Reading for Wellness Book Club
2024-07-07 13:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | MD

Evan Porter: DAD CAMP (with Matthew Norman)
2024-07-09 18:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Celebrating the poignant, hilarious summer novel DAD CAMP with Evan S. Porter in conversation with Matthew Norman! DAD CAMP follows a loving dad who drags his eleven-year-old daughter to “father-daughter week” at a remote summer camp, their last chance to bond before he loses her to teenage girlhood entirely.
It’s about family, fighting toxic masculinity, and reaching for the things and people we love the most– all with plenty of good humor and summery feelings. We’re glad that Matthew Norman, author of the beloved Charm City Rocks, and many other humorous, heartwarming novels, will join Evan Porter in conversation.
We hope you can join us for this uplifting evening!
Click here to order Dad Camp!

Ivy Kids Saturday: Foodie Architects
2024-07-13 08:00 - 10:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Join us on July 13th from 8-10AM (extended hours!) to get crafty with marshmallows and toothpicks! Plus, stick around for lawn games!

Click here to RSVP!

Happy Hour Book Signing with Washington Writers' Publishing House
2024-07-13 17:00 - 19:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Join Washington Writers’ Publishing House (WWPH) on the back patio at The Ivy to toast the winner of the the Biennial WWPH Translation Series, Aguas/Waters by Miguel Avero! It’s a real treat that both author and translator will be present for this happy hour and book signing, so you can meet them both and ask them questions about the writing and translation process.
Come to mix and mingle with the writers – stay for the cocktail with an Uruguayan flair!
Aguas/Waters introduces the rich and vibrant imagery of Uruguayan poet Miguel Avero to the English-speaking world. Selected works from two of his early collections highlight the legacy of magical realism and rioplatense rhythms in this prolific poet’s fierce style. This first bilingual edition matches each original Spanish poem with an inspired translation by Washington D.C. poet Jona Colson. Aguas/Waters is the premier selection in the Biennial WWPH Translation Series.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order a copy of Aguas/Waters! Books will also be available at the event.

New Date! Noa Silver: CALIFORNIA DREAMING (with Christine Grillo)
2024-07-16 18:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
You’re invited to a conversation about debut novels, young people finding meaning in their lives, questions of family and responsibility, and– engaging summer reading! Noa Silver’s new novel, CALIFORNIA DREAMING, is a coming-of-age story between the Occupy and #MeToo movements and against the backdrop of the 2016 election and California’s ever-worsening fire season. It’s a book about how we come to understand our motivations and values, and we’re lucky to welcome Noa Silver to discuss her writing process on this July evening.
Delightfully, Christine Grillo, author of the beloved HESTIA STRIKES A MATCH (“an irreverent, incisive, laugh-out-loud interrogation of modern love”), will moderate this conversation.
We hope you’ll join us!
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order CALIFORNIA DREAMING!

Yappy Hour: A Dog Social (Dogs Read Too!)
2024-07-18 17:00 - 19:00 | MD
You asked, we answered! Presenting The Ivy’s first ever Yappy Hour, an outdoor happy hour with refreshments and books for humans and pups alike!
Bring your canine buds (on leashes, please!) to our spacious gardens to socialize… and maybe even make a new human friend, while browsing tales about tails for all ages.
Thanks for your RSVP, which lets us know how to set up the bar! We can’t wait to see you there.
Click here to RSVP!

Thank You, Baltimore! Garden Party
2024-07-19 17:00 - 20:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Garden, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Thank you so much to our city! Such fun news that we were named Best of Baltimore. We’re really honored. Let’s celebrate!
Join us in the gardens for a book bundle raffle, lawn games, and (drum roll please) free treats from our neighbors at Tropicool!
The very best thing is books, and the people who love them. Thanks to all of you for being those people– can’t wait to hang out together in that spirit.
Click here to RSVP!

Olympics Opening Ceremony Watch Party
2024-07-26 13:30 - 17:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
We’ll be streaming the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics at Bird in Hand! Join us for a coffee, beer (25% off 6-packs of Old Oriole Park), or a bite.
Let us know you’re coming here.

