Ivy Bookshop

James Magruder: THE PLAY'S THE THING: Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016) (with David Yezzi)
2024-09-26 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Presenting the Ivy’s very own bookseller Jim Magruder, in celebration of his impressive new book project The Play’s the Thing: Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016)! David Yezzi will join Magruder to discuss this thoughtful chronicle, which shows how dozens of theater artists have played their parts in the evolution of a sterling American institution. Each of its four chapters is dedicated to one of the Yale Rep’s artistic directors to date: Robert Brustein, Lloyd Richards, Stan Wojewodski Jr., and James Bundy.
More than just a valentine to an important American theater, The Play’s the Thing is a story about institution-building and the force of personality; about the tug-of-war between vision and realpolitik; and about the continuous negotiation between educational needs and artistic demands.
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Click here to order The Play’s The Thing!
James Magruder has long-standing Yale ties: three advanced degrees; an award-winning dissertation, Three French Comedies, published by Yale University Press in 1996; two adaptations produced at Yale Repertory Theatre; and fourteen years’ teaching translation and adaptation at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. He has also published four novels, among them Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall, set at Yale in 1983–84, and had two musicals reach the Broadway stage. He has been a Baltimore resident for 33 years, since 1991.
David Yezzi’s latest books are Late Romance: Anthony Hecht—A Poet’s Life (St. Martin’s Press) and More Things in Heaven: New and Selected Poems (Measure Press). He is the editor of The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, foreword by J. D. McClatchy. As an actor, he recently performed the roles of King Lear (Baltimore Shakespeare Factory) and Hamlet’s Ghost/Player King (Chesapeake Shakespeare). His verse play Schnauzer (2018), produced by The Baltimore Poets Theater, was published by Exot Books. His libretto for David Conte’s opera Firebird Motel has been widely performed and is available on CD from Arsis. A former director of the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York, he was a 2022 short-term visiting fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.

Workshop with Vital Matters: Writing with the Elements, a Generative Workshop
2024-09-28 15:00 - 18:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Garden, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Get expert tips on incorporating climate activism into creative writing!
Local theater-for-climate-justice organization Vital Matters hosts Jacob Budenz in this 3-hour writing workshop in the gardens of the Ivy.
Burgeoning climate activists and seasoned environmental writers alike may wonder where to begin when faced with the mammoth task of tackling climate change through writing. In this generative workshop, queer author and performance artist Jacob Budenz will provide resources, space, and time to write with the elements, sharing tips on weaving climate activism into creative writing, making the political personal and the personal political, and creatively engaging with the existential threats to the natural world with an eye toward hope and connection.
Located in the gardens of the Ivy Bookshop, Writing with the Elements will immerse participants in climate writing alongside the elements they wish to protect, offering participants the opportunity to share their writing around a fire at the workshop’s culmination.
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Click here to learn more about Vital Matters!

Writers in Baltimore Schools at the Baltimore Book Festival
2024-09-29 11:00 - 12:00 | Baltimore Book Festival, 31st St. Stage
We’re so excited to see you at the Baltimore Book Festival, where you can find us at our booth on Sept. 28-29. On Sunday, September 29th, we are thrilled to be hosting the 31st St. Stage!
At 11am, join us in welcoming Writers in Baltimore Schools for the launch of THE PLAYGROUND, an anthology of work by their youngest writers from Baltimore City Schools, created by their Youthworks Baltimore interns!

Telling Baltimore’s Story: Devin Allen, Tia Goodson, Alexis Taylor, & Alanah Nichole Davis
2024-09-29 12:00 - 13:00 | Baltimore Book Festival, 31st St. Stage
We’re so excited to see you at the Baltimore Book Festival, where you can find us at our booth on Sept. 28-29. On Sunday, September 29th, we are thrilled to be hosting the 31st St. Stage! At 12pm, join us in welcoming Devin Allen, Tia Goodson, Alexis Taylor, & Alanah Nichole Davis for a conversation about how we tell the story of Baltimore to the wider world.

Devin Allen is a self-taught artist who gained national attention when his photograph of the Baltimore Uprising was published on the cover of TIME in May 2015. A native of Baltimore, Devin achieved a rare feat as only the third amateur photographer TIME selected to feature on its cover.

In 2017, he was named the first fellow of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award as a debut author for his book, A Beautiful Ghetto (Haymarket Books).
Devin was chosen to serve as a 2020 Ambassador for Leica Camera AG; and following the untimely deaths of George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor, TIME once again acknowledged and honored Devin’s artistry by selecting one of his images from a Black Trans Lives Matter protest to grace the cover of their June 2020 issue.
Devin’s powerful imagery of Black life has been featured in New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Aperture.
His photography is also featured in permanent collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, the Jule Collins Smith Museum, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
His new book—No Justice, No Peace: From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter—was released in October 2022 under the Legacy Lit imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Tia Goodson is a seasoned award-winning film and TV professional based in Baltimore, and the Senior Director of Marketing & Communications at the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.
Alexis Taylor is the Managing Editor of the AFRO News.
Alanah Nichole Davis (She/Her) is a Baltimore-raised, award-winning journalist. She’s currently the Chief Storyteller in Baltimore’s Mayor’s Office of Performance and Innovation where she uses storytelling to showcase the positive impact of Baltimore City Government on its communities. With experience as a Lead Reporter covering technology, design, and civic news, she has a knack for simplifying complex topics for a wide audience.

Beyond journalism, Davis is deeply involved in Baltimore’s arts, land stewardship, and youth engagement efforts. Holding an MA in Social Design from Maryland Institute College of Art, she brings broad perspective and imagination to her work.
Known affectionately as Baltimore’s Godmother, Alanah often hosts events, moderates panels, mentors, and speaks publicly, drawing from her identity as a Black woman, human-centered designer, and mother. In her free time, she enjoys sharing crabs with friends, swimming, and savoring a good mocktail.
Davis work can be seen in Next City, Maryland Matters, Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore Banner, Salon, BmoreArt, and so many more.

