Ivy Bookshop

Kids Holiday Party: Storytime, Make-An-Ornament, and Letters to Santa!
2025-12-21 09:00 - 10:00 (America/New_York) | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Come spend the morning at the bookshop for festive, wintry-themed children’s storytime and crafts!
RSVP here

From 9-10am on December 21, we’ll have:

Storytime with bookseller Gemma
Make-your-own popsicle stick ornaments to take home
Book wishlists to fill out and post to Santa Claus in our Santa mailbox (don’t worry, there will be a spot to put a grown-up’s email in case it gets lost in the mail).

Tis the season… to love books!

Hands on Holiday with the Waldorf School: Winter Solstice
2025-12-21 16:30 - 17:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Bundle up and join the Waldorf School of Baltimore on the covered patio for a safe, fun and special seasonal evening celebration. This special program is best for children up to age 9 and will include songs, story time, a holiday craft and a very special candlelit walk. Families are welcome to sit on a blanket brought from home.
Each year as the Winter Solstice approaches, Waldorf Schools hold the quiet festival of the Winter Spiral. The spiral is ancient and symbolizes the inward-turning we tend to experience as the night grows longer and cold drives us indoors. We think you will find it is simple yet profound experience and a wonderful way to celebrate the season.
Click here for tickets!

A Reading with the 2025 Yellow Arrow Writers-in-Residence
2026-01-03 18:00 - 19:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Yellow Arrow Publishing presents their 2025 Writers-in-Residence: Mali Collins, Hannah Fenster, and Lillian Deja Snortland.

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Since 2019, Yellow Arrow Publishing has been proud to offer a residency program that enables us to support, uplift, and amplify the voices of women-identifying writers residing in the Baltimore area.
Yellow Arrow continues to evolve the program and is delighted to share their 2025 Writers-in-Residence with this community reading.

Join us at Bird in Hand on January 3 to hear from all 3 Writers-in-Residence.
RSVP here!
Mali D. Collins (she/her) is a doula, writer, and assistant professor of African American Studies at American University. Her first monograph, Scrap Theory: Reproductive Injustice in the Black Feminist Imagination, was published earlier this year by Ohio State University Press. Her other academic work can be found in American Quarterly, Souls, and The Black Scholar. She has written for popular outlets such as Rewire News, AfroPunk, and The Root and has creative work published by SALT: Contemporary Art + Feminism and the HAUNT Journal of Art. During her residency, she’ll be working on her experimental and free form poetry collection which explores the themes of kinship, care, ancestry, and relationships through the prism of the restless self (un)made through the markers of gender and Blackness in our contemporary moment. Find her on Instagram and Threads @protectblackmotherhood and on Twitter/X @dr_reprojustice.
Hannah Fenster (she/her) is a writer, movement artist, and bookseller based in Baltimore, where she is the events manager with The Ivy Bookshop and Bird in Hand Coffee & Books. Since 2019, she’s performed and designed immersive theater with Submersive Productions, which transforms spaces around Baltimore into audience-centered, connective experiences. She writes on performance for The Hopkins Review and serves as a managing editor with 3Cents Magazine. Her work appears in The Lacanian Review, The Urban Activist, Lumina Journal, Entropy Magazine, and elsewhere. Before becoming a bookseller, she taught writing at Goucher College, her alma mater. Find her on Instagram @hwindow21.
Lillian Snortland’s (she/her) poetry, essays, features, creative nonfiction, and short stories have appeared in Postscript Magazine, OUCH! Magazine, Goucher Magazine, Yellow Arrow Journal, and Amplify Arts publications, as well as been performed at Voxel theater and exhibited at the Temporary Arts Centre in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Her essay “The Tragedies of Ecstasy” was nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize through After the Art literary magazine. Her work moves within the intersection of internal social anxiety and external visceral transformation, often situated in surreal liminal spaces and featuring the permeability of the physical body. She loves collaborating with killer teams in any creative medium, including film writing/production (having participated in the Baltimore 48 Hour Film Project and the Maryland 72 Film Fest), tabletop role play, and musical jams. Originally from Eugene, Oregon, Snortland graduated from Carleton College with a BA in Classical studies and a minor in French/Francophone studies, and has an MFA in nonfiction from Goucher College. She enjoys lounging in parks, zooming via public transit to Baltimore cultural events, and hosting thematic parties in her apartment. Find her on Instagram @chaimihai.