Clifford Murphy: INK: THE INDELIBLE J. MAYO WILLIAMS (with Brooks Long)
2024-07-26 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
A concert & conversation about the most significant record producer in Blues, R&B, gospel, & jazz in the first half of the 20th century!
The Ivy Bookshop is thrilled to have you over for a night of music and conversation inspired by Clifford R. Murphy’s new biography INK: THE INDELIBLE J. MAYO WILLIAMS! On this festive Friday night, Murphy, the director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, joins with Brooks Long, host of WTMD’s “Six Degrees of Soul” to present a concert and book talk.
We’ll provide the books, the beverages, and the shady outdoor spot– you come prepared to kick back and learn about the most significant record producer in Blues, R&B, gospel, and jazz in the first half of the 20th Century.
In the 1920s, while producing records by the likes of Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson, Williams was moonlighting on weekends as one of the early Black stars of the National Football League. Though Williams’ life intersected with a swath of major figures in 20th Century life – from Paul Robeson to W.E.B. DuBois, George Halas, Nat King Cole, and John Hammond, Ink is the first biography of this major figure in American cultural production.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order INK!

CLIFFORD R. MURPHY is a musician and ethnomusicologist. He is a founding member of the rock band Say ZuZu, the director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and the author of Yankee Twang: Country and Western Music in New England, and co-author (with Henry Glassie and Douglas Dowling Peach) of Ola Belle Reed & Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line. He lives in the Rodgers Forge neighborhood with his wife and four rambunctious kids.
BROOKS LONG is a singer, songwriter, and host of WTMD’s “Six Degrees of Soul.” As a musician, he has been celebrated with “Best of Baltimore” accolades, and his work as a cultural historian of Baltimore R&B has been showcased by Creative Alliance, UMBC, and others.

Merideth M. Taylor: MAKING A WAY OUT OF NO WAY: LIVES OF LABOR, LOVE, AND RESISTANCE (with Maya Davis and Angela Wilson)
2024-07-30 18:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
The Ivy is excited to welcome Dr. Merideth M. Taylor to speak about her new book Making a Way Out of No Way: Lives of Labor, Love, and Resistance, a richly imagined, photo illustrated narrative of 150 years of life in slavery on tobacco plantations in Southern Maryland.
The photographs and stories in this book grew out of the author’s quest to understand how these people, who were subjected to a system that made every attempt to brutalize and dehumanize them, were able not only to survive but to build families and meaningful lives. Her choice to largely avoid graphic depictions of the violence perpetrated on enslaved bodies allows the reader to focus, instead, on the remarkable resilience, ingenuity, skills, and cultural strengths that enabled them to make a way out of no way.
Author royalties will be donated to Historic Sotterley’s Descendant’s Project, and we’re fortunate that Angela Davis, a Descendant of Historic Sotterley Plantation, will join Dr. Taylor for this event, along with Maya Davis, Director of the Riversdale House Museum. We hope you can join us for this meaningful conversation.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order Making a Way Out of No Way!
Books will also be available at the event.

First Friday Comedy Night: David Davis, Mia Musa, & Mert Wolf
2024-08-02 18:00 - 20:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
The new monthly comedy series continues at Bird in Hand, hosted and curated by the one & only Satarah Fisher! This month’s featured comedians: David Davis, Mia Musa, & Mert Wolf.
Join us at 6pm to hear the featured comedians, or at 7pm for the free open mic! Tickets available here for both. Drinks (alcoholic and non) and snacks will be available at the Bird Bar.

RSVP here!

Brunch Time Book Signing: Elisa Beth Haransky-Beck, ENLIVENING CONSCIOUSNESS
2024-08-04 11:00 - 13:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Garden, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
On Sunday, August 4th, visit the gardens of The Ivy Bookshop to celebrate Enlivening Consciousness: Tips and Tools for Natural Eyesight Improvement and Ways of Moving and Eating to Preserve and Promote Wellness, the new book from Dr. Elisa Beth “ElisaBe” Haransky-Beck! This event will take place in partnership with Jewish Vegan Life. Free kosher organic whole food, plant-based brunch included for those who RSVP.
Enlivening Consciousness asks: How do we wake up to our true spiritual essence and feed our well-being? We begin by diving deep within, beginning with our eyesight and our sense of vision. Eye doctor ElisaBe takes us on a surprising multidimensional journey in which we move within to discover ourselves with ease, joy, and love in order to serve the collective more fully through divine nutrition, knowing nature, and the vibrant spirit inside each of us.
Click here to RSVP!
Books will be available for sale at the event.
Dr. Elisa Beth “ElisaBe” Haransky-Beck is an optometrist and wellness practitioner, spiritual nutrition counselor, EmbodyVision somatic yoga teacher, educator, and speaker. She stepped into the healthy plant-based lifestyle in 2012. Although not currently a raw living foodist, that’s what she was for 6 months when she became vegan in 2012! For more: EnliveningConsciousness.com
Jewish Vegan Life is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization committed to catalyzing a global food revolution. Our mission is to inspire people to connect the worlds of Jewish tradition and plant-based living, empowering them to embrace this synergy and live their best Jewish vegan life. Our vision is both bold and clear: A vegan world enriched by the synergy of plant-based living and Jewish wisdom, leading to a kinder, healthier, and more environmentally conscious planet. More details can be found at jewishveganlife.org.

