Thursday, September 17, 2015

Weekly Spotlight on Literary Events: September 17-24th



Dylan Horrocks - Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen
Friday, September 18th at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Meet Sam, an artist selling his soul by churning out an action comic when he wants to create graphic memoirs. Or just have adventures: absorbed—perhaps literally—in a comic about Mars, Sam embarks on a far-flung fantasy involving pulp plots and anime characters. Using Sam’s colorful experiences to comment on graphic traditions, Horrocks, the New Zealand-born comics artist best known for Hicksville and the scripts of the Batgirl series, offers a vivid meditation on creativity and the moral responsibility of the artist. Look for Horrocks’s Incomplete Works, featuring a wondrous mix of daydreams, fantasies, and other distractions from work, next month. Free admission.

LIVE! from Busboys Talent Showcase Open Mic hosted by Angie Head
Friday, September 18th from 11 pm to 1 am
Busboys and Poets (Hyattsville location)
5331 Baltimore Avenue
Hyattsville, MD 20781

LIVE! from Busboys is an open mic talent showcase that offers a platform for all performers, not just poets. Whether you are a musician, comedian, dancer, actor, magician or any other type of performer, we want to see what you got! Come out and showcase your talents! Tonight's LIVE! from Busboys is hosted by Angie Head. Cover charge: $5.

Todd Moss – Minute Zero
Saturday, September 19th at 1 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

The Golden Hour, Moss’s first international thriller, introduced you to Judd Ryker, a State Department crisis manager with his hands full after a coup in Mali. In his follow-up, he sends Ryker to Zimbabwe. There, amid a chaos of arms and money, military strongmen and rumors of enriched uranium, Ryker struggles to find that brief, sixty-second sweet spot that will allow him to take control of events. Moss is former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of African Affairs, who is currently vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. Free admission.


Martin Walker - The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel
Saturday, September 19th at 3:30 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

In his eighth mystery featuring Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, Walker infuses the sunny ambience of St. Denis with history and international intrigue. The eponymous patriarch is Jean-Marc Desaix, a World War II hero honored by both de Gaulle and Stalin; when Courrèges attends a party at his estate, the fun is cut short with a tragic accident. But—was it an accident? Looking more closely at his host’s family, Bruno finds rivalries, tensions, and evidence of possible espionage—too much to chalk up to “accident.” Walker is senior fellow of the Global Business Policy Council and former UPI foreign affairs columnist and editor in chief, Free admission.

Gilbert Gaul - Billion-Dollar Ball: A Journey through the Big-Money Culture of College Football
Saturday, September 19th at 6 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

With its outsize budgets, larger-than-life players, and infamous coaches, college football often seems to overshadow all other aspects of collegiate life. In this detailed investigation, Gaul, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with extensive experience at The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Enquirer, and other papers, looks closely at the largest of the NCAA football teams, laying out not only the statistics—profit margins of some college football programs have increased more than 600% in recent years—but also showing how the sport’s disproportionate share of resources harms academics and distorts a school’s overall meaning and mission. Free admission.

Youth Open Mic presented by Busboys and Poets
Saturday, September 19th from 6:30 pm to 8 pm
Busboys and Poets (5th and K location)
1025 5th Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

Youth-focused and youth-led, Youth Open Mic is a monthly series that features student poets, singers, musicians, and actors from the DC/Maryland/Virginia area. Middle school and high school students are encouraged to come share their art in a supportive, progressive, artistic atmosphere. $5 cover.

Salman Rushdie - Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
Saturday, September 19th at 7 pm
Sixth and I Historic Synagogue
600 I St NW
Washington, DC 20001

Rushdie has published fiction long and short, edited anthologies, and written four books of nonfiction. He caught readers’ attention with his 1981 novel, Midnight’s Children, which won not only that year’s Booker Prize, but also the Best of Bookers Prize in 2008. With Rushdie's signature blend of myth, history, wild imagination, and exuberance, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights depicts a world both fantastic yet recognizably our own. After a storm, New Yorkers start to notice some strange things; people develop unusual powers, both mental and physical. Investigations point back many generations to a jinn who, once upon a time, fell in love with a mortal.

1 Book and 1 Ticket: $35; $33 for members
1 Book and 2 Tickets: $45; $42 for members


Sandra Moore and Kazumi Wilds - The Peace Tree from Hiroshima: A Little Bonsai With A Big Story
Sunday, September 20th at 9:30 am
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012

For over 300 years, a certain Japanese white pine flourished in the care of the Yamaki family, who passed down the art of bonsai from generation to generation. Then, in 1945, war came to the doorstep of the Yamakis’ home with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States. Miraculously, both the family and this special white pine survived. This is the little tree’s story of its life, and how it found a new home in the very country that threatened its survival.  Ages 8 – 12. Free admission.

Alice Hoffman – The Marriage of Opposites
Sunday, September 20th at 1 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

In more than thirty works of fiction for both adults and young adults, Hoffman has perfected a compelling blend of realism and magic. Her latest novel is set on the lush island of St. Thomas. But for Rachel, who has grown up there among a small community of Jews who fled from the Inquisition, the truly exotic place is Paris, and she dreams of a life there—especially after she’s married off to a widower and becomes stepmother to three sons. Fate has more surprises in store, however. Free admission.

