Join us for all of our exciting upcoming events!
Autumn is here, and the chill in the air and changing of leaves call for a mug of hot cider and a new read!
Next Chapter Booksellers has a raft of great events this fall. Learn about publishing, meet new authors, or learn about how to run a book club. It's all happening here.
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Sunday, September 15, 2019, 4:00pm
"How to Get Published" presented by
Dawn Frederick of Red Sofa Literary Agency
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If you're interested in getting your writing published, Dawn Frederick of Red Soft Literary will be sharing expert tips on how to get your work represented and in-print!
Dawn Michelle Frederick is the owner/literary agent of Red Sofa Literary, established in 2008. She brings a broad knowledge of the book business to the table, bringing multiple years of experience as a bookseller in independent, chain, and specialty stores; sales, marketing, and book development experience; previously a literary agent at Sebastian Literary Agency. She has a B.S. in Human Ecology, and a M.S. in Information Sciences. Dawn co-founded the MN Publishing Tweet Up, is a former member of the Twin Cities Advisory Council for MPR, a member of the BOD for Loft Literary, and a teaching artist at Loft Literary. You can find her on Twitter at
@redsofaliterary
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Thursday, September 19, 2019, 7:00pm
Cracked Walnut
Bridges Reading
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Bridges was formerly housed at Blue Harbor Center for the Arts, along with sister reading series, Literary Lights, hosted by Donna Isaac.
Bridges is intended to bring together writers across genres and cultural backgrounds to express themselves, but also build links to each other. The title comes from a performance piece, Landbridge: The Beringia Project, that Stanley Kusunoki did with Jamison Mahto, an Anishinabe performance poet/trickster coyote. Starting with conflicting creation myths, we came to a point where the readers, understood and connected with the commonalities of their histories and cultures. It is the hope of the series that participants will do the same between themselves and audience members.
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Friday, September 20, 2019, 7:00pm
Discussions on Writing: Katherine Quie and Amy Hallberg
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Two authors discuss the process, explorations, and therapeutic benefits of writing.
Amy Hallberg graduated from Carleton College in 1992 with a degree in German Literature. She holds certificates in Editing and Translation from the University of Chicago, and Creative Nonfiction from the Loft Literary Center. Following a two-decade career as a high school language teacher, Amy is now a Book Whisperer (aka intuitive developmental editor), Master Certified Life Coach, and host of the podcast Frau Amy’s World: Conversation with Real-Life Creatives.
2019 IPPY Bronze Award for Midwest Nonfiction, German Awakening tells the tale of a 1987 West German exchange trip and the lasting friendship that changed Amy's worldview. As Frau Hallberg, she spent the following decades unpacking German lessons on language, human nature, and -- most importantly -- herself.
Katherine Quie is a licensed child psychologist, mother of two, and lives in Saint Paul with her family. She loves group fitness, yoga, knitting, and recently founded ADHD&U as an outlet for her passion in supporting youth and families impacted by ADHD.
Raising Will is a heartfelt, humbling memoir written by a Texan turned Minnesotan mother and child psychologist. Her heart breaks for Will when he is repeatedly banned from Fun Friday in 1st grade shortly after he is diagnosed with ADHD. The family zig-zags through an obstacle course of therapies, medication side effects, tutoring, and sleepless nights, while shining a light on Will’s inherent strength – blues guitar. Her readers will surely recognize themselves in this story and find solace, laughter, and hope as they celebrate the surprising blessings ADHD can bring.
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Sunday, September 22, 2019, 3:00pm
NCB Toni Morrison Book Club discusses
The Bluest Eye
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In honor of the passing of beloved author Toni Morrison Next Chapter Booksellers will be hosting a book club to read one of her timeless works.
The Bluest Eye
is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change- in painful, devastating ways.
Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed African American characters; among the best known are her novels
The Bluest Eye
,
Song of Solomon
, and
Beloved
, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. In 2001 she was named one of "The 30 Most Powerful Women in America" by Ladies' Home Journal.
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Monday, September 23, 2019. 7:00pm
Gabby Rivera and Junauda Petrus present their debut YA novels
Juliet Takes a Breath
and
Stars
and the Blackness Between Them
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Two authors, Junauda Petrus and Gabby Rivera, discuss their debut Young Adult novels.
Praise for
Juliet Takes A Breath
:
"F***ing outstanding."-Roxanne Gay, author of
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus’s bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both.
Junauda Petrus’s debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.
Gabby Rivera is a Bronx-born queer Latinx babe on a mission to create the wildest, most fun stories ever. She's the first Latina to write for Marvel comics, penning the solo series
AMERICA
about America Chavez, a portal-punching queer Latina powerhouse.
Junauda Petrus
is a writer, pleasure activist, filmmaker and performance artist, born on Dakota land of Black-Caribbean descent. Her work centers around wildness, queerness, Black-diasporic-futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, shimmer and liberation. She lives in Minneapolis with her wife and family.
www.junauda.com
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Wednesday, September 25, 2019, 7:00pm
Saint Paul Almanac 12: Resilience and Resistance
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The 12th edition of the Almanac series, a literary and artistic love letter to Saint Paul. 6-8 authors will read from this anthology, which includes art, poetry, and short memoir pieces. Previous editions have won local and regional awards.
Featuring work by Corva León, Kao Kalia Yang, Thet-Htar Thet , David Mendez, Patricia Kirkpatrick, Tom LaBlanc, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Greg Watson, Irna Landrum, Ethna McKiernan, Lisa Yankton, and many others.