Mark Hendricks: THE CENTRAL APPALACHIANS (with Sam Bermas-Dawes)
2024-08-08 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Presenting an evening with Mark Hendricks, environmental photographer and author of the recently-published The Central Appalachians : Mountains of the Chesapeake— a beautiful book of photograph-laden, episodic essays that outline the ecological stories and preservation needs of the Central Appalachians. We’ll hear from Mark about the making of the book, and he’ll be joined in conversation by Sam Bermas-Dawes, producer for Midday on WYPR.
Join us for an evening of regional ecology and engaging conversation!
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order The Central Appalachians.
Mark Hendricks is an award winning photographer, writer, and author working on environmental issues. A former marine mammal trainer, aquarist, and animal rescuer, he turned to using his camera as a storytelling tool for conservation awareness. His first book, Natural Wonders of Assateague Island (Schiffer Publishing), was a 2018 Foreword Reviews award winner. His images and articles have been featured in National Geographic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Living Bird, Audubon, and many others. Mark is a faculty member at Towson University where he serves as a lecturer in the Department of Psychology, an adjunct in the Department of Biological Sciences, and is co-director of the Animal Behavior Program. He is a fellow in the International League of Conservation Writers and member of the ethics committee for the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA).
Sam Bermas-Dawes is a producer for Midday. He previously produced for WYPR’s On The Record. He began working in public radio in Georgia, before working on The Middle with Jeremy Hobson through the 2022 midterm election. Sam grew up in Montclair, NJ and went to school in Washington, D.C. When he is not working, Sam is likely to be on a soccer field or reading in his hammock.

Ivy Kids Saturday: Art Machines
2024-08-10 09:00 - 10:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
We’re so excited to partner with Baltimore-based STEAM toy designers at FutureMakers for our August IvyKids Event! In this playful engineering drop-in you and your child can create your own Art Machines – playful kinetic cardboard contraptions that move using simple and compound machines.
The $5.95 ticket fee covers 1 Art Machine kit to make at the event and take home with you. Kits will also be available for purchase at the event.
Art Machines are designed so caregivers and learners can create in parallel, and FutureMakers recommends purchasing an Art Machine kit for each person who will attend that day.
As usual, we’ll have coffee from Bird in Hand for the grown ups, and lawn games to try!
RSVP here!

Book Signing with Joel Poiley: LAST MAN STANDING: How Tom Matte's Memorable 1965 Season Highlighted a Remarkable NFL Career
2024-08-12 17:00 - 19:00 | MD
The Ivy is delighted to present an evening for Baltimore Colts fans and sports history lovers to gather for a book signing and meet and greet with Joel Poiley! Poiley’s new biography, Last Man Standing: How Tom Matte’s Memorable 1965 Season Highlighted a Remarkable NFL Career, provides an intimate look and “a detailed account” (Booklist) of the career of Baltimore Colts’ running back Tom Matte and his celebrated stint as an emergency quarterback.
We hope you can join us between 5-7 to have a drink and get your book signed!
Click here to RSVP!
Books will be available for sale at the event.
Joel Poiley has more than 45 years of journalism experience with newspapers, wire services, television stations, magazines and web sites. His work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, USA Today Sports Weekly, Baseball America, Beckett’s Baseball Monthly, Legends Magazine, ESPN.com and many other national media outlets.
Poiley has reported on professional and college athletics, including Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles baseball, Tampa Bay Buccaneers football and University of Maryland and University of South Florida athletics for papers in Maryland and Florida. He covered boxer Sugar Ray Leonard as an amateur and his first pro fight in Baltimore. He also worked for Associated Press covering Tampa Bay Lightning hockey and spring training baseball.
Poiley has written stories for Major League Baseball’s postseason publications, and he wrote Cool Cars: Lean, Mean Racing Machines for Sports Illustrated for Kids book division that was printed in 2000.
Poiley has won several awards for newspaper features in Maryland and Tampa, and with Bay News 9, a 24-hour cable news station in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he worked on their web site. In 1996, he received the Florida Society of Professional Journalists Award of Excellence for a feature article in the Tampa Tribune on Cal Ripken’s pursuit of Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak. He also coordinated and wrote several stories as part of a six-part series about injuries and concussions in the NFL that ran in the Tampa Tribune in 1994.
Poiley assisted author Lars Anderson with research, fact checking and manuscript editing for Anderson’s book, A Season in the Sun, about Bruce Arians, Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers run to the Super Bowl LV championship.
Poiley’s book about former Baltimore Colt Tom Matte, titled Last Man Standing: How Tom Matte’s Memorable 1965 Season Highlighted a Remarkable NFL Career, will be published in August of 2024.
Poiley is a free-lance writer/editor in Tampa.

