Jul 27 Saturday
Ludington Area Center for the Arts (LACA) and Ludington Writers (LW) are excited to announce a FREE Ekphrastic Poetry workshop on Saturday, July 27, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The workshop will be held in the art center’s main gallery before moving to the Book Mark for further discussion and sharing.
This event continues the collaborative efforts of LACA and LW, focusing on generating poetry inspired by original art to promote both literacy and art exhibits at LACA. To register, please complete the form available at TinyUrl.com/July27Poetry.
The workshop will be co-hosted by Ludington Writers editors Kathlene Barrett and Nicole Birkett.
Local first-time author, LE Todd, will be hosting a book launch event for her debut contemporary novel, The Spoiler, The event will consist of a meet-and-greet and a book signing. It will take place on Saturday, July 27th, at 12 PM at Brilliant Books in Traverse City, MI!
About the Book:College student Rose Maraczek loves movies. Not just any movies, but sweeping period dramas that take her far away from who she is. Her obsession started in high school when a box of movies appeared on her doorstep and she discovered the relief they could give her from her debilitating OCD. What Rose hates are spoilers—especially those that ruin the escape she seeks.
Tristan Moore, Rose's former crush and her brother's best friend, is the bane of her existence. Always at their house, everything he does gets under Rose's skin, the worst of which is his consistent dropping of movie spoilers. Fed up, Rose sets out to find a new apartment, but it's while trying to distance herself from Tristan that he reveals one final spoiler—one that makes Rose realize it was Tristan who left all those movies for her years ago. Now it's Rose's turn for revenge as she forms a movie-spoiler plan of her own: Destroy Tristan Moore.
Jul 30 Tuesday
Ludington Area Center for the Arts (LACA) and Ludington Writers (LW) are excited to announce a FREE public reading and open mic on Tuesday, July 30, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the art center’s performance hall. Workshop attendees are invited to share their ekphrastic poetry, followed by a general poetry reading. Both events are FREE and open to the public.
Aug 18 Sunday
Coffee With The Authors is a live, conversational interview with local and regional authors about the craft and process of writing. On August 18 Traverse City poet and teacher Jennifer Sperry Steinorth discusses Her Read, a book-length collage poem. In the tradition of reusing canvases, Steinorth appropriates a seminal text, The Meaning of Art by Herbert Read (Faber & Faber, 1931), and with the liberal use of correction fluid, scalpel and embroidery floss, erases and transforms the book from art criticism into feminist verse. Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC gallery manager, leads the conversation. The interview begins at 1 pm.
Steinorth is the author of three published books of poetry, numerous broadsides, handmade books and more. She is a lecturer at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a 2023-2024 Beinecke Fellow at Yale where she is at work on a biography of American poet, C.D. Wright.
This Coffee With The Authors interview is part of the GAAC’s Shrines + Altars project, an exploration of what, where, and how we direct our worshipful attention – secular, non-secular, sacred, and profane. Read more about Shrines + Altars at GlenArborArt.org /EXHIBITS. Coffee With The Authors is offered without charge. The program is supported by the Cottage Book Shop and the Glen Lake Community Library. The GAAC is located at 6031 S. Lake St., Glen Arbor.
Sep 14 Saturday
Coffee With The Authors is a live, conversational interview with local and regional authors about the craft and process of writing. On September 14 Traverse City poet and teacher Teresa Scallon talks about To Embroider The Ground With Prayer, a collection of poems considering her father’s illness, death, and the Michigan farming community in which she was raised. Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC gallery manager, leads the conversation. The interview begins at 1 pm.
To Embroider The Ground With Prayer is a dynamic group of poems. Scallon writes in a wide range of poetic styles and voices, moving between reverence and irreverence with agility, skill, and a keen, loving eye for the perfect details. As Scollon writes, “To capture story is one way of giving thanks, of paying attention, to know where we are.” She’ll break that down, and talk about the process of building a collection of thematically-linked poems that tell a singular, personal story.
Sep 29 Sunday
Frankfort painter Ellie Harold traveled to Paris in 2022, a pilgrimage to view an exhibition of paintings by Impressionist Claude Monet and Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell. The souvenirs from that trip weren’t T-shirts and tote bags, but questions, including: What does it mean to be a “real” artist? Harold explores that question in the resulting book, Monet, Mitchell & Me: A Painter's Pilgrimage. She talks about how she answered that question at the September 29 Coffee With The Authors conversation, 1 pm at the Glen Arbor Arts Center.
Harold’s book is a meditation on her struggles with creative block, about practice, process, and why she’d rather make work than look at it in a museum. Monet, Mitchell & Me is the story of Harold’s journey into the valley of art historical giants, and the side trips into the interior of her own, artistic country.
Coffee With The Authors is a series of conversational interviews with local and regional authors about the craft and process of writing. This program is offered as part of the GAAC’s Shrines + Altars, an exhibition that explores what we hold sacred: To whom are we building shrines? At what altars are we worshipping? The program is free. For more information go to GlenArborArt.org /EVENTS.