Stefan Fatsis with Tom Hall: Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat To) the Modern Dictionary
2026-01-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Calling all language lovers to join Fatsis at Bird in Hand, in conversation with Tom Hall of Midday on WYPR.

“I fell in love with the dictionary on my eleventh birthday,” Stefan Fatsis writes about the full-color college lexicon he received on that day. It turned out to be a long-lasting love affair with language– of which his new book, Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat To) the Modern Dictionary, is an exciting culmination.
Calling all language lovers to join Fatsis at Bird in Hand, in conversation with Tom Hall of Midday on WYPR. We’ll hear more about this vibrant, lively, and illuminating journey through the exotic world of Merriam-Webster, dictionaries, and language, at a time of rapid-fire change in the way we create, consume, define, and use words.
RSVP here!
Order UNABRIDGED: THE THRILL OF (AND THREAT TO) THE MODERN DICTIONARY here!
Stefan Fatsis is the author of Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary, published in October by Grove Atlantic, and three other books: the New York Times bestseller Word Freak, about the world of competitive Scrabble; A Few Seconds of Panic, about life in the NFL; and Wild and Outside, about minor league baseball. In four decades as a journalist, Fatsis has written and talked for Slate, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The New York Times, The Atlantic, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and many other outlets. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Tom Hall is the host of Midday, the award-winning, highly rated news and public policy program on WYPR Radio that features interviews with elected officials, community leaders, as well as thought-provoking authors, artists, researchers, journalists, and scholars from around the world.

Marion Winik with Laura Lippman: FIRST COMES LOVE 30th Birthday Party
2026-01-08 18:00 - 20:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Joined by Laura Lippman, Marion Winik will speak about the book and reflect on its 30 years in the world. We’ll have the new edition on hand

When Marion Winik’s FIRST COMES LOVE came out in 1997, it reshaped the landscape of memoir with its bold, heartbreaking and hilarious telling of the trajectory of a marriage. Now, 30 years later, it’s being reissued in a special anniversary edition– with an audiobook!– and we are throwing it a birthday party.
Joined by Laura Lippman, Marion Winik will speak about the book and reflect on its 30 years in the world. We’ll have the new edition on hand (complete with a new introduction from Marion!), as well as the new audiobook available for purchase from Libro.fm, the audiobook provider supporting independent bookstores. And a pop-up bar from Bird in Hand to make it extra festive. Join us!
More about the book: When Marion Winik fell in love with Tony Heubach during a wild Mardi Gras in New Orleans in 1983, her friends shook their heads. For starters, she was straight and he was gay. But Marion and Tony’s impossible love turned out to be true enough to produce a marriage and two beautiful sons, strong enough to weather drug addiction, sexual betrayal, and only ended because of the death of Tony from AIDS, at the age of thirty-seven, twelve years after they met.
In a memoir by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Winik tells a story that is all more powerful for the way in which it defies easy judgments. As it charts the trajectory of a marriage so impossible that it became inevitable, FIRST COMES LOVE: A Memoir (Vintage Books, 30th Anniversary Edition, Paperback Original, Audiobook Original) reminds us—poignantly indelibly—that every love story is a special case.
Books (and the new audiobook!) will be available at the event.
RSVP here!
Marion Winik is the author of The Big Book of the Dead, First Comes Love, and other books. Her essays have recently been published in Agni and The Hopkins Review. She reviews books for numerous publications and hosts The Weekly Reader podcast on NPR. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Baltimore and was a commentator on All Things Considered for 15 years.
Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her teenager.

Book signing and Happy Hour with Harriet Helfand
2026-01-09 17:00 - 19:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Longtime lawyer and judge Harriet Helfand weaves intrigue, humor, and a touch of romance with legal themes in her Arcadia Chronicles series– a combination we find endlessly interesting and fun. Come on by the Ivy between 5-7pm on Friday, January 9th to meet the author, have your book signed, and enjoy a drink with friends as we celebrate these books.
All three of Harriet Helfand’s books– Fee Simple Conditional, Clear and Convincing Evidence, and The Right of Redemption– are set in Maryland and contain local flavor, and themes including land ownership and inheritance, mental health law and psychiatric commitment, and the foreclosure crisis, with thoughtful consideration of how these issues impact characters’ lives.
We hope you can join us to learn more!
Books will be available for purchase at the event.
RSVP here!
Harriet Helfand grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, and before becoming a lawyer and administrative law judge, studied in Ottawa, Ontario and Philadelphia. Her experience in the law has taken her to prisons, psychiatric hospitals, impoverished urban and rural areas, and courtrooms filled with desperate litigants seeking justice.
Following a legal career in which she wrote hundreds of legal articles and opinions, Harriet now writes novels in the series entitled The Arcadia Chronicles. Her novels, Fee Simple Conditional, Clear and Convincing Evidence, and The Right of Redemption, are set in Maryland and contain local flavor, legal themes, humor, and sparks of love.