Living Room at Bird in Hand
2024-08-14 17:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Looking for a cozy evening out? Join us for Living Room @ Bird in Hand. We’ll offer: live music, snacks & drinks for purchase, and some starter craft materials. You can bring: your own crafts, cards, and whatever makes you feel at home. See you in our living room!
This month, we’re featuring jazz from neighborhood musicians Emefa Agawu and Jameson Owens. Stay until the end for a short activity!

Click here to RSVP!

Booze and Browse, ft. Ethan Joella and THE SAME BRIGHT STARS
2024-08-16 17:00 - 20:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Presenting The Ivy’s August Booze & Browse, ft. Ethan Joella, author of THE SAME BRIGHT STARS, who will give an author talk and book signing at 6pm. As always, enjoy a free drink & 25% off travel books from 5-8pm!
THE SAME BRIGHT STARS is about some of our favorite things: small business, food, family, and the beach (Rehoboth, to be precise!). It’s a book about the decision whether to sell a family business to a corporate chain, about caring for ill and aging parents, and about deep connection to a place. We can’t wait to hear from Ethan at this special event.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order THE SAME BRIGHT STARS.
Ethan Joella teaches English and psychology at the University of Delaware. He is the author of A Little Hope, which was a Read with Jenna Bonus Selection, A Quiet Life, and The Same Bright Stars. He lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with his wife and two daughters.

Bird in Hand x Therapy Sounds Presents: Java Funk
2024-08-17 17:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Dive into an afternoon of deep house beats, delicious drinks, and divine vibes at the Java Funk collaborative event between Bird in Hand x Therapy Sounds. Join us for three hours of groovy tunes ranging from smooth lounge to funky house provided by Therapy Sounds residents @_andybig, @h0ppa, and @frankthedannk. Don’t miss out on this perfect blend of music and flavor!

RSVP here!

Humanities in the Village: Joseph Plaster, KIDS ON THE STREET (with Drew Daniel)
2024-08-26 18:30 - 20:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Humanities in the Village returns for the 2024-25 year with this first event featuring Joseph Plaster, author of Kids on the Street, Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, in conversation with Drew Daniel!
In Kids on the Street Joseph Plaster explores the informal support networks that enabled abandoned and runaway queer youth to survive in tenderloin districts across the United States. Tracing the history of the downtown lodging house districts where marginally housed youth regularly lived beginning in the late 1800s, Plaster focuses on San Francisco’s Tenderloin from the 1950s to the present, excavating a history of queer life that has been overshadowed by major narratives of gay progress and pride.
Click here to RSVP!
Audience Q&A after the reading—all are welcome! And while you’re there, pick up some recommended titles from Bird in Hand, and enjoy the offerings of nighttime beverages.
Joseph Plaster is Curator in Public Humanities and Director of the Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Center at Johns Hopkins University.
Drew Daniel is associate professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Twenty Jazz Funk Greats and The Melancholy Assemblage: Affect and Epistemology of the English Renaissance. He book from University of Chicago Press, Joy of the Worm: Suicide and Pleasure in Early Modern English Literature came out in 2022.