The Many Cultures of Maryland, Told Through Short Stories: Susan Muaddi Darraj & Rion Amilcar Scott
2024-09-29 13:00 - 14:00 | Baltimore Book Festival, 31st St. Stage
We’re so excited to see you at the Baltimore Book Festival, where you can find us at our booth on Sept. 28-29. On Sunday, September 29th, we are thrilled to be hosting the 31st St. Stage!

At 1pm, we’re honored to welcome Susan Muaddi Darraj, author of Behind You is the Sea, and Rion Amilcar Scott, author of The World Doesn’t Require You, to discuss the short story as a tool for authentically portraying the experiences of Marylanders and the histories they inherit.

Susan Muaddi Darraj is an award-winning writer of books for adults and children. She won an American Book Award, two Arab American Book Awards, and a Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artists Award. In 2018, she was named a USA Artists Ford Fellow. Her books include her linked short story collection, A Curious Land, as well as the Farah Rocks children’s book series. She lives in Baltimore, where she teaches creative writing at Harford Community College and the Johns Hopkins University. Her new novel, BEHIND YOU IS THE SEA, was published in January 2024 by HarperVia. It received praise from The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Ms Magazine, and it was named a Best Book of 2024 by The New Yorker and Apple Books.
Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the story collection, The World Doesn’t Require You (Norton/Liveright, August 2019), a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and winner of the 2020 Towson Prize for Literature. His debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His work has been published in places such as The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, Best Small Fictions 2020 and The Rumpus, among others. His story, “Shape-ups at Delilah’s” was published in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020. He was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland and earned an MFA from George Mason University where he won the Mary Roberts Rinehart award, a Completion Fellowship and an Alumni Exemplar Award. He has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writing Conference, Kimbilio and the Colgate Writing Conference as well as a 2019 Maryland Individual Artist Award. Presently he teaches Creative Writing at the University of Maryland.

Taking Friendship Seriously: Writing the Relationships that Sustain Us with Rhaina Cohen, Lilly Dancyger, & Emefa Addo Agawu
2024-09-29 14:00 - 15:00 | Baltimore Book Festival, 31st St. Stage
We’re so excited to see you at the Baltimore Book Festival, where you can find us at our booth on Sept. 28-29. On Sunday, September 29th, we are thrilled to be hosting the 31st St. Stage!
For this 2pm panel, we’re so excited to be joined by Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center, and Lilly Dancyger, author of First Love: Essays on Friendship, who will discuss their recent works of nonfiction in conversation with Baltimore-based writer and editor Emefa Addo Agawu.
Rhaina Cohen is the bestselling author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center and an award-winning producer and editor for NPR’s Embedded podcast. Her writing about social connection has been published by The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME and other outlets, and her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Program. Cohen lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and close friends.
Lilly Dancyger is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship, and Negative Space. She lives in New York City, and is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in nonfiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts. She teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA programs at Columbia University and Randolph College, and her work has been published by The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Elle, and more. Find her on Twitter and Instagram at @lillydancyger, and on Substack at The Word Cave.
Emefa Addo Agawu is a Baltimore-based writer and editor and a 2024 Moynihan Public Scholar at The City University of New York. Previously, Agawu produced The Ezra Klein Show at The New York Times and wrote editorials at The Washington Post as a member of the paper’s editorial board. For her reporting on public safety, Agawu won the 2022 Burl Osborne Editorial and Opinion Award and was a finalist for the 2021 Online Journalism Awards Excellence in Social Justice Reporting. She is currently at work on a collection of essays about attention.

Remembering the 300 Man March: Darnyle Wharton interviewed by J.M. Giordano
2024-09-29 15:00 - 16:00 | Baltimore Book Festival, 31st St. Stage
We’re so excited to see you at the Baltimore Book Festival, where you can find us at our booth on Sept. 28-29. On Sunday, September 29th, we are thrilled to be hosting the 31st St. Stage!
At 3pm, join us for a special commemorative event for the 10-year anniversary of the 300 Man March in Baltimore. Darnyle Wharton, activist and Co-Organizer, and Squad Member of the Baltimore Peace Movement, will be interviewed by photojournalist J.M. Giordano, about Wharton’s remembrance of the 300 Man March. Wharton, his fellow activists with Baltimore Peace Movement, and marchers were featured in Giordano’s book 13-23: How a Summer of Violence Sparked a Decade of Activism.
About Darnyle Wharton: As a husband and father of two beautiful girls, and an advocate for non-violence, peace, love, and light, Darnyle Wharton is one of the co-organizers for the Baltimore Ceasefire 365 Movement alongside the founder, Erricka Bridgeford, co-founder, Ogun Gordy, and the other co-organizers, Letrice Gant, Jakia Jason, and Michelle Sellers. He is also a member of the all Black men community support group, Band of Brovaz, where he serves as the Communications officer.
He is the Northern District Community Liaison for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney Office. He is a part of a team of community liaisons who give the residents of Baltimore information and updates on the community engagement initiatives, resources, and policies of the State’s Attorney Office while getting feedback and concerns from them about public safety and what the office is doing to improve the crime situation in the city. Darnyle Wharton is a trained mediator for the Baltimore Community Mediation Center where they strive to help Baltimore City with conflict Resolution through mediation.
Before this, he was a member of 300 Men March on their Street Engagement Team and Village Keepers, a community support group that formed after 300 men March was disbanded. He also serves as the President of the Men’s Ministry group, M.O.V.E. (Men of Empowerment and Valor), at Empowerment Temple AME Church, where he currently worships.
Darnyle’s favorite phrase, is, Nothing changes if nothing changes. His fight to decrease Baltimore’s murder rate by inspiring and invigorating the community to get involved continues on and will be a part of what he does forever.
About J.M. Giordano: This year he was short-listed for the National Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Prize and will be featured in American Photography Annual 40 for his second book 13-23 (Nighted Life Press), covering a decade of Baltimore’s homicide rate. Work from the book was also awarded a Curator’s Choice award at Paris Photo His international photographs covering the collapse of the steel industry are the subject of a solo show at the Museum of Industry in Baltimore. He is at work on his next book Trumpland (Nighted Life Press), due out in October.