Riley Clare Valentine and Zane McNeill: THE COERCIVE POWER OF THE LAW
2026-01-10 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
In The Coercive Power of the Law: Vulnerable Bodies and Boundaries of Perception, Riley Clare Valentine and Zane McNeill advocate for an ethics of care, and explore the interplay between law, care ethics, and the body.
They emphasize how legal systems both reflect societal values and regulate and discipline bodies and sexualities that deviate from normative standards, branding them as deviant or pathological. And they imagine new ways of being and caring for one another.
Both authors will join us at Bird in Hand on January 10th to discuss these contexts and possibilities, and bring their academic work to a wide public audience. We hope you can join us, and feel inspired.
RSVP here!
Order THE COERCIVE POWER OF THE LAW here!
Riley Clare Valentine is a political theorist who received their Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. Their work focuses on care ethics as a political ethic and disability studies critiques of legal embodiment. Their books include Progressive Liberalism and Neoliberalism in American Politics (Palgrave 2024) and Be Gay, Do Crime (PM Press 2025). Valentine’s work can be found in journals such as Disability & Society as well as Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy.
Zane McNeill has an MA from Central European University and a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. He is the editor of Y’all Means All: The Emerging Voices Queering Appalachia (PM Press, 2022 and co-editor of Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future (University of Kentucky Press, 2024) and Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion (PM Press, 2025).

Clay & Play with Common Tone and Clay By Hillary
2026-01-11 09:00 - 10:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Join us for a cozy winter morning of creativity, music, and movement with Clay By Hillary and Common Tone! Hosted by The Ivy Bookshop

Enjoy a winter morning creating and playing at The Ivy. Begin your morning working with Hillary DeWeese from Clay By Hillary and create a cute snowman clay figurine. After sculpting your new friend, join Mike & Beth from Common Tone for a 30 minutre Commonplay music and movement class. Tickets for children ages 2 -10 years old, but babies are also welcome to join! Due to space limitations, advanced registration is required.

Register here!

Jessica Francis Kane with Christine Grillo: FONSECA
2026-01-14 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Do you love historical fiction? Ever wanted to know more about Penelope Fitzgerald? We can’t recommend Jessica Francis Kane’s Fonseca enough for both of these purposes… and now you can hear from the author herself at Bird in Hand on January 14th!
Christine Grillo, author of Hestia Strikes a Match, will join Jessica Francis Kane in conversation as they discuss Fonseca’s depiction of Penelope Fitzgerald’s real-life journey to Mexico with her son in search of a much-needed inheritance. No spoilers, but when they arrive, nothing goes quite to plan.
With heart, humor, and a deep understanding of her subject that has characterized the range of her work her whole career, Kane (whose work “could have been written by Jane Austen’s great great-great-granddaughter” –Oprah Daily) has written much more than an homage: Fonseca is an enthralling world of its own as well as a stunning fictionalization of a season in Fitzgerald’s life.
Looking forward to hearing more from the author, with you!
RSVP here!
Order FONSECA here!
Jessica Francis Kane is the author of the national bestseller Rules for Visiting, This Close, The Report, and Bending Heaven. This Close was longlisted for The Story Prize, The Report was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and Rules for Visiting was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, Slate, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s, ZYZZYVA, and Granta. She lives in New York City and Connecticut.
Christine Grillo is a writer and editor covering food systems, agriculture, and climate change, whose nonfiction has been published in outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic: CityLab, Audubon, NextTribe, and Real Simple. Her short fiction has appeared in Story Quarterly, The Southern Review, and LIT.
Hestia Strikes a Match (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2023) is her debut novel. It was included in NPR’s Books We Love 2023 and DCTrending’s Annual Holiday Booklist, and it was shortlisted for the Crooks Corner Book Prize.