Vicki Valosik: SWIMMING PRETTY (with Margaret Guroff)
2024-08-29 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
The Ivy is pleased to present an evening of discussion around women in sports history, featuring Vicki Valosik and her engaging, thorough new history of women in synchronized swimming! Swimming Pretty explores the tensions between beauty and strength, aesthetics and athleticism have both impeded and propelled the careers of female swimmers–none more so than synchronized swimmers. It’s on our Swimming display at the Ivy and we’ve been big fans since before publication! Meg Guroff, author of The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life, will join Valosik in conversation.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order Swimming Pretty!
Vicki Valosik, whose writing has appeared in publications such as the Atlantic, Smithsonian magazine, and Slate, is an editorial director and teaches writing at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She is also a masters synchronized swimmer and competes on a team based in Washington DC. Vicki earned her MA in Nonfiction Writing from Johns Hopkins University and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Margaret Guroff, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and a former editor of Baltimore magazine, is an executive editor at AARP The Magazine. She is also the editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick, an online annotation of Herman Melville’s classic novel. Her cultural history book, The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life, was published in 2016 by the University of Texas Press. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Best American Poetry 2024: With Guest Editor Mary Jo Salter
2024-09-03 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
We’re so excited that this year’s volume of The Best American Poetry is compiled and edited by Baltimore-based poet and professor Mary Jo Salter! Join us to launch the anthology into the world from The Ivy’s back patio, where contributors including Armen Davoudian, and fellow editors including Dora Malech, Stephen Reichert, and Clare Banks will join Mary Jo Salter for a conversation and Q&A.
RSVP here!
Click here to order The Best American Poetry 2024!
Mary Jo Salter is the author of nine collections of poems, most recently Zoom Rooms (2022) and The Surveyors (2017). She has been editor of Amy Clampitt’s Collected Poems and Selected Poems, and a co-editor of three editions of The Norton Anthology of Poetry. She also wrote the lyrics for composer Fred Hersch in the song cycle Rooms of Light: The Life of Photographs (2015). Her second children’s book, Leena Learns to Talk, will be published in 2024. Salter is Professor Emerita in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and lives in Baltimore.
Dora Malech’s most recent book of poetry is Flourish, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press, which will publish her next book of poetry, Trying × Trying, in 2025. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, Poetry, Poetry London, and The Best American Poetry, and her honors include an Amy Clampitt Residency Award, a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, and a Writing Residency Fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. She lives in Baltimore, where she is an associate professor in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and the editor in chief of The Hopkins Review.
Armen Davoudian grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is the author of the poetry collection The Palace of Forty Pillars (Tin House, 2024) and the translator, from the Persian, of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2024).
Davoudian is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.

Stephen Reichert founded Smartish Pace in 1998. He is an artist, played in the band Mr. Moccasin with SPer Jared Fischer, currently plays in Heavy Letdown, and is an owner of Baseball Prospectus. He has degrees from Trinity College (IL), where he studied philosophy and played baseball, and the University of Maryland. He lives in Baltimore and is represented by K. Hamill Fine Art.
Clare Banks has been a member of Smartish Pace since 2000. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland. An editor and poet, she lives in Baltimore with her husband, two children, and 1 to 10 fish.
Gabriella Fee’s poetry appears in The Common, The Cortland Review, Guesthouse, Michigan Quarterly Review, Washington Square Review, Sprung Formal, LETTERS, and The American Literary Review. It is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2024. Gabriella’s co-translation of Giovanna Christina Vivinetto’s Dolore Minimo won the Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize and was published in 2022 with Saturnalia Books. Dolore Minimo was longlisted for a 2023 PEN Award for poetry in translation. Gabriella holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and has received fellowships from Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Fulbright Foundation.

Josephine Quinn: How the World Made the West (with JHU Classics)
2024-09-05 17:00 - 18:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Join Bird in Hand and the Department of Classics at Johns Hopkins University for an evening with Dr. Josephine Quinn, a brilliant, fun, and engaging ancient historian specializing in Phoenician history and the deconstruction of concepts of the ‘West.’ This event will center around her brand-new book How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History.
This event is generously co-sponsored by The Alexander Grass Humanities Institute and the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order How the World Made the West!
Josephine Quinn is Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University, and Martin Frederiksen Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at Worcester College, Oxford. She has degrees from Oxford and UC Berkeley, has taught in America, Italy and the UK, and co-directed the Tunisian-British archaeological excavations at Utica. She is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books, and she lives in Oxford.

