Events

Give yourself permission to take a summertime break! Bring a book and your favorite blanket for a relaxing afternoon reading in the park. We’ll meet up at the shop and walk down to Northam Park together for some quality reading time. Picnic snacks included. Tickets required. Limited spaces.

Ohio poet Andrew Grace joins us for a conversation and signing to celebrate his latest collection, A Brief History of the Midwest. About the Author: Andrew Grace was born in 1978 in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where his family has farmed for several generations. ​He studied English literature at Kenyon College in Ohio, and earned his MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. He attended Stanford as a Stegner Fellow, and earned his Doctoral degree from the University of Cincinnati. ​He is the the author of three books of poems, A Belonging Field (Salt Publishing), Shadeland (Ohio State University Press) and SANCTA (Ahsahta/Foundlings). His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, Boston Review, New Criterion and Adroit Journal amongst others. He is also a Senior Editor at the Kenyon Review. ​He now teaches poetry at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio where he lives with his wife Tory and their two daughters. About the book: A Brief History of the Midwest is a lyric encapsulation of the hardship and hope of the American Midwest. These poems trace the trajectory of the middle of America from its colonization to the present day. Hardships that range from loneliness to the opioid crisis to the largest earthquake in US history reverberate through the collection’ s fields, Northern waters, and derelict barns. The losses here are both historical and personal, as is the resilience of those who survived them. All the while there are moments of light that transcend a history “ written in thorn,” a moment of rest after bathing sheep, the flick of a trout in the Boyne River, a fistful of rose hips.

Join us for a discussion of Where When It Rains by John F Duffy.

Enjoy an evening of yoga among the book stacks with Happy Babe Yoga! Spaces are limited. This is a ticketed event. Cost is $20 per person and includes a private hour in the shop with a guided yoga session.

Join us for a discussion of And They Were Roommates by Page Powars.

Join us for a discussion of The Feast by Margaret Kennedy.

Come dressed in your coolest pajamas and enjoy a Bluey: Sleepytime–themed event with crafts, for real life! Tickets required. Spaces limited.

Join us for a discussion of When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy.

Join us for a discussion of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

Join us for a discussion of The Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.

Back by popular demand! Bring a book you’d love to add a little sparkle to. We’ll provide all the crafting supplies and everything you need to make your books shine. Tickets required. Spaces limited.

Stop by Storyline to meet debut author Katie Yee and pick up a copy of her novel, Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar. About the author: Katie Yee is a writer from Brooklyn. She has received fellowships from the Center for Fiction, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and Kundiman. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, No Tokens, The Believer, the Washington Square Review, Triangle House, Epiphany, and Literary Hub. By day, she works at the Brooklyn Museum. By night, she writes, usually under the watch of her judgmental rescue dog, Ollie. About the book: A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie. A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn’t just heartbreak—it’s cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie. Unfolding in fragments over the course of the ensuing months, Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She starts talking to Maggie (the tumor), getting acquainted with her body’s new inhabitant. She overgenerously creates a “Guide to My Husband: A User’s Manual” for Maggie (the other woman), hoping to ease the process of discovering her ex-husband’s whims and quirks. She turns her children’s bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared culture—and to maybe save herself in the process. In the style of Jenny Offill and the tradition of Nora Ephron’s hilarious and devastating writing on heartbreak and womanhood, Maggie is a master class in transforming personal tragedy into a form of defiant comedy.