Humanities in the Village with Diego Javier Luis, THE FIRST ASIANS IN THE AMERICAS (with Johaina Katinka Crisostomo)
2024-09-30 18:30 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
You’re invited to the September edition of 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.
This month, the series features Dr. Diego Javier Luis, whose book The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History, provides a definitive account of transpacific Asian movement through the Spanish empire—from Manila to Acapulco and beyond—and its implications for the history of race and colonization in the Americas. Dr. Johaina Katinka Crisostomo will join Dr. Luis in conversation.
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.
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Click here to order The First Asians in the Americas!
Diego Javier Luis is the Rohrbaugh Family Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in the histories of colonial Latin America and the Spanish Pacific World. He is the author of The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History, published with Harvard University Press in 2024. In his free time, Luis enjoys photography, hiking, and fencing.
Johaina K. Crisostomo received her B.A. from Stanford University in 2011 and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2022. Her work thinks through the intersections between Asian/Asian American and Latinx/Latinx American literatures, engaging literature, political philosophy, religion, and comparative empire studies.

Lou Hammond and Paul Travers: THEY CALL ME SWEET LOU: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A FOOTBALL OFFICIAL
2024-10-01 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Join us for a special football season event for Ravens fans, featuring Ravens official Lou Hammond. Co-written with Paul Travers, They Call Me Sweet Lou: The Life and Times of a Football Official is a hilarious and heroic journey from the hardscrabble lot at Baltimore’s Radecke Park to the manicured lawn at M&T Bank Stadium. We’re so excited to hear from both Lou and Paul as they discuss the trials and tribulations of refereeing football with the book as reference point.
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Lou Hammond has officiated football games for over fifty years in sandlot, high school, college, flag, semipro, arena, the Canadian Football League, and the National Football League. During his career, he served on the board of directors for various leagues and conferences. He currently works game-day functions in the booth for the NCAA and NFL. In addition to his many awards, he was elected to the Minor League Football Hall of Fame in 1998.
Paul Travers, a prior Marine Corps officer, park ranger, security analyst, and ballpark tour guide, has written numerous books, including the bestseller Eyewitness to Infamy: An Oral History of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. In 2009, he through-hiked the Appalachian Trail as a fundraiser for veterans with Alzheimer’s disease. His most recent book, Dancing with the Mountains: Alzheimer’s, Angels, and the Appalachian Trail, chronicles that adventure.

Vital Perspectives on Healthcare and Science: Nicole Fabricant, FIGHTING TO BREATHE (with Nicole King)
2024-10-02 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. The October edition, focused specifically on Baltimore, features Dr. Nicole Fabricant, author of FIGHTING TO BREATHE: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore, with Dr. Nicole King joining in conversation.
FIGHTING TO BREATHE is an essential book for Baltimore. Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among the highest in the nation. Because of the concentration of factories and other chemical industries in their neighborhoods, residents face elevated rates of lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses in addition to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular disease, all of which can lead to premature death. Fighting to Breathe follows a dynamic and creative group of high school students who decided to fight back against the race- and class-based health disparities and inequality in their city. For more than a decade, student organizers stood up to unequal land use practices and the proposed construction of an incinerator and instead initiated new waste management strategies. As a Baltimore resident and activist-scholar, Nicole Fabricant documents how these young organizers came to envision, design, and create a more just and sustainable Baltimore.
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Click here to order FIGHTING TO BREATHE!
Nicole Fabricant received a BA from Mount Holyoke College in 1999 in urban anthropology and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2009. She completed a presidential post-doc at the University of South Florida in 2010 where she focused on the global water crisis and joined Towson University in the Fall of 2010. Dr. Fabricant’s teaching interests include Revolution in Latin America, Resource Wars of the 21st Century, Environmental (In)justice, and Gender and Labor in Latin America.
For the past several years, Dr. Fabricant has been developing a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project that is presently investigating structural injustices in Curtis Bay, South Baltimore. Much of the data collection and analytic work is being conducted by Benjamin Franklin high-school youth alongside Towson University students who are completing their senior capstone in anthropology. One major question has animated this research: Why do communities experience environmental problems and hazards unevenly? Towson University students have assembled small research collectives and worked collaboratively with youth to document the multiple layers of industrial toxicity, and the cumulative effects upon residents’ health and well-being. The PAR project with undergraduates and high-school students feeds directly into her broader research agenda, as we are creatively mapping how environmental hazards lead to political action or inaction during specific historic moments.
Nicole King is an associate professor of the Department of American Studies, an affiliate professor in the Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program, and director of the Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture at UMBC.
She received her PhD in American studies from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2008 and a MA in comparative literature and cultural studies from the University of New Mexico in 2001. Her research and teaching interests focus on issues of place, power, and economic development. King’s scholarship analyzes changes to the social and built environment during the rise of consumer culture in the twentieth century—such as the development of vernacular landscapes of tourism in the U.S. South and the decline of industrial neighborhoods in Baltimore. She is an editor of the book Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a U.S. City (Rutgers University Press, 2019) and the author of Sombreros and Motorcycles in a Newer South: The Politics of Aesthetics in South Carolina’s Tourism Industry (University Press of Mississippi, 2012). She co-founded the Baltimore Traces: Communities in Transition public humanities project where students work with local partners to research historic neighborhoods and complete oral history interviews focused on preserving the opinions of those who live and work in Baltimore. King’s research and teaching is based on the belief that looking and listening to a place can be a transformative act.