Arthur Magida: TWO WHEELS TO FREEDOM (with Marc Steiner)
2024-09-05 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Two Wheels to Freedom by Arthur Magida is the extraordinary true story of a young Jewish art student who not just survived Nazi occupation but resisted and saved hundreds of lives—all while retaining his infectious zeal for life.
The Ivy is pleased to invite you to an event with Magida, in conversation with beloved radio anchor Marc Steiner, to highlight this latest from one of Baltimore’s most acclaimed World War II historians.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order Two Wheels to Freedom!
Arthur J. Magida has been nominated for a Pulitzer and won multiple awards. His last two books—Code Name Madeleine (“absolutely gripping,” “tightly plotted”) and The Nazi Séance (“an astonishing story, brilliantly told,” “haunting, vivid”)—are optioned for films. He’s been a contributing correspondent to PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, senior editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times, and editorial director for Jewish Lights Publishing. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Peabody Award-winning journalist Marc Steiner hosted a daily two-hour interview on WYPR-FM for 15 years, then anchored a similar show on WEAA-FM and now podcasts the Marc Steiner Show on the Real News Network. “I’ve interviewed Arthur for all of his books,” Steiner said, “so why not again?”

First Friday Comedy Night: Domo Cann, Jake Leizear, Bria Beddoe
2024-09-06 18:00 - 21:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
The new monthly comedy series continues at Bird in Hand, hosted and curated by the one & only Satarah Fisher! This month’s featured comedians: Domo Cann, Jake Leizear, & Bria Beddoe.
Join us at 6pm to hear the featured comedians, or at 7pm for the free open mic! Tickets available here for both. Drinks (alcoholic and non) and snacks will be available at the Bird Bar.

Click here for tickets!

Ivy Kids Saturday: Mandala Crafts with Author Meghana Narayan
2024-09-07 09:00 - 10:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Head to the Ivy on Saturday morning to make a craft with children’s author Meghana Narayan, whose picture book A Little Bit of Everything is a beautiful story of a child learning about her heritage– all the things that make her her– to pass it along to her new sibling.
Joined by the author herself, we’ll make mandala crafts inspired by the book, and you’ll have a chance to have your copy signed! Stop by any time between 9-10 to join in, and then play some lawn games and browse the shop.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order the book or read more about it!
Meghana Narayan is an abstract artist and children’s book author living just outside of Baltimore, Maryland.
Her visual work is rich with texture, often mimicked from patterns and colors found in nature. As a children’s book creator, she feels a great responsibility in creating space for the stories that often go untold. Meghana seeks to bring out the voices and narratives that she was yearning for as a child—those characters that have rich histories and powerful stories to tell.
She draws from her unique experiences as a child of Indian immigrants when creating her stories and art. Between the layers there is a sense of universality that helps to create bridges between us all.
When Meghana is not in her studio, she is reading and creating alongside her daughters (4 years and 16 months), who are her greatest inspiration. She loves to get dirt beneath her fingernails and watch her garden transform every year. Nature and morning light almost always makes their way into her artwork.
Meghana graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University, has an MA in literacy, and has over a decade of teaching experience in the early childhood classroom.

Charm City Spec: September Edition
2024-09-07 18:30 - 20:00 | MD
Come join us at Bird in Hand on the evening of September 7th for the spring edition of Charm City Spec! For this edition of Baltimore’s longstanding speculative fiction reading series, you’ll hear from T. T. Madden, Ann Leblanc, P. H. Low, and J. L. Birchwood!
Whether it’s your first time at the series or you’ve been coming for years, we can’t wait to see you for what is always a warm, wonderful evening in support of exciting authors.
Click here to RSVP!
Books and refreshments will be available at the event.

The Hot L Poets Series, featuring Alejandro Lucero and Peter Vertacnik
2024-09-08 16:00 - 18:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Sunday September 8th (4pm) THE HOT L POETS SERIES returns after summer break, with poets Alejandro Lucero and Peter Vertacnik! The event will be on the Ivy’s Back Patio.
The reading includes an open mic so bring a poem (1 poem, 3 min. or less). The reading series is co-sponsored by Smartish Pace & Baltimore Poets Theatre.
Click here to RSVP!
Books by the featured poets will be available at the event.
Alejandro Lucero’s chapbook, Sapello Son, was named the Editors’ Selection for the 2022 Frost Place Competition (Bull City Press, 2024). His work appears in Best New Poets, The Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, RHINO Poetry, and The Southern Review. He lives in Baltimore, where he is an MFA candidate in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins and a managing editor for The Hopkins Review.
Peter Vertacnik is the author of The Nature of Things Fragile (Criterion Books, 2024), winner of the 2023 New Criterion Poetry Prize. His poetry, translations, and criticism have appeared in journals such as 32 Poems, Bad Lilies, The Cortland Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, Poet Lore, and THINK, among others. With Chase Dearinger, Vertacnik is the co-director of the Cow Creek Chapbook Prize at Pittsburg State University. Currently he resides in northeast Florida where he teaches at Episcopal School of Jacksonville.

