite. Their work has been published in The Offing, HEArt Journal, |tap| magazine, The Journal, and Vinyl, among others.

Kelly “Native Child” Mays is a licensed therapist, word warrior, award winning poet, annishnabe kwe, mother, wife, survivor. She incorporates poetry into her activism, therapy, and into her everyday life. A Detroit native, she is proud of both her American Indigenous ancestry and her African American Ancestry. She competed at the National Poetry Slam 2017 in Denver, CO, and in 2018. She was winner of the 2017 Round Robin Motown Mic and a 2018 and 2019 Motown Spoken Word Artist if the year finalist. She was featured in Cathexis Northwest Press in their September 2018 online journal. In 2019 she ranked 17 overall in the Rustbelt Regional Poetry competition out of 80 poets. She describes her poetry as quiet storms and her daughters as her greatest poems ever written.

 

Sep
3
Tue
John U. Bacon: Overtime @ Hill Auditorium
Sep 3 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Tickets available here.

Literati Bookstore is thrilled to welcome national bestseller John U. Bacon to the historic Hill Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan as he launches his latest book, Overtime: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College FootballFollowing an introduction by Sam Webb and Ira Weintraub of WTKA’s The Michigan Insider, John will give a book talk and answer audience questions.

The event is general admission, free and open to the public, but getting a free ticket secures your admission. You can also get a free ticket plus pre-order a signed copy of Overtime for the price of the book plus tax–those paid, pre-ordered copies will be picked up at the event.  A book signing will follow the event, and guests will be released by row to join the signing line. Guests must have a copy of Overtime they wish to have signed to join the signing line. Guests with pre-signed copies may join the signing line to have those copies personalized. 

A map of walkable parking structures can be found here

About OvertimeFor the past year, John U. Bacon has received unprecedented access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising?

Overtime delivers a riveting and revealing insider’s account of the Harbaugh era, a deeply reported human portrait of a big-time college football program.

In the spirit of HBO’s Hardknocks, Overtime follows the Wolverine coaches, players, and staffers through the 2018 season, including Harbaugh, offensive stars Shea Patterson and Karan Higdon, NFL-ready defensive standouts Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr., and Chase Winovich, second-stringers striving to find their place on the team, and their parents’ reactions to it all. Bacon met with them every week during a season that saw the Wolverines ride a ten-game winning streak to #4 in the nation, then take a beating at the hands of arch-rival Ohio State, led by controversial coach Urban Meyer, Harbaugh’s foil. Overtime also previews the crucial 2019 campaign ahead.

Above all, this is a human story. In Overtime we not only discover what these public figures are like behind the scenes, we learn what the experience means to them as they go through it – the trials, the triumphs, and the unexpected answers to a central question: Is it worth it?

John U. Bacon is the author of the national bestseller The Great Halifax Explosion and four bestselling books about college football, including Three and OutFourth and LongEndzone, and Bo’s Lasting Lessons, co-authored with Michigan coach Bo Schembechler. A former feature writer for the Detroit News, his writing has been recognized three times in The Best American Sports Writing series. He appears often on NPR and national television, including ESPN’s 2019 documentary series on college football. He has taught at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the University of Michigan. A popular public speaker, he lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and son.

Questions? Email John@LiteratiBookstore.com

The Moth Storyslam: Neighborhoods @ Greyline
Sep 3 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Open-mic storytelling competitions. Open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night’s theme. Come tell a story, or just enjoy the show!

6:30pm Doors Open | 7:30pm Stories Begin

*Tickets for this event are available one week before the show, at 3pm ET.

*Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please be sure to arrive at least 10 minutes before the show. Admission is not guaranteed for late arrivals. All sales final.

Media Sponsor: Michigan Radio.

NEIGHBORHOODS: Prepare a five-minute story about communities.Nosy grandma two doors down, kids on the stoop, block parties and other local flavors. The guy at the corner store, the church down the road, the playground down the block. Keeping up with the Joneses, glass houses, cups of sugar, banging on the ceiling, parking spot battles or the girl-next door.

