Thursday, September 10, 2015

Weekly Spotlight on Literary Events: September 9-17



Joy-Ann Reid – Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide
Friday, September 11th at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Come and hear MSNBC’s Joy Reid read from and discuss her new book, in which she examines the current state of the Democratic Party. Free admission.

11th Hour Poetry Slam hosted by 2Deep the Poetess
Friday, September 11th from 11 pm to 1 am
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

The 11th Hour Poetry Slam offers an opportunity for poetry lovers to enjoy the competitive art of late-night performance poetry! Enjoy two rounds of high intensity poetry, with the audience choosing a winner. Actress and poet 2Deep the Poetess will host the evening. $5 cover charge.

Amy Stewart - Girl Waits With Gun
Saturday, September 12th at 3:30 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

In her first novel, the author of Flower Confidential, The Drunken Botanist, and other books on plants and insects turns from nature to human nature. Stewart looks back to 1914 and the life of Constance Kopp, one of the first women to serve as a deputy sheriff. Free admission.

Amitav Ghosh - Flood Of Fire
Saturday, September 12th at 6 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

As Gosh’s trilogy’s concluding volume begins, it’s 1839 and the British foreign secretary is mobilizing troops to force China to rescind its embargo on opium. Thus Ghosh dramatizes the Opium Wars, bringing colonial history to vivid literary life. Free admission.

Sonja D. Williams - Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom
Saturday, September 12th at 1 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Sonja D. Williams discusses Word Warrior, in which she draws an extensive portrait of Richard Durham, known for his pioneering in radio and journalism. Free admission.


Damon Tweedy, M.D. - Black Man in a White Coat: a Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine
Sunday, September 13th at 2 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

In his first book, Tweedy, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke and a practitioner at the Durham VA Medical Center, explores the significance of race in the medical world. Tracing his own experience as a medical student on a full scholarship—who at one point is mistaken for a maintenance worker—Dr. Tweedy exposes some of his profession’s outdated assumptions, while also showing the very real impact of socioeconomic factors on the health of black Americans. Free admission.

Michelle Brafman – Washing the Dead and Dylan Landis – Rainey Royal
Sunday, September 13th from 2 pm to 4 pm
The Writer’s Center
4508 Walsh Street
Bethesda, MD 20815

Novelist Michelle Brafman reads from Washing the Dead. She is joined by novelist Dylan Landis, author of Rainey Royal. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing. Free admission.

Abdul Hamidullah & Lawrence Nicol - Sincerely Me
Sunday, September 13th from 6:30 pm to 8 pm
Busboys and Poets (5th and K location)
1025 5th Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

Join authors Abdul Hamidullah & Lawrence Nicol as they discuss and sign their book, Sincerely Me, a collection of poetry by two authors. Free admission.

T. Geronimo Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville
Monday, September 14th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012

Politics & Prose at Busboys and Poets Takoma presents a discussion with author T Geronimo Johnson about his latest novel, Welcome to Braggsville, a dark comedy about a group of students who stage a protest during a Civil War re-enactment. Free admission.

Monday Night Open Mic hosted by 13 of Nazareth
Monday, September 14th from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Busboys and Poets (Shirlington location)
4251 South Campbell Avenue
Arlington, VA 22206

Performance poet 13 of Nazareth hosts the Monday Night Open Mic at the Busboys and Poets Shirlington location. $5 cover charge.

Monday Night Open Mic hosted by Joseph LMS Green
Monday, September 14th from 9:00 pm-11:00 pm
Busboys and Poets (Brookland location)
625 Monroe St. NE
Washington, D.C. 20017

Come to Busboys and Poets Brookland for an evening of performance and entertainment at the Monday Night Open Mic hosted by poet Joseph LMS Green. $5 cover charge.

History of the Public Library
Tuesday, September 15th, 2015, from 12 pm to 1 pm
Library of Congress
James Madison Building (Montpelier Room – Sixth floor)
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington, DC 20540

Wayne Wiegand discusses and signs his new book Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library. Contact (202) 707-1519 for more information.

Ellen Bravo - Again And Again
Tuesday, September 15th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

A Politics & Prose event at Busboys and Poets 14th & V, author Ellen Bravo will discuss her book Again And Again. Free admission.

Eoin Colfer - Warp Book 3 The Forever Man & Jonathan Stroud - Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy
Tuesday, September 15th at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
(Children’s and Teens Dept)
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Two of the most successful authors for younger readers discuss the latest installments in their respective series. Ages 10 and up. Free admission.