Joyce White: COOKING MARYLAND'S WAY (with Kara Harris)
2024-09-10 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
In 1963, the Hammond-Harwood House Association published Maryland’s Way, The Hammond-Harwood House Cook Book, which includes over 700 recipes sourced from centuries’ old manuscript recipe books and contributions from Marylanders from across the state. Since its inception over 60 years ago, it has sold over 100,000 copies and is still in demand today.
In the new companion book, Cooking Maryland’s Way: Voices of a Diverse Cuisine, food historian Joyce M. White, supported by several contributing authors, reflects on the chief cultural influences of Maryland’s early foundational cuisine: Native American, African American, German, and British. Extensive research on both the foods and their method of preparation brings the history of Maryland’s diverse cuisine into sharp focus.
The Ivy is delighted to celebrate this seminal volume with a conversation between Joyce White and contributing author Kara Harris, followed by a Q&A and book signing.
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Books will be available at the event.
Joyce White’s work as a food historian began in college in the late 1980s when she was a museum education intern at the Geneva Historical Society/Rose Hill Mansion in the Finger Lakes region of New York where she performed the role of an 1840s kitchen maid and learned to use the hearth to bake cakes with every 4th grade class in the county! From there, she worked as the Education Curator at the Square House Museum, an 18th century tavern located on the Boston Post Rd, in Rye, New York where she cooked frequently on the tavern’s original hearth. Joyce’s interest in Maryland’s food history began in the late 1990s when she moved to Annapolis. She volunteered as a hearth cook at the Claude Moore Colonial Farm in Virginia, was an adjunct instructor of American Studies at Anne Arundel Community College, and worked as a museum educator at the Maryland Historical Society where she studied several 19th century manuscript receipt (recipe) journal books. Joyce was also the consultant for the restoration of the 18th-century kitchen at Historic Annapolis’s William Paca House. In 2006, Joyce became Education Director and Foodways Consultant at the c. 1801 Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale Park, MD. Other accomplishments include being appointed guest curator for the Maryland State exhibit at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans. In 2018, Joyce joined the Board of Trustees at the Annapolis’ c. 1774 Hammond-Harwood House Museum. Joyce is now creating historically accurate faux food items of use at historic sites across the United States.
Joyce has written food history articles for Outlook by the Bay, MarylandRoadTrips.com, Chesapeake Family Magazine, and other publications. She can also be seen on the following television shows: State Plate with Taylor Hicks, Eatin’ the Chesapeake (MPT), CBS News Sunday Morning, and American the Bountiful (PBS).
Along with a B.A. from William Smith College and an M.A. from Penn State University in American Studies, Josh has studied food history with leaders in the field at various historic sites in England and the US.
Kara Mae Harris explores the culinary history of Maryland on her blog Old Line Plate. Old Line Plate has been featured on CBS Mornings, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and other local media. She lives in Baltimore. “The Blogger Quietly Preserving Maryland’s Culinary History” – Kristina Gaddy, Gastro Obscura.