Don Akchin with Amy Bernstein: THE AFTERWORK
2026-01-15 18:00 - 20:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Don Akchin’s The AfterWork: Finding Fulfilling Alternatives to Retirement, is a refreshing new take on the years of life typically labeled “retirement.” It reframes this time as a gift of 25 to 30 post-career years of life, that is not the end of anything but could be the beginning of something new, exciting, and meaningful.
The book gives examples of people approaching or in retirement who have taken a variety of paths to find meaning, and their joys and challenges along the way. Amy Bernstein, author of Wrangling the Doubt Monster: Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration, will join Don in conversation for an evening in the spirit of reinvention and newness. We hope to see you there!
Books will be available for sale at the event.
RSVP here!
Don Akchin has always been a writer – for newspapers, magazines, colleges and universities, and many nonprofit organizations. The AfterWork: Finding Fulfilling Alternatives to Retirement is his first published book. He also writes The EndGame, a weekly newsletter on Substack that covers many aspects of joyful, purposeful aging.
Amy L. Bernstein writes award-winning, genre-crossing fiction and nonfiction. Her most recent book is Wrangling the Doubt Monster: Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration, shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. Her fifth novel, Seed, is forthcoming from Running Wild Press. Amy is also a professional book coach, helping nonfiction writers to develop great books that land agents and publishers. She publishes Doubt Monster on Substack, exploring the joys and challenges of the creative life. Learn more: www.amywrites.live.

Robert Stack: Silent No Longer: Advancing the Fight for Disability Rights
2026-01-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Silent No Longer is an exposé of the insidious takeover of disability supports by private equity firms.

From a dedicated advocate for those with disabilities, Silent No Longer is an exposé of the insidious takeover of disability supports by private equity firms and a clarion call for urgent systemic change in a broken industry that has mistreated millions.
In 1989, the author, Robert Stack, founded Community Options, a non-profit organization built on the belief that all people with disabilities deserve to live a life of dignity and realize all opportunities available according to the abilities of each individual. This new book is the story of his forty-year career, revealing the horrible neglect that persists today and asking why tens of thousands of people are still unnecessarily incarcerated in institutions that fail them. It is a resource for industry professionals and policymakers alike—and a demand that we restore dignity to those most vulnerable members of our society. We hope you’ll join us for this conversation with the author.
RSVP here.
Order SILENT NO LONGER here.
Robert Stack has been a national leader in enhancing the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He is a pioneer in promoting community-based housing and workforce training, advocating against outdated institutional practices. Starting as a young civil servant in 1980, Stack led efforts to close large institutions and transition individuals to community settings, long before the ADA and Olmstead decision formalized these changes. In 1989, he founded Community Options to provide dignified living and employment opportunities for people with disabilities, which now serves over 5,000 individuals across 12 states. As president and CEO, Stack has continuously advocated for disability rights on national and international stages, addressing issues such as the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on institutionalized individuals and engaging with key government bodies to drive reform. Recently, he was appointed trustee of the Pennsylvania Advocacy and Resources for Autism and Intellectual Disability.

Common Tone at The Ivy Bookshop
2026-01-18 09:30 - 10:15, 2026-01-25 09:30 - 10:15, 2026-02-01 09:30 - 10:15, 2026-02-08 09:30 - 10:15, 2026-02-15 09:30 - 10:15, 2026-02-22 09:30 - 10:15, 2026-03-01 09:30 - 10:15, 2026-03-08 09:30 - 10:15 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Join us at The Ivy Bookshop where we will provide interactive moments for caregivers to sing, play instruments, dance, and connect with their child. Together, we will develop confidence and music appreciation through playful exploration!
RSVP for the full Winter Session or for individual drop-ins at this link.