Grace Cavalieri and Eric Lindner
Sunday, September 20th, 2015 from 2 pm to 4 pm
The Writer’s Center
4508 Walsh Street
Bethesda, MD 20815

Grace Cavalieri reads from her new memoir, Life Upon the Wicked Stage. She is joined by Eric Lindner, who reads from Hospice Voices: Lessons for Living at the End of Life. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing. Free admission.

Wil Haygood - Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America
Sunday, September 20th at 5 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

A veteran journalist for The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, Haygood has become one of the premier biographers of African American leaders. After covering important figures in politics, sports, and the arts, including Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr., and others, Haygood now adds this groundbreaking study of Thurgood Marshall. Focusing on the jurist’s extraordinary forty-year career, Haygood chronicles the legal issues and major cases of the day, showing how the High Court Justice left his country a more equitable and better place. Free admission.

Sunday Kind of Love Open Mic Poetry
Sunday, September 20th from 5 pm to 7 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

A Busboys and Poetry event! Sunday Kind of Love Open Mic Poetry features emerging and established poets from the Washington, D.C. area and around the nation. Each program includes one to two featured poets and an open mic segment. $5 cover.

Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing - Flop to the Top! Toon Level 3
Monday, September 21st at 10:30 am
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
(Children’s and Teens Dept)
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Wanda knows she’s going to be a star someday, so why not start acting like one right now? Her siblings and her dog, Wilbur, languish on the sidelines as Wanda demands more than her fair share of attention.  When the tables turn and another member of the family experiences a taste of fame, Wanda must decide how to handle being outside of the spotlight. Ages 5 – 8. Free admission.

International Literature: Singaporean Literature
Monday, September 21st, 2015, at 4 pm
Library of Congress
James Madison Building (Mumford Room – Sixth floor)
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington, DC 20540

Poet/essayist Jee Leong Koh, playwright/translator Jeremy Tiang, and writer/editor Frank Stewart, will read from Starry Island: New Writing from Singapore as part of MANOA: A Pacific Journal of International Writing’s series of contemporary literature from Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. Free admission.

Lauren Groff - Fates and Furies
Monday, September 21st at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

Author of the story collection Delicate Edible Birds and two best-selling novels, Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia, Groff explores a rich and multilayered look at marriage in his third novel. A golden couple in every way, Lotto and Mathilde team up at age twenty-two; twenty-four years later, their union is more solid than ever. But where friends and colleagues see obvious affection and a mutually creative partnership, the couple’s strongest foundation rests on secrets. Groff will be in conversation with Lynn Neary, an NPR arts correspondent and a frequent guest host often heard on Morning Edition and Weekend Edition. Free admission.

Lee Child - Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel
Monday, September 21st at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

On his twentieth case and still going strong, Jack Reacher, the former U.S. Army Major with a penchant for roaming, arrives at a small town called Mother’s Rest, where he finds a cryptic message about a series of deaths, townsfolk acting oddly, and, most unnerving, a private investigator gone missing. Child, who was awarded the Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger in 2013, writes with such vivid energy that every book in the series has been optioned for film adaptation. Child will be in conversation with Laura Lippman, award-winning author of many mysteries, including the Tess Monaghan series. Free admission.

Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing - Flop to the Top! Toon Level 3
Monday, September 21st at 7:30 pm        
Takoma Park Library
101 Philadelphia Ave
Takoma Park, MD 20912

Wanda knows she’s going to be a star someday, so why not start acting like one right now? Her siblings and her dog, Wilbur, languish on the sidelines as Wanda demands more than her fair share of attention.  When the tables turn and another member of the family experiences a taste of fame, Wanda must decide how to handle being outside of the spotlight. Ages 5 – 8. Free admission.

Monday Night Open Mic Hosted by Mary Bowman
Monday, September 21st, 2015 from 8 pm to 10 pm
Busboys and Poets (Shirlington location)
4251 South Campbell Avenue
Arlington, VA 22206

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. $5 cover.

Tuesday Night Open Mic hosted by Drew Anderson
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012

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. $5 cover.

Tuesday Night Open Mic hosted by Gowri K
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 from 9 pm to 11 pm
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. $5 cover.

Marco Politi - Pope Francis among The Wolves: The Inside Story Of A Revolution
Wednesday, September 23rd at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (Brookland location)
625 Monroe St. NE
Washington, D.C. 20017

Now with il Fatto Quotidiano, Politi is the former Vatican correspondent for La Repubblica and has gained international recognition over the last four decades as an expert on the Papacy. The author of articles and book-length studies of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, his new book illuminates the complex power dynamics among the Roman Curia that led to the surprise election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He surveys the scandals rocking the church in recent years, and outlines the pressing issues facing Pope Francis. Free admission.

David De Sola - Alice in Chains: The Untold Story
Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

Four years after their first meeting at a warehouse under Seattle’s Ballard Bridge, the members of Alice in Chains became the first of grunge’s big four—ahead of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden—to earn a gold record and achieve national recognition. De Sola, a Georgetown graduate and now a Los Angeles-based journalist who has contributed to The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, and other journals, has interviewed the musicians, their colleagues, friends, family, and others in the music industry for this comprehensive history that interweaves the art, business, and personal lives of those involved in the 1990s grunge scene. Free admission.

Wednesday Night Open Mic hosted by Dwayne B
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015 from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (5th and K location)
1025 5th Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

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. $5 cover

Thursday Night Open Mic Poetry hosted by E-baby
Thursday, September 24th, from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (Hyattsville location)
5331 Baltimore Avenue
Hyattsville, MD 20781

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. $5 cover.



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