Vital Perspectives on Healthcare and Science: Thurka Sangaramoorthy, LANDSCAPES OF CARE
2024-09-11 18:00 - 19:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
The Vital Perspectives on Healthcare and Science series engages with some of the most pressing public health issues of our time, in a regular public forum catalyzed by a book. And it’s back for the new acadmic year!
This first event will feature Dr. Thurka Sangaramoorthy, author of Landscapes of Care: Immigration and Health in Rural America, with Dr. Jeremy Greene joining in conversation.
This insightful work on rural health in the United States examines the ways immigrants, mainly from Latin America and the Caribbean, navigate the health care system in the United States.
Her extensive ethnographic and policy research shows the personal stories behind health inequity data and helps to give readers a human entry point into the enormous challenges of immigration and rural health.
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Click here to order a copy of the book!
Dr. Thurka Sangaramoorthy is a cultural and medical anthropologist and global health expert with 23 years of experience conducting community-engaged ethnographic research, including rapid assessments, among vulnerable populations in the United States, Africa, and Latin America/Caribbean. Her work is broadly concerned with power and subjectivity in global economies of care. She has worked at this intersection on diverse topics, including global health and migration, infectious disease outbreaks, and environmental health disparities.
She is the author of numerous publications including three books: Landscapes of Care: Immigration and Health in Rural America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Rapid Ethnographic Assessments: A Practical Approach and Toolkit for Collaborative Community Research (with Karen Kroeger, Routledge, 2020) and Treating AIDS: Politics of Difference, Paradox of Prevention (Rutgers, 2014), and has one book in press based on her award-winning work: She’s Positive: The Extraordinary Lives of Black Women Living with HIV (Aevo, 2023). Her writing also has been featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Newsweek, and The Washington Post.
Dr. Sangaramoorthy is Co-Chair of the American Anthropological Association’s Members Programmatic Advisory and Advocacy Committee and a Board member of the Society for Medical Anthropology. She serves as Associate Editor of Public Health Reports, Editorial Board Member of American Anthropologist and Social Science & Medicine, and the inaugural Social, Behavioral, and Qualitative Research Section Editor for PLOS Global Public Health.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco, her M.P.H. from Columbia University, and her postdoctoral training in infectious diseases at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Sangaramoorthy is Affiliate Professor of Social Anthropology at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Currently, through June 2024, she serves as part of the Horn of Africa Regional Refugee Team for the US Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration at the US Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where she coordinates the Sudan and South Sudan portfolios.
Dr. Jeremy Greene is broadly interested in the history of disease, and his research explores the ways in which medical technologies come to influence our understandings of what it means to be sick or healthy, normal or abnormal. His broader research interests focus on the history of disease, medical technology, the history of global health, and the relationship between medicine and the marketplace. Dr. Greene received an MD and PhD in the history of science from Harvard in 2005, completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in 2008, and is board certified in Internal Medicine and a member of the American College of Physicians. In addition to his appointment at the Institute for the History of Medicine, he practices internal medicine at the East Baltimore Medical Center, a community health center affiliated with Johns Hopkins.

Charles Trueheart: DIPLOMATS AT WAR and Alice McDermott: ABSOLUTION (with Robert Ruby)
2024-09-12 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
In this one-of-a-kind evening, The Ivy is delighted to bring together two writers with recent books, in different genres, about Americans on the peripheries of war in Vietnam: children and wives of American servicemen.
In his memoir, Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict , Charles Trueheart threads his boyhood family experiences through the heart of a dramatic episode of Cold War power politics whose denouement hastened America’s ten-year military involvement in Southeast Asia.
Alice McDermott’s latest novel Absolution gives a riveting account from the perspectives of the wives of American servicemen, as they discover how their own lives as women on the periphery—of politics, of history, of war, of their husbands’ convictions—have been shaped and burdened by the same sort of unintended consequences that followed America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia.
Robert Ruby, former foreign editor of The Baltimore Sun, will moderate this conversation.
The Ivy is beyond pleased to present this excellent panel for what’s sure to be an insightful evening of conversation.
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Click here to order Diplomats at War!
Click here to order Absolution!
Charles Trueheart is a former foreign correspondent of the Washington Post, a former Associate Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, and a former Director of the American Library in Paris.
Alice McDermott’s eighth novel, The Ninth Hour, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in September 2017. Her seventh novel, Someone, 2013, was a New York Times bestseller, a finalist for the Dublin IMPAC Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Patterson Prize for Fiction, and The Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Someone was also long-listed for the National Book Award. Three of her previous novels, After This, At Weddings and Wakes and That Night, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Charming Billy won the National Book Award for fiction in 1998 and was a finalist for the Dublin IMPAC Award. That Night was also a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harpers, Commonweal and elsewhere. She has received the Whiting Writers Award, the Carington Award for Literary Excellence, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for American Literature. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. She is the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University.
Robert Ruby is a former European correspondent, Middle Eastern correspondent and then foreign editor of The Baltimore Sun. He later served as an executive at human rights organizations in New York and Washington. He is the author of Jericho: Dreams, Ruins, Phantoms and Unknown Shore: The Lost History of England’s Arctic Colony.