Hahrie Han: UNDIVIDED: THE QUEST FOR RACIAL SOLIDARITY IN AN AMERICAN CHURCH (with David Ware)
2024-10-03 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
The Ivy is delighted to welcome Hahrie Han for a hometown event celebrating her new book Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church, the story of a faith-based program designed to foster antiracism and systemic change.
The book emerged out of the observation that in 2016, even as Ohio helped deliver victory to presidential candidate Donald Trump, Cincinnati voters also passed a ballot initiative for universal preschool. The margin was so large that many who elected Trump must have—paradoxically—also voted for the initiative: how could the same citizens support such philosophically disparate aims? What had convinced residents of this Midwestern, Rust Belt community to raise their own taxes to provide early childhood education focused on the poorest—and mostly Black—communities?
Rev. David Ware, the Rector of Baltimore’s Church of the Redeemer, will join Han in conversation about the transformative possibilities for racial solidarity in a moment of deep divisiveness in America.
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Hahrie Han is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science, the inaugural director of the SNF Agora Institute, and the director of the P3 research lab at Johns Hopkins University. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she has published four previous books: Prisms of the People, How Organizations Develop Activists, Groundbreakers, and Moved to Action. Her most recent book was awarded the 2022 Michael Harrington Book Award from the American Political Science Association for “scholarship contributing to the struggle for a better world,” and she was also named a 2022 Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year by the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Republic, among other national publications. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Rev. David Ware is the current Rector of Baltimore’s Church of the Redeemer, where he has been since 2015. Raised in Arkansas, Ware holds a BA in English from Yale (1984), an MLS from St. John’s College (1991) and an MDiv from General Theological Seminary (1995). Ware spent time teaching at Sidwell Friends School during the late 80’s and early 90’s before serving as Head of the Upper School of St. Albans, DC in the early 2000’s. He has worked as an Episcopal priest for 29 years. Prior to moving to Baltimore, he served as rector in Cold Spring Harbor, NY.
Exerpted below is a piece of a letter from Rev. David Ware offering personal insights into his roots and the framework of his work.

I came to consciousness lying under a folding table, woken up by an image of church that still inspires me, more of a verb than a noun. Following Jesus is a way to live, and it seeks justice and builds up people and neighborhoods that are broken and tired. And all that we have is a gift—from parents, from friends, from our own hard work, from God—meant to help and heal the world. What’s waking you up right now […] in Baltimore, in your family or around the world? Get engaged [with your neighbors;] I imagine we will lose a little sleep, but the promise is that in the process we’ll find our lives.

Book Signing Happy Hour with Bob Bowie & Featured Writers: The Older You Are The Shorter Your Stories Should Be
2024-10-04 17:00 - 19:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Bob Bowie launches his new book of short essays, The Older You Are The Shorter Your Stories Should Be, alongside several beloved local writers who will read excerpts from the book as “toasts” during the evening happy hour. Come at 5 and stay the whole time, or drop by between 5-7pm to hear a toast, meet Bob, and have your book signed!
The Older You Are The Shorter Your Stories Should Be is a warm, witty collection of bite-sized stories, outsized characters, offbeat observations, and globe-trotting misadventures. Bob Bowie writes with clear-eyed honesty, compassion, and humor (often at his own expense).
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Robert Bowie, Jr. has worked as a house painter, bartender, lawyer, adjunct professor, poet, author, and playwright. He lives in Maryland.He has had 10 plays produced, including Onaje, which premiered with five sold-out performances at FringeNYC in 2018. An expanded version is currently in development.Bob’s well-reviewed collection of sonnets, An Accidental Diary, is available to order online: https://robertbowiejr.com/booklink.Bob continues to post regularly on his blog at https://robertbowiejr.com.

First Friday Comedy Show: Jeff King, Bobbie Ray, Hannah Alden Jeffrey
2024-10-04 18:00 - 20:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
The monthly comedy series continues at Bird in Hand, hosted and curated by the one & only Satarah Fisher! This month’s featured comedians: Jeff King, Bobbie Ray, Hannah Alden Jeffrey.
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.
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Telling African Stories: A Family Event with Morenike Oyenusi
2024-10-05 12:00 - 14:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Bring your children (ages 6-12) and the whole family to an engaging workshop with local author Morenike Euba Oyenusi as she shares her journey of writing and publishing Chasing Butterflies in the Sunlight. Hear a story from the book, be inspired to find your voices and tell your stories and participate in fun hands-on activities that will spark your creativity! Plus, the first 24 families will receive a free copy of the book and an activity workbook.
Chasing Butterflies in the Sunlight is an illustrated chapter book of stories for children aged five to twelve. It was a finalist in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the largest international awards program for indie authors and publishers. The book narrates the joys and innocence of childhood as experienced by Ronke, a young girl growing up on a culturally and racially diverse university campus in Nigeria. Through Ronke’s adventures, the book beautifully showcases Nigeria’s and West Africa’s rich history, geography, culture, and culinary delights.
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Morenike Euba Oyenusi is a Nigerian American author, publisher, and lawyer with degrees from the University of London and Jesus College, Cambridge. Passionate about children’s fiction, poetry, and being an inspiration to others, in 2020, Ms. Oyenusi founded Paradise Restored Publishing which has published her three award-winning books: Chasing Butterflies in the Sunlight, Isaiah and the Orchestra of Sounds, and The Shepherd’s Care. The imprint has also published Dr. Patricia Aladekoba’s Solace: Empowering Pastor’s Wives to Prevent and Overcome Burnout.
When Ms. Oyenusi isn’t juggling fictional or legal writing, you will probably find her immersed in a good piece of literary fiction, at the theater, watching a movie, jet-setting to new places, hanging out with her children and friends, or discovering new ways to tweak recipes —usually after very long walks that fuel creativity. Her next book, The Primary Colors, will be published in 2025.

