Leaves are flirting with fall colors all across Michigan as we walk into September. I am excited to see more virtual events being planned out in advance, and I hope a few of these that feature Detroit writers make it on to your calendar.

On September 2, PEN America is facilitating a panel discussion in collaboration with the Authors Guild and the NYC Literary Action Coalition to speak about how literary organizations are surviving and responding to COVID-19. Moderated by Cheryl Davis of the Authors Guild, Detroit’s own Nandi Comer of Allied Media Projects will be one of the panelists sharing their experiences. I think that this panel will be rich with tips and tools for anyone working within a nonprofit organization, literary or otherwise.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series presented by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program with support from the University of Michigan’s Department of English Language and Literature is going with a virtual platform on September 3 to offer a reading and Q&A with Kaveh Akbar. This is an opportunity not only for the Detroit community, but those who can access the event online worldwide to take part in this renowned reading series.

Pages Bookshop has steadily hosted their visiting artist series virtually this summer. There is an upcoming event scheduled for September 15 featuring novelist Sharon Harrigan in conversation with Kelly Fordon. In addition, Pages is still open for business online!

Finally, on September 20, M. L. Liebler and Jennifer DeBellis, in collaboration with the Detroit Writers’ Guild, will host the ninth annual Midtown Detroit Lit Walk via Facebook Live—although there won’t be any walking involved this year. The reading will feature Shonda Buchanon, Brian Gilmore, and Alison Swan, just to name a few.

For more upcoming events, check out the Literary Events Calendar.

In a recent essay for FSG’s Work in Progress, Andrew Martin breaks down the experience of putting a collection of stories together and how he gleaned inspiration from listening to his favorite albums. Martin writes about how Neil Young is “famous for his idiosyncratic approach to assembling and releasing albums. A song recorded a decade earlier will suddenly find itself sharing space with a collection wildly different in tone and style.” He continues by comparing punk albums that “get in and get out quickly” to more sprawling albums like Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk and Notorious BIG’s Life After Death. Choose a favorite album and listen to how the songs react to one another and the importance of their order. Then, write a story with the structure, language, or character development inspired by this musical trajectory.

The abecedarian is a poetic form in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the English alphabet. Poets such as Natalie Diaz, Carolyn Forché, and Harryette Mullen have used the form to tackle the historical subjugation of a people and the inadequacy of language when faced with great disaster. The controlled form builds a visual structure that calls attention to the poem’s subject matter. Write an abecedarian poem that reflects on the English language and your place in it. Read Natalie Diaz’s “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation” for inspiration.

Whether it’s a nod that means “yes,” or a pointed finger that says, “over there,” we all likely express some form of nonverbal language in our day-to-day lives. But just how specific can we be with our body language? Think about how you communicate nonverbally to those around you. Are there certain gestures or facial expressions that only certain friends or family members understand? In a personal essay, reflect on when you use these actions and behaviors, where you learned them, and how they differ culturally and within particular social circles.

At the start of John Cheever’s short story “Goodbye, My Brother,” three paragraphs are dedicated to introducing the Pommeroy family before the plot begins. Although the section seems to go against the classic writing rule to “show, don’t tell,” it cleverly helps the reader understand the narrator’s personality, as well as learn details about the individual lives of each member of the family. The introduction’s final sentence also sets up the conflict: “We had disliked Lawrence, but we looked forward to his return with a mixture of apprehension and loyalty, with some of the joy and delight of reclaiming a brother.” Write a story in first person that uses an opening section to characterize your narrator and create tension. What subtext can we glean from what’s revealed in these first sentences?

In an interview with Yahdon Israel for the LIT video series, Whiting Award–winning poet Safiya Sinclair describes poetry as the “language of an impolite body.” Sinclair considers “wildness” and “madness” while writing and engages with the task of decolonizing the English language as a Jamaican writer. Consider your own relationship with the English language and write a poem that presents any complications or disturbances as an impolite body. Play with word choice or form to go against the grain of learned rules. For guidance, read Sinclair’s poem “In Childhood, Certain Skies Refined My Seeing” from her collection, Cannibal (University of Nebraska Press, 2016).

August 29 marks the day the levees broke in New Orleans fifteen years ago. To commemorate the occasion, I am curating a multi-genre reading to remember the lives that were lost and changed by Hurricane Katrina, and the city that was abandoned and continues to thrive. The writers invited for this reading represent the vast stories and experiences of the storm.

The featured readers for our virtual event include:

Lolis Eric Elie, New Orleans native and Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker, who most recently joined the writing staff of the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle and has written for the OWN series Greenleaf and HBO series Treme.

Alison Pelegrin, author of Waterlines (Louisiana State University Press, 2016) and professor in the English department at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Tom Piazza, author of the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters (Harper Perennial, 2008) and a principal writer for the HBO drama series Treme, which explores the aftereffects of Katrina in New Orleans.

Asia Rainey, New Orleans native and veteran artist with a resumé spanning twenty years in spoken word poetry, music, theater, television, visual arts, and film.

Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy, professor of English at Dillard University and author of Second Line Home (Truman State University Press, 2004) and Red Beans & Ricely Yours, which won the 2006 PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Prize and the 2005 T. S. Eliot Prize in poetry.

José Torres Tama, writer and poet exploring anti-immigrant hysteria in his written work and solo theater show Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers.

We will also have music performed by fourteen-year-old New Orleans saxophonist Akeel Salah Muhammad Haroon.

The reading will be livestreamed on the Poets & Writers Facebook page on Wednesday, August 26 at 6:00 PM CDT. Hope to see you there!

nola_katrina_anniversary_reading_2020_flyer3.png

“There’s a spot over Lake Superior where migrating butterflies veer sharply. No one understood why they made such a quick turn at that specific place until a geologist finally made the connection: a mountain rose out of the water at that exact location thousands of years ago,” writes Aimee Nezhukumatathil about a natural phenomenon that caused a reaction in an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments (Milkweed Editions, 2020), which appears in a Q&A by Ross Gay in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. “Maybe that is the loneliest kind of memory: to be forever altered by an invisible kiss, a reminder of something long gone and crumbled.” What belief, family story, or past event do you feel inexplicably tethered to? Write an essay that draws the connection between your physical reality and the unseen forces behind it.