Jill Bialosky - The Prize
Tuesday, September 15th at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Bialosky is well known in the literary world as not only a poet, novelist, and author of the moving memoir, History of a Suicide, but also as an editor at Norton. Her third novel, following The Life Room and House Under Snow, is artful in theme as well as in execution, taking readers into the contemporary art world. The story follows a gallery owner who finds his integrity tested by two very different painters, and Bialosky powerfully evokes the passions involved in the creation and marketing of beautiful objects—passions that veer from idealism into manipulation and betrayal. Free admission.

Tuesday Night Open Mic hosted by Patrick Washington
Tuesday, September 15th from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012

A variety of musicians, poets, and other performers will entertain us for two hours. Anything could happen. $5 cover charge.

Tuesday Night Open Mic hosted by Drew Anderson
Tuesday, September 15th from 11 pm to 1 am
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices, and a vast array of professional spoken word performers, open mic rookies, musicians and a different host every week. Expect to be moved, expect a packed house, expect the unexpected, but above all come with an open mind and ear. $5 cover charge.

Dale Russakoff - The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools?
Wednesday, September 16th at 7:00 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

A long-time Washington Post reporter, Russakoff has covered politics, economics, and education, all of which come into play in this account of the alliance formed by Newark mayor Cory Booker with New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—and a commitment of $100 million. But clashes among reformers, teachers, parents, and administrators meant little help for students, and Russakoff’s profiles of individual schools vividly show what was really at stake. Free admission.

Joe Meno - Marvel And A Wonder & Nina Revoyr - Lost Canyon
Wednesday, September 16th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

Meno and Revovr discuss their new novels, which are based, respectively, on an Indiana farm in the summer of 1995 and in the rugged landscape of the Sierra Nevada. Free admission.

Ellen Urbani  - Landfall
Wednesday, September 16th at 6:30 pm
Kramerbooks
1517 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036

Two mothers and their teenage daughters, whose lives collide in a fatal car crash, take turns narrating Ellen Urbani's breathtaking novel, Landfall, set in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Rose's quest to atone for the accident that kills Rosebud, a young woman so much like herself but for the color of her skin, unfolds alongside Rosebud's battle to survive the devastating flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward and to find help for her unstable mother. Free admission.

Susan Abulhawa - The Blue Between Sky And Water
Wednesday, September 16th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

In her second novel, Abulhawa, a human rights activist and the author of Mornings in Jenin, and herself the child of displaced Palestinians, chronicles the ordeal of a Palestinian family uprooted from their ancestral farm. Free admission.

Wednesday Night Open Mic hosted by Jonathan Tucker
Wednesday, August 26th from 9 pm-11 pm
Busboys and Poets (5th & K location)
1025 5th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20001

Performer and activist Jonathan Tucker hosts the Wednesday Night Open Mic at Busboys and Poets 5th & K. Come share your work or watch others perform. $5 cover charge.

Rederik Peeters Aama: 4. You Will Be Glorious, My Daughter
Thursday, September 17th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012

Peeters, the Geneva-based graphic novelist, has won world-wide acclaim for Blue Pills and Pachyderme, and was awarded the Best Series Prize at Angoul’me for the first two volumes of his four-book Aama. Set in the distant future, the series began with Verloc, his brother Conrad, and a cigar-smoking robotic monkey named Churchill. As the quest continues on the planet Ona(ji), the expedition dwindles to a single man: can Verloc alone, himself radically transformed, regain control of Aama? Peeters will be in conversation with Sam Marx, Exhibitor Coordinator at the Small Press Expo. Free admission.

Bethany McLean - Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants
Thursday, September 17th at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Senior writer and editor at large for Fortune, McLean made her name as a young investigative reporter in 2001 with her skeptical writing on Enron. In her third book, she looks at the dangerous ramifications of the “conservatorship” system Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been operating in since 2008. With their profits used to pay down the federal deficit, the agencies are low on reserves, which could cause their major investors, including China, Russia, and Japan, to lose confidence and pull out—sparking a global crisis. Free admission.
 

Thursday Night Open Mic Poetry hosted by Rebecca Dupas
Thursday, September 17th from 9:00 pm-11:00 pm
Busboys and Poets (Hyattsville location)
5331 Baltimore Avenue
Hyattsville, MD 20781

Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville presents a Thursday Night Open Mic hosted by Rebecca Dupas. $5 suggested donation.

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