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Monday, September 30, 2019, 7:00pm
Next Chapter Booksellers presents
Book Club Club
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You're invited to the first meeting of Book Club Club. It's not a discussion of a single book. Instead, we'll talk about book clubs themselves. We'll offer tips to spur discussion, suggestions for books to read, and even a few goodies to keep you inspired.
Book Club Club is a great opportunity to meet and share ideas. Whether you're looking to join a book club, find new members, or just share ideas with other readers, Book Club Club will help you connect with readers and book lovers. No reservations are required. Just stop by and say hello
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Tuesday, October 1, 2019. 7:00pm
Joyce Sutphen reads from
Carrying Water to the Field
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Joyce Sutphen’s evocations of life on a small farm, coming of age in the late 1960s, and traveling and searching for balance in a very modern world are both deeply personal and familiar. Readers from Maine to Minnesota and beyond will recognize themselves, their parents, aunts and uncles, and neighbors in these poems, which move us from delight in keen description toward something like wisdom or solace in the things of this world.
In addition to poems selected from the last twenty-five years,
Carrying Water to the Field
includes more than forty new poems on the themes of luck, hard work, and the ravages of time—erasures that Sutphen attempts to ameliorate with her careful attention to language and lyrical precision.
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Sunday, October 6, 2019. 2:00pm
Literary Lights presents Peace & Love: 50 Years After Woodstock
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Literary Lights presents Peace & Love: 50 Years After Woodstock, Oct. 6, 2-3:30 with poets Deborah Keenan, Mike Finley, Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, Ethna McKiernan, & Tim Nolan with host Donna Isaac!
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Monday, October 7, 2019. 7:00pm
Steve Healey reads from
Safe Houses I Have Known
accompanied by Warren Woessner
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As a child during the Cold War, Steve Healey learns that his father is a spy for the CIA. Beneath the banality of everyday life—the suburbs of Washington, DC; school and play; his parents’ deteriorating marriage—assumed names, parallel lives, and myriad Cold War menaces linger. Drawing from CIA training manuals and pop culture references alike, Healey’s poetry is both intimate and claustrophobic. In these poems, the natural anxiety of childhood is compounded by the weight of national and family secrets. Healey draws deep parallels between the shaky foundations of truth in his past and the paranoia that envelops our nation’s present.
Steve Healey is the author of two previous books of poetry,
10 Mississippi
and
Earthling
, both from Coffee House Press. His poems have been published in magazines such as American Poetry Review, the Awl, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, jubilat, and the Nation, and in anthologies, most recently The New Census: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. He’s a professor of English and creative writing at Minneapolis College.
Steve will be accompanied by Warren Woessner who is the Senior Editor of Abraxas, which he co-founded in 1968. He also was a co- founder of WORT-FM in Madison, WI. Five collections of his poetry have been published, most recently Clear All the Rest of the Way (The Backwaters Press). He has received Fellowships in Poetry from the NEA, the Wisconsin Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation. Warren holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He co-founded Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner in 1993, where he works as a biotechnology patent attorney. Woessner's poetry has been widely published and anthologized, including in periodicals and reviews, including Poetry, Poetry Northwest, the Nation, 5 AM, Nimrod, Midwest Quarterly and The Beloit Pooetry Journal. He won the Minnesota Voices Competition sponsored by New Rivers Press in 1986. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Wednesday, October 11, 2019, 7:00pm
Brian G Gilmore reads from
come see about me, marvin
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come see about me, marvin
is accessible, honest poetry about and for real people. Brian G. Gilmore seeks to invite the reader into a fantastical dialogue between himself and Marvin Gaye—two black men who were born in the nation’s capital, but moved to the Midwest for professional ambitions. In trying to acclimate himself to a new job in a new place—a place that seems so different from the home he has always known—Gilmore looks to Marvin Gaye as an example for how to be. These poems are a means of coping in a strange land.
Brian G Gilmore, is a poet, writer, public interest attorney, and columnist with the Progressive Media Project. He is a Cave Canem Fellow (1997), Kimbilio Fellow (2014), Literature Fellow for the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities (1997), Pushcart Prize nominee (2007), and winner of the Maryland State Arts Council's Individual Artist Award (2001 and 2003). Gilmore has been a contributing writer for Ebony-Jet.com, and JazzTimes Magazine. He is the author of four collections of poetry including his most recent release,
come see about me, marvin
(Wayne State University Press - 2019). His poems and writings are widely published and have appeared in The Progressive, The Washington Post, The Sun Magazine, Sojourners, Jubilat, and many other publications. His 2014 collection,
We Didn't Know Any Gangsters
, (Cherry Castle LLC), was a 2014 NAACP Image Award nominee and a 2015 Hurston Wright Legacy Award nominee. He teaches law at the Michigan State University, where he lectures and writes on contemporary issues relating to housing and economic inequality.
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Sunday, October 13, 2019. 12:30pm
Tegan and Sara Photo Op and Book Signing
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From the iconic musicians Tegan and Sara comes a memoir about high school, detailing their first loves and first songs in a compelling look back at their humble beginnings.
High School
is the revelatory and unique coming-of-age story of Tegan and Sara Quin, identical twins from Calgary, Alberta, who grew up at the height of grunge and rave culture in the nineties, well before they became the celebrated musicians and global LGBTQ icons we know today.
Please join bestselling recording artists Tegan and Sara for a photo op and a pre-signed copy of
High School
.
This is a ticketed event. Tickets can be purchased
here
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Banned Books Week:
September 22 to 28
Celebrate the power of books with us by checking out some prohibited selections!
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Thanks for reading all the way to the end.
We've got lots more great books in the store.
We hope you'll come in soon for a recommendation.
--all of us at Next Chapter Booksellers
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