Megan Pinto: SAINTS OF LITTLE FAITH (with Samuel Cheney, Jimin Seo, and Jess Yuan)
2024-10-06 16:00 - 17:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Presenting a Sunday afternoon of poetry at Bird in Hand, celebrating Megan Pinto’s debut collection Saints of Little Faith! “These are beautifully rendered ruminative and thoughtful coming- of-age poems,” says Victoria Chang, and we couldn’t agree more. Exciting for widely-read poetry lovers or those looking to get into contemporary poetry, Saints of Little Faith is a fine-tuned collection of meditative transformations that engage with South Asian experiences of addiction, domestic violence, and mental illness, refusing to ignore narratives treated as unspeakable and overlooked by the English canon.
In one of our favorite formats for poetry events, several poets will join Megan Pinto to read alongside her, including Jess Yuan, Samuel Cheney, and Jimin Seo.
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Click here to order Saints of Little Faith!
Megan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith (Four Way Books, 2024). Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, AAWW’s The Margins, Lit Hub and elsewhere. Megan has received scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, Storyknife, The Peace Studio and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers. Most recently, she received the 2023 Anne Halley Poetry Prize from the Massachusetts Review and was selected for Poets & Writers 2024 Get the Word Out poetry cohort. Megan lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson.
Samuel Cheney is from Centerville, Utah. He is the winner of a Pushcart Prize and was the 2021-23 Tickner Writer-in-Residence at Gilman School. His poems are in Copper Nickel, Michigan Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, Salmagundi, The Southern Review, and other magazines. He has been awarded scholarships from Bread Loaf and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and is Program Coordinator of The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins and Assistant Editor of Smartish Pace. Before moving to Baltimore, he worked at Grove Press, Gasser Grunert gallery, and the Criterion Collection. His debut manuscript, BELIEVERS, was a Finalist for the 2024 National Poetry Series.
Jimin Seo, born in Seoul, Korea immigrated to the US at the age of eight. His books include OSSIA (Changes 2024), and the chapbook A – 1982. His most recent projects were Poems of Consumption with H. Sinno at the Barbican Centre in London, and a site activation for salazarsequeromedina’s Open Pavilion at the 4th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.
Jess Yuan is a poet, educator, and architect. She is the author of Slow Render (2024), winner of the Airlie Prize, and Threshold Amnesia (2020), winner of the Yemassee Chapbook Contest. She is a Kundiman Fellow, and her poems appear in Best New Poets, Tupelo Quarterly Review, jubilat, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins.

Book Signing with Travis Brady: Make Room for Healing: 40 Tips from a Breast Cancer Survivor
2024-10-11 17:00 - 19:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
We always count ourselves lucky when a book merges the practical with the inspirational, and that’s exactly what Travis Brady has done in writing Make Room for Healing: 40 Tips from a Breast Cancer Survivor. Accessible, heartfelt, and witty, this short collection of simple, practical tips offers self-care, healing, and recovery, from a stage-3 breast cancer survivor. Whether this situation applies to you or to someone you love, the organization of this book is designed to sequentially walk with you through treatment, and to share all the information she wished she had when she was first diagnosed.
Drop in any time during this 5-7pm event to meet-and-greet with Travis, have your book signed, and enjoy some refreshments.
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Click here to order Make Room for Healing!
Travis Brady is surviving and thriving past her Stage 3A ER+ PR+ breast cancer diagnosis in 2016. Brady has spent her 30-year career in marketing and employee relations working for some global powerhouses like Levi Strauss & Co and Visa. She’s at her best when turning around underperforming brands or teams. Her modus operandi is to “maximize” by looking for ways to make things better and improve. This inherent nature led her to write, Make Room for Healing: 40 Tips from a Breast Cancer Survivor, to pay forward all the help she received when undergoing treatment. Brady lives in Chapel Hill, NC with her husband and daughter. To learn more, please visit TravisBrady.com and follow the author on Instagram @travis_brady.

IvyKids Saturday: Chef Hats with author Carrie Maslen
2024-10-12 09:00 - 10:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Head to the Ivy on Saturday morning to make your own chef hat craft with Carrie Maslen, author of Baking Bread with Jiddo! This sweet, joyful picture book follows a young girl on her annual visit to her grandfather’s house, where they share a tradition of baking Arabic bread. It’s an ode to family, traditions, and perseverance rooted in the strength and love that’s passed across generations.
Stop by any time between 9-10 to join in, and then play some lawn games and browse the shop.
Reading Partners Baltimore will also join to offer a reading- and baking-themed activity!
Click Here to RSVP
Click here to purchase Baking Bread with Jiddo!
Author Carrie Maslen has been writing and drawing since elementary school, which is also when her family started making their two-day drive to Wisconsin where she watched her grandfather bake Arabic bread. In addition to writing for her children and grandchildren, she also wrote business material throughout her career in high tech. When she’s not writing, you can find Carrie reading, cooking, gardening, and spending time with her family.

The Hot L Poets Series, featuring James Arthur and Hoke S. Glover III
2024-10-13 16:00 - 17:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Sunday October 13th (4pm) THE HOT L POETS SERIES returns after summer break, with poets James Arthur and Hoke S. Glover III! 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.
Books by the featured poets will be available at the event.
Click here to RSVP!

Canadian-American poet James Arthur is the author of The Suicide’s Son and Charms Against Lightning. His poems have also appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Review of Books, The American Poetry Review, The New Republic, and The London Review of Books. He has received the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, a Hodder Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, a Discovery/The Nation Prize, a Fulbright Scholarship to Northern Ireland, and a Visiting Fellowship at Exeter College, Oxford. Arthur lives in Baltimore, where he teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
Hoke S. Glover III (Bro. Yao) is the author of Crazy as Hell: the Best Little Guide to Black History (W. W. Norton, 2024), co-authored with V. Efua Prince; Marching Towards Heaven (Africa World Press, 2020); and Inheritance (Willow Books, 2016). The core of his work is the wider arc of the documented record of African-American consciousness via the text and the contradictions that arise from the lack of African-American publishing infrastructure. Glover graduated from the Bowie State University English Department in 1994. While at Bowie he began selling books in the student center. This small vending operation grew to become Karibu Books, one of the Nation’s largest black bookstores from 1993-2008. In 2005, he returned to Bowie State University as a professor and is now the chair of the Department of Language, Literature & Cultural Studies.

Kenneth Rogers: HEROES, VILLAINS, AND HEALING (with D. Watkins)
2024-10-17 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
The Ivy welcomes Kenneth Rogers to celebrate a new edition of his book, Heroes, Villains, and Healing: A Guide for Male Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Using Marvel Comic Superheroes and Villains. Using Marvel Comic Book superheroes and villains, Rogers offers in this project a kind, empathetic, and practical guide to help male survivors of childhood sexual abuse understand and heal from the trauma of their past. We are thrilled that beloved writer D. Watkins, author most recently of Black Boy Smile, will join Kenneth Rogers in conversation. D.’s perspective on coming-of-age as a Black boy, from the societal roots of trauma to finding joy, is invaluable in general and specifically in this context.
Click Here to RSVP
Click Here to purchase Heroes, Villains, and Healing: A Guide for Male Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Using Marvel Comic Superheroes and Villains. (2024)
Click Here to purchase Heroes, Villains, and Healing: A Guide for Male Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Using D.C. Comic Superheroes and Villains. (2017)
Click Here to purchase Black Boy Smile
Kenneth Rogers Jr. is the author of the How to Heal Your Inner Superhero series. This series uses DC Comic superhero and villain archetypes, cognitive behavior therapy, psychology, and his own autobiographical journey as a survivor to help other survivors of childhood sexual abuse heal. His guides include Heroes, Villains, and Healing (2017) and is the winner of four national indie book awards, How to Kill Your Batman (2018) is the winner of four national indie book awards, How to Save Your Inner Wonder Woman (2020) is the winner of five national indie book awards, How to Master Your Inner Superman (2020) is the winner of six national indie book awards, How to Slow Your Inner Flash (2021) is the winner of five national indie book awards, and his latest guide How to Unite Your Inner Lanterns (2023) is the winner of two national indie book awards. His latest edition of Heroes, Villains, and Healing (2024) using Marvel superheroes and villains to help male survivors move through the healing process has won the Living Now Book Award in personal growth. Each guide in the How to Heal Your Inner Superhero series spotlights a different path toward healing for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. With a masters from Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Kenneth Rogers Jr. lives and teaches in Baltimore, MD with his wife, Sarah and two daughters, Mirus and Amare.

D. Watkins is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Beast Side, The Cook Up, Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised, and We Speak for Ourselves—which was Enoch Pratt Free Library’s 2020 One Book Baltimore selection. His newest book, Black Boy Smile, was released in May. Watkins is Editor-at-Large for Salon. He is a writer on the HBO mini-series We Own This City and hosts the show’s companion podcast. Additionally, he was featured in the HBO documentary, The Slow Hustle. His work has been published in the New York Times, Esquire, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and other publications. Watkins is a college lecturer at the University of Baltimore, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing. He also holds a Master of Education degree from Johns Hopkins University. Some of Watkins’ awards include the Johns Hopkins Distinguished Alumnus Award, the BMe Genius Grant for Dynamic Black Leaders, the City Lit Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts, the Maryland Library Association’s William Wilson Maryland Author Award, and Ford’s Men of Courage Award for Black Male Storytellers. He was also a finalist for a 2016 Hurston Wright Legacy Award, and The Cook Up was a 2017 Books for a Better Life finalist. He lives in Baltimore, MD with his wife and daughter.

Lauren Russell: A WINDOW THAT CAN NEITHER OPEN NOR CLOSE (with Soham Patel and Lillian-Yvonne Bertram)
2024-10-18 18:00 - 19:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
With excitement, Bird in Hand announces this hometown event for poet and professor Lauren Russell’s new poetry collection, A Window That Can Neither Open Nor Close: Poems, Plots, Chance! Fellow poets Soham Patel and Lillian-Yvonne Bertram will join to read alongside Russell in this celebratory evening.
And there is much to celebrate in A Window That Can Neither Open Nor Close. The subtitle, Poems, Plots, Chance, invokes the many modes of meaning-making alive in this collection – from a pop quiz to a twelve-sided die to a box of mirrors – all of which make poetry of the space between knowing and not-knowing.
Whether you’re new to poetry or a frequent reader, we invite you to experience (because it is a full experience) this collection via this event.
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Click here to order A Window That Can Neither Open Nor Close!
Lauren Russell is a poet and writer in hybrid forms. She is the author of A Window That Can Neither Open nor Close: Poems, Plots, Chance (Milkweed Editions, 2024); Descent (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2020), winner of the 2021 Anna Rabinowitz Prize from the Poetry Society of America; and What’s Hanging on the Hush (Ahsahta Press 2017).
A 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry, she has also received fellowships from Cave Canem and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and residencies from Millay Arts, the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College, City of Asylum/ Passa Porta, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Ox-Bow, Ucross, Yaddo, and MacDowell. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Brooklyn Rail, and the anthologies Bettering American Poetry 2015 and Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, among others.
From 2016 to 2020, Lauren was assistant director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2020 to 2023, she served on the faculty of Michigan State University as an assistant professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities and director of the RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU. In 2023, she joined the faculty of The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an African American writer, poet, artist, and educator who works at the intersection of computation, AI, race, and gender. They are the author of Travesty Generator (Noemi Press), a book of computational poetry that received the Poetry Society of America’s 2020 Anna Rabinowitz prize for interdisciplinary work and longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. They are the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. Their other poetry books include How Narrow My Escapes (DIAGRAM/New Michigan), Personal Science (Tupelo Press), a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press), and But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press). Their most recent full length poetry book, Negative Money, was published in 2023. Their new chapbook, written with AI, is called A Black Story May Contain Sensitive Content and won the 2023 Diagram/New Michigan chapbook contest. They direct the MFA in creative writing program at the University of Maryland and are a 2024 Foundation for Contemporary Arts poetry grant recipient and 2024 Ruby’s Grant recipient.
Soham Patel is the author of the poetry collections to afar from afar (The Accomplices, 2018), ever really hear it (Subito, 2018 [winner of the 2017 Subito Prize, chosen by Mathias Svalina]), and all one in the end—water (Delete, 2023) and the chapbooks and nevermind the storm, New Weather Drafts (Portable Press @Yo-Yo Labs), in airplane and other poems (Oxeye Press), and Riva: A Chapter (Kitchen-Shy Press). Recent poetry has appeared in Interim, Under-belly, and Prairie Schooner.

IvyKids Saturday for Middle Grade Readers: Puzzle Breakout Boxes! with author Stephanie Brick
2024-10-19 09:00 - 10:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Calling all middle grade readers (ages 10-14)! Come help crack the codes! We need your help to break into the bottom of a mysterious box. Inspired by The Secret Doors of Cannondale by Stephanie Brick, this morning at the Ivy will feature a special activity for fans of magic and intrigue.
In The Secret Doors of Cannondale, an outcast girl looking to belong discovers a secret doorway to other realms in a thrilling portal fantasy novel for middle-grade readers. And on October 19, we bring this portal to life…
RSVP here!
Purchase The Secret Doors of Cannondale here!
Author Stephanie Brick deemed herself a writer from the moment she stapled together her first story on construction paper as a child. The rest is history as she continued to refine her craft as years passed, eventually writing a book to give her childhood self the adventure she always wanted. The book, a portal fantasy called The Secret Doors of Cannondale, takes middle-grade readers on a fantastical coming of age journey of friendship, belonging, and self-worth.
An architect by trade, Stephanie’s profession gives her a unique lens for detailed, multi-sensory world-building where readers experience taste, scent, touch, sound, and sight, leaving a greater impact that lasts long after the book is closed. Stephanie was inspired to write this book from her own childhood experiences, wonder, and daydreams, coupled with her youthful sense of curiosity and adventure visiting old houses with her parents, much like the one in her story. With an editor and author as parents, writing seemed a part of her genetic footprint.
When she isn’t writing thrilling fantasy stories for children, Stephanie enjoys cooking and eating delicious food, playing board games, kayaking, hiking, traveling to new places, basking in the sunshine, and spending time with friends and family. As an architect, Stephanie is a passionate and respected expert in salutogenic design, an evidence-based design strategy to improve human health and well-being in the built environment.
Stephanie lives in the greater Washington, D.C. area with her husband and their dog, Peppermint. The Secret Doors of Cannondale is her debut novel and has won national and international awards for best children’s book, middle grade fiction, and new author.

Louis Bayard: THE WILDES (with Sujata Massey)
2024-10-22 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Louis Bayard is a longtime favorite at The Ivy, shared by customers and staff alike (you may have picked up a copy of Jackie and Me on Shirley’s excellent recommendation…)! We’re over the moon now to welcome him for this event in celebration of his new novel based on the life of Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance and two sons.
The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts takes readers on the emotional journey of this family, moving from the Italian countryside, where Constance Wilde flees from the aftermath of Oscar’s imprisonment for homosexuality, to the trenches of World War I and an underground bar in London’s Soho, where Oscar’s sons Cyril and Vyvyan must both grapple with their father’s legacy. And in a brilliant feat of the imagination, act 5 reunites the entire cast in a surprising, poignant, and tremendously satisfying tableau.
The inimitable mystery writer Sujata Massey will join Louis Bayard in conversation for what promises to be a singular conversation. We hope you will join us!
Purchase The Wildes here!
RSVP here!
Louis Bayard is the critically acclaimed bestselling author of nine historical novels, including Jackie & Me and The Pale Blue Eye, which was adapted into the global #1 Netflix release starring Christian Bale. His articles, reviews, and recaps have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon, and the Paris Review. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Sujata Massey is the author of fourteen novels, two novellas and numerous short stories that have been published in eighteen countries. Her novels have won the Agatha, Lefty, Macavity and Mary Higgins Clark prizes and been finalists for the Edgar, Anthony, and Harper Lee literary awards. Sujata writes mystery and suspense fiction set in pre-Independence India, as well as a modern mystery series set in Japan.
Born in England to parents from India and Germany, Sujata was raised primarily in St. Paul, Minnesota, although her home for almost thirty years has been Baltimore, Maryland. She earned a B.A. in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and wrote features for the Baltimore Evening Sun newspaper before becoming a novelist.

Book Signing and Coffee with Rebecca Faye Smith Galli: MORNING FUEL
2024-10-26 10:00 - 12:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Porch, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Join author Rebecca Galli for a cup of coffee on the porch on the morning of October 26th, in celebration of her new book of daily inspirations, Morning Fuel! A portion of the proceeds will benefit a nonprofit organization cofounded by Galli called Pathfinders For Autism.
Best-selling author Rebecca Galli has experienced some of life’s most difficult challenges: sibling loss, special needs children, paralysis. In this book of daily readings, she offers reflective questions and inspiration for readers to set the tone for each day with mindfulness and warmth.
Infused with wisdom from Galli’s deep-thinking pastor father, her ever-optimistic, hostess-with-the-mostest mother, and other memorable family members and friends, Morning Fuel offers stories designed to inspire, encourage, or make you think.
Purchase Morning Fuel here!
RSVP here!
Rebecca (Becky) Faye Smith Galli is an author and columnist who writes about love, loss, and healing. Surviving significant losses—her seventeen-year-old brother’s death; her son’s degenerative disease and subsequent death; her daughter’s autism; her divorce; and nine days later, her paralysis from transverse myelitis, a rare spinal cord inflammation that began as the flu—has fostered an unexpected but prolific writing career. In 2000, The Baltimore Sun published her first column about playing soccer with her son—from the wheelchair that launched her From Where I Sit newspaper column. Her website (BeckyGalli.com) houses over 400 published columns. Her books, Rethinking Possible – A Memoir of Resilience (2017) and Morning Fuel – Daily Inspirations to Stretch Your Mind Before Starting Your Day (2024) reflect what she believes: “Life can be good—no matter what.” She continues to write Thoughtful Thursdays—Lessons from a Resilient Heart, a column for her subscriber family that shares what’s inspired her to stay positive. A Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she was formerly employed by IBM, where she was the recipient of the Golden Circle award for marketing excellence. Becky resides in Lutherville, Maryland, outside of Baltimore.

Poetry on the Patio: An EC Poetry and Prose Collective Reading
2024-10-26 16:00 - 17:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Join the EC Poetry and Prose Collective as they host a reading as a part of Free Fall Baltimore, with Zorina Exie Frey, Clifford Bernier, Blair Ewing, and Patti Ross!
Click here to RSVP!
EC Poetry and Prose is a collective of poets and writers who believe in the power of language to convey truth and promote peace. Our members are spoken word artists, published authors, and new and emerging writers. https://ecpoetryandprose.org/about-us/
Zorina Exie Jerome Frey has over a decade of publishing experience. She has edited and published for Indiana University South Bend’s Michiana Monologues non profit organization serving annual titles of president, director, editor, and Public Relations Associate. As a poet, Zorina’s work has been recognized by The White House. She was a semi-finalist for the TV pilot, America’s Next Great Author. Her work has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: I’m Speaking Now, Shondaland, Filter.org, Voyage MIA, Worcester Business Journal, Analecta, and New Views on Gender. Her poems and short stories have won several South Florida Writers’ Association awards. As a performance artist, she has been featured at the Miami Book Fair, Broward College’s Music, Film, Literature and Arts Festival, Miami Dade College’s Arts & Letters Series, and Lip Service: True Stories Out Loud. Zorina is also a spoken word performer with a background in improv. She has acted in commercials, co-hosted PBS WNIT Television’s campaign, and hosted the Mid-Day Morning Drive for WSMK 99.1 FM Radio in Buchanan, Michigan. Her small press, I.W.A. Publications was nominated as Young Adult Teen Readers’ Best Indie Publisher in 2013. I.W.A. Publications specializes in SEO content, graphic design, video, and consulting aspiring writers and experts on book publishing. She also founded 45 Magazine Literary Journal, an online publication. Zorina graduated from Indiana University South Bend with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications/Journalism along with a Web Design certificate. She then earned a certificate in Literary Publishing from Emerson College. Zorina is also an MFA Creative Writing candidate of Converse University; she’s certified in Google Analytics and a contributing editor for South 85 Journal. Other Achievements: Pushcart Prize for Poetry, 2023
Clifford Bernier’s The Silent Art won the Gival Press Poetry Award. He is also the author of Dark Berries and Earth Suite, each selected by the Montserrat Review as a Best Chapbook. A new book, Ocean Suite, was published in September 2024; his books Wetlands will be published in spring 2025 and Bakary and the River will be published in summer of 2025. He appears in The Write Blend poetry circle collection among other print and online journals and anthologies. In addition, Mr. Bernier appears on harmonica in the Portuguese Accumulated Dust world music series and is featured on the EP Post-Columbian America. He has been featured in readings in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Washington, DC area, including the Library of Congress, the Arts Club of Washington, George Washington University (where he is a member of the Washington Writer’s Collection) and the Bethesda Writer’s Center. He has been a reader for the Washington Prize and a judge for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Poetry Out Loud recitation contest. From 2003-2008 he hosted the Poesis reading series in Arlington, Virginia and performed with the Jazzpoetry band at venues in and around Washington, DC. He has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net Award. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Blair Ewing is Executive Producer of Word Up Baltimore, a poetry CD produced in 1997 in honor of Baltimore’s 200th birthday, featuring 50 of Baltimore’s best poet-performers. His poems have been widely published in lit magazines and journals. He is the recipient of the 1999 Randall Jarrell Prize, awarded by the Southeastern Regional Poetry Society. His latest project Baltimore Sessions is available now on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. The album is available now.Patti Ross graduated from