Albert Phillips Jr. with Alanah Nichole Davis: Where You From? Tales of Sandtown
2026-01-21 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Albert Phillips Jr. is a Baltimore-based writer and educator whose work thoughtfully explores the rich alchemy of Black life, both past and present. The Ivy first learned about his work through the CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth summer internship program where he offered his experience and mentorship around teen employment– the subject of his first book, Y’all Hiring? The Black Teen’s Guide to Navigating Employment. In this new second book, Where You From? Tales of Sandtown, Phillips turns his focus to his own growing-up years in Baltimore’s Sandtown neighborhood.
We are so excited to have “Baltimore’s Godmother” and fellow writer Alanah Nichole Davis join Phillips in conversation for this event. As a unique treat, The Botanical Artisan will also be joining us with an on-site flower bar and bouquet building experience! We hope you’ll join us to celebrate this Baltimore story from a talented and accomplished writer.
Books will be available for sale at the event.
RSVP here!
Albert Phillips Jr. is a Baltimore-based writer and educator whose work thoughtfully explores the rich alchemy of Black life, both past and present. A graduate of Morgan State University with a B.S. in Print Journalism and an M.Ed. from Johns Hopkins University, Albert is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. In 2020, he published his acclaimed debut book, Y’all Hiring? The Black Teen’s Guide to Navigating Employment, which has been used by thousands of young people across the United States. His second book, Where You From? Tales of Sandtown, is a personal collection of essays that reflects on identity, place, and growing up as a Black boy in one of Baltimore’s most storied neighborhoods and was released in October 2025. Albert’s writing has been featured in Black Enterprise, The Afro, Baltimore Fishbowl, and various other online and print publications.
Alanah Nichole Davis is a Bronx-born, Baltimore-raised writer, cultural strategist, and social designer whose work bridges storytelling, civic imagination, and community care. Known affectionately as “Baltimore’s Godmother,” she’s built a legacy of using creativity and empathy to connect people, nurture ideas, and reimagine what’s possible for her city. Her essays, talks, and public projects often explore the intersections of race, womanhood, technology, and belonging — inviting audiences to see Baltimore not just as a place, but as a living story. Beyond her role in city government, Alanah’s influence extends through arts, journalism, and local advocacy, where she’s helped amplify voices and shape spaces that honor authenticity and joy. A proud graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Master of Social Design program, she continues to mentor emerging changemakers and collaborate with artists, institutions, and neighborhoods invested in Baltimore’s collective future.

Nancy Murray with Marion Winik: NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
2026-01-22 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
No Experience Necessary, the 2nd memoir from Nancy Murray, is all about work, and the insights, pitfalls, and strategies along the journey toward meaningful employment.
Her stories prove that even so-called nowhere jobs can be crucial steps to not only establishing a career, but to discovering ourselves.
Nancy’s workplace tales span a colorful spectrum, from selling speakers from a seedy van to driving a posh limo; from performing as a professional clown to financial advisor. With each job, she profited in ways beyond a traditional paycheck. It’s a field guide for anyone preparing to fill out their first job application, not to mention a humorous flashback for those who recall the trials and tribulations of the workplace all too well.
Join us to celebrate!
Books will be available for sale at the event.
RSVP here!
Nancy Murray is an award-winning storyteller, poet, playwright, and Professor of English at CCBC. Her work explores trauma, resilience, and generational healing with insight and humor. She directs the Words on the Thirds Poetry Group and is the recipient of Anne Arundel County’s prestigious Annie Award for Literature for her poetry/art collaborations and her editorial work on the Liminal Spaces collections.
Nancy is the author of the memoir One Child for Another and the poetry collection The Colors of Fear. Her poetry has been published in presses nationally and internationally. She is currently at work on her third memoir and her second poetry collection. A two-time Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award recipient, she continues to write and teach in Maryland. Visit her at: https://www.nancymurray.net/
Marion Winik is the author of The Big Book of the Dead, First Comes Love, and other books. Her essays have recently been published in Agni and The Hopkins Review. She reviews books for numerous publications and hosts The Weekly Reader podcast on NPR. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Baltimore and was a commentator on All Things Considered for 15 years.

Humanities in the Village, ft. Dora Malech and Steven Leyva: TRYING X TRYING
2026-01-26 18:30 - 20:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Presenting Humanities in the Village, an event series in partnership with the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins University, which aims to make scholarship publicly accessible.
For this January edition– the first of 2026– we are thrilled to welcome Dora Malech in celebration of her new poetry collection TRYING X TRYING, out this year from Carnegie-Mellon University Press. Steven Leyva joins Malech in conversation about her new collection, which dissects the language of our times and turns over the familiar phrases of politics, parenthood, and pandemic to reveal what lies beneath. Through playing with the double meaning of “trying” as both perseverance and reproductive struggle, these poems navigate public and private spheres and interrogate the words we use to make sense of uncertainty and belief.
Whether it’s your first time at the series or you’ve been attending for years, we hope you’ll join us to usher this exciting new book into the world!
Order TRYING X TRYING here.
Dora Malech’s most recent books of poetry are Trying × Trying (2025), and Flourish (2020), both published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Best American Poetry, and her honors include an Amy Clampitt Residency Award, a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, a Writing Residency Fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and a Mary Sawyers Baker Prize. She lives in Baltimore, where she is a professor and department chair in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and the editor in chief of The Hopkins Review.
Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, Scalawag, Poetry, Nashville Review, jubilat, The Hopkins Review, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, was published by Blair Publishing in Spring 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor, and co-director of the Klein Family Center of Communications Design.

John Sayles with Emma Snyder: CRUCIBLE
2026-02-03 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
If you know the work of John Sayles, you know a multi-talented artist across disciplines: filmmaking and screenwriting; acting and writing. If you are new to his work, you are in for a treat, and might just leave with some inspiration about working between multiple disciplines to build a truly creative life.
We’ll hear from Sayles himself about his new novel, CRUCIBLE, a complex and sweeping historical novel about Henry Ford — the Elon Musk of his day — and his attempt to rule not only an automotive empire but the rambunctious city of Detroit. It is an epic tale ranging from the 1920s through the second World War, featuring violent labor disputes, misbegotten jungle expeditions, a tragic race riot, and the gestapo tactics of Ford’s private army . . .
Emma Snyder, owner of The Ivy Bookshop and Bird in Hand Coffee & Books (and a true enthusiast of John Sayles’ work!) will join him in conversation.
RSVP here!
Order CRUCIBLE here!
John Sayles is an independent filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and once for the National Book Award. He has written eight novels, including, most recently, Jamie MacGillivray and To Save the Man.
Emma Snyder is the owner of The Ivy Bookshop and Bird in Hand Coffee & Books in Baltimore, Maryland. The former Executive Director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, she holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin.

Radha Lin Chaddah with Debra Bruno: AND THE ANCESTORS SING
2026-02-10 18:00 - 20:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
We are excited to welcome you to a celebration of Radha Lin Chaddah’s debut novel, AND THE ANCESTORS SING! The author will speak in conversation with Debra Bruno on the main floor of The Ivy Bookshop on February 10 at 6pm.
Spanning decades of seismic change in post-Cultural Revolution China, this is a sweeping, multigenerational novel of resilience, sacrifice, and the unbreakable pull of home, perfect for fans of PACHINKO and THE ISLAND OF SEA WOMEN. A broad cast of characters brings intersecting stories of rural and urban life, class shifts, and women’s changing roles to life. If you love historical fiction, tales of family, and learning about life in other places in the world through fiction, we recommend this book to you. Hope to see you there!
RSVP here!
Order AND THE ANCESTORS SING here!
Radha Lin Chaddah was born in London to an East Indian father and a Malaysian Chinese mother, and grew up in Kenya, the UK, and the US. She majored in Biology at the University of Chicago, earned medical and law degrees at the University of Illinois, and a Master of Public Health at Harvard University. She completed Internal Medicine residency training, and later practiced at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston. Radha and her family moved, over the course of twenty years, from Boston to NYC to Taipei to Shanghai to Beijing to Princeton, and finally to Philadelphia. Radha worked as a primary care physician in Boston, NYC and Beijing; worked with the China CDC to co-write the book, HIV/ AIDS: Beyond the Numbers; and provided mental healthcare to patients in several states as a telemedicine doctor upon settling in Philadelphia. Especially treasured by Radha are the inspiring, first-hand stories she has been privileged to hear from patients, colleagues, friends, and family alike. You can visit her at radhalinchaddah.com.
Debra Bruno is a Washington, D.C.-based author and recovering journalist who has written about law, politics, the arts, music, dance, theater, books, culture, health, and international issues from D.C. and Beijing. She has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and many other publications. She is the author of A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in my Dutch American Family, published in October 2024 by Three Hills, an imprint of Cornell University Press.

Mary Helen Washington with Martha Jones: PAULE MARSHALL: A WRITER'S LIFE
2026-02-17 18:00 - 20:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
The works of Paule Marshall, including the beloved Brown Girl, Brownstones, are now understood as the beginning of contemporary Black feminist literature—a bridge between Harlem Renaissance writers and Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Maya Angelou. Yet Paule Marshall’s legacy is often overlooked.
In Paule Marshall: A Writer’s Life, to be published February 10, 2026, by Yale/Black Lives, Mary Helen Washington draws on exclusive access to the writer’s papers—including Marshall’s unpublished memoir—to give us the fullest account of Marshall’s life as an artist and of the depth and brilliance of her work.
Join the author, along with historian Martha Jones, at The Ivy on Tuesday, February 17th for a conversation about this exciting new volume.
RSVP here!
Preorder PAULE MARSHALL: A WRITER’S LIFE here!
Mary Helen Washington is distinguished university professor emerita in the English department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of the prizewinning The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s. She lives in Silver Spring, MD.
Martha Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, professor of history, and a professor at the SNF Agora Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. A prizewinning author and editor of five books, most recently The Trouble of Color, she is past copresident of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians and has contributed to the New York Times, Atlantic, and many other publications.

Book Signing Happy Hour with Naomi Rivers: WHY NOT US
2026-02-20 17:00 - 19:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
We’re having a book signing and meet-and-greet with Baltimore-based wife writing team Naomi Rivers! Following the success of their debut, THIS: A Simple, Complex Love Story, Naomi Rivers returns with a moving new book set right here in Baltimore: WHY NOT US?
WHY NOT US? follows Jasmine and her longtime girlfriend, T, as they grapple with love, loss, and the meaning of family when Jasmine’s best friend is diagnosed with cancer. With caregiving, parenting, and relationship struggles layered together, it’s a story about resilience, sacrifice, and the bonds that hold us together—even when life threatens to tear us apart.
Come on down to Bird in Hand any time between 5-7pm on Friday, February 20th to meet the authors, enjoy a drink, and have your book signed.
Books will be available for sale at the event.
RSVP here!
Naomi Rivers is the pen name of a wife writing team and retired U.S. veterans who craft heartfelt lesbian romance and women’s fiction. Their debut novel, THIS: A Simple, Complex Love Story, was twenty years in the making, originally written to stay connected during multiple military deployments. They now live on the East Coast with their two rescue dogs.
www.naomiriversbooks.com

Anna Harwell Celenza: ON THE RECORD: Music That Changed America
2026-03-27 18:00 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
You’re invited to an evening conversation about the intersection of music, politics, and culture with Anna Harwell Celenza, author of the new book On the Record: Music That Changed America.
From “The Star-Spangled Banner” and Billie Holiday’s haunting “Strange Fruit” to Paul Simon’s Graceland and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking Hamilton, Celenza explores moments where music wound its way through the halls of Congress, influencing decisions and reshaping culture. Each chapter highlights an iconic musical work, tracing its backstory, uncovering its connection to political debates and legislative actions, and in the process revealing it in a new light.
This book is perfect for many kinds of readers, and we’re really looking forward to sharing it with you. We’ll see you at Bird in Hand on March 27!
RSVP here!
Order ON THE RECORD: MUSIC THAT CHANGED AMERICA here.
Anna Harwell Celenza is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, holding a joint appointment at the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences and the Peabody Conservatory. She is also the author of eight children’s books. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

IvyKids Saturday: The Great Truffle Snuffle
2026-03-28 10:00 - 12:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
In Lindsay Cordero’s picture book The Great Truffle Snuffle, Peri (a pig) and Tubs (a dog) are best friends who live at an orchard where magnificent truffles grow. They spend their days sniffing and (very gently!) digging in the rich soil.
And now… you can join them! Come on down to the Ivy with the kids to try a truffle dig activity for yourself. Then, follow real live truffle dogs from Virginia Truffles to a truffle digging demo in the gardens behind the bookshop!
RSVP here!
Order THE GREAT TRUFFLE SNUFFLE here!
Lindsay “Bones” Cordero is a picture book author, illustrator, U.S. Air Force veteran and adventurer at heart. She uses humor and unexpected twists to introduce young readers to the fascinating world around them. When she’s not crafting fun, absurd stories, she’s likely scuba diving, making art underwater, or getting lost on a side quest—like truffle hunting. She’s passionate about marine life, her persnickety cat, and sparking curiosity about the natural world. Find her at lindsaycordero.com or on Instagram @artebybones.
Virginia Truffles is a family-owned farm in Rixeyville, Virginia, dedicated to cultivating Black Périgord truffles (Tuber melanosporum) and sharing their magic with the public. Blending science, heritage, and storytelling, we invite guests to join us and our skilled truffle dogs for immersive hunts and educational experiences that celebrate the art of truffle cultivation in the U.S. Learn more at virginiatruffles.com and follow us on Instagram @virginia_truffles.