 

Sep
4
Wed
Reception: Cynthia Sowers: Daughters of Memory: Paintings and Poems on the Nine Muses @ RC Art Gallery (East Quad)
Sep 4 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Daughters of Memory: Paintings and Poems on the Nine Muses is an interdisciplinary show of works by Cindy Sowers exploring the elusive sources for the ancient figures of the Muses, as well as the appropriation of these figures by different artists through the ages.

Reception for the Artist: September 6, approximately 4:30pm. Refreshments will be served.

Cindy Sowers received her B.A. from Oakland University, her M.A. from University of Michigan in Comparative Literature, and her Ph.D. also from the University of Michigan in Comparative Literature. During her Masters program in 1973, she started teaching at the Residential College in the First Year Seminar and French programs. Her dissertation, The Shared Structure of Craft and Song: A Study of Homer’s Narrative Art, revealed passions for narrative and visual analysis comparatively understood that would characterize her teaching thereafter. She participated in an interdisciplinary group composed of Residential College humanities and fine arts faculty who together constructed the Arts and Ideas in the Humanities concentration. Cindy’s recent course offerings have included critical approaches to the literature and visual arts of classic modernism, postmodernism, Shakespeare and Rome, the heritage of Greece, the psychoanalytic interpretation of the arts, and many others. She combines analyses of literary texts, visual arts, and philosophy to hone in on the animating spirit of a cultural moment and space. She has presented at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2006 U-M residency, as part of the RC Faculty Colloquium, for the LSA Comparative Literature and the Colloquium on Critical Theory sponsored by the LSA Department of English Language and Literature, and at the Residential College’s 50th Anniversary celebration. She has received the Ford Foundation Fellowship, the Rackham Prize twice, the U-M Excellence in Teaching Award, the Matthews Underclass Teaching Award, and is a member of the Medieval Academy of America. Cindy retires from her position as a Senior Lecturer and Lecturer IV, having served in the Residential College for 46 years. She has an active art practice, and her work will be displayed in the RC Art Gallery in a fall 2019 exhibition. She also maintains a personal website, cynthiasowers.rc.lsa.umich.edu, where she publishes essays, poetry, and visual artwork.

 

Poetry Salon: One Pause Poetry @ Argus Farm Stop
Sep 4 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

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.

 

 

 

Sep
9
Mon
Emerging Writers: Top Ten Writing Myths @ AADL Westgate, West Side Room
Sep 9 @ 7:00 pm – 8:45 pm

Do writers have to write every day? Is writer’s block real? Can you write a book in your spare time? In this workshop, Bethany Neal and Alex Kourvo look at the top ten myths of a writer’s lifestyle, and get real about what it takes to make writing your career.

This is part of the monthly Emerging Writers Workshops, which offer support, learning, and advice for local authors. Each month, two weeks after the workshop, there is a meet-up where the instructors will read samples of your work and offer advice and assistance in a casual, supportive atmosphere.

Do you have a completed manuscript? Consider submitting it to the library’s imprint Fifth Avenue Press.

 

Sep
10
Tue
Poetry at Literati: Jeff Kass: Teacher/Pizza Guy @ Literati
Sep 10 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Jeff Kass back to Literati for a reading from his new poetry collection, Teacher/Pizza Guy, as part of our ongoing Poetry at Literati series. Free and open to the public, book signing to follow. 

About the book: Explores the emotional and physical labor necessary to work nights as a pizza delivery driver and days as a high school English teacher.

Jeff Kass teaches tenth-grade English and creative writing at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is the founder of the Literary Arts Program at Ann Arbor’s teen center, The Neutral Zone, where he was program director for twenty years. He is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Knuckleheads, the poetry collection My Beautiful Hook-Nosed Beauty Queen Strut Wave, and the thriller Takedown. He lives in Ann Arbor with the author Karen Smyte and their children, Sam and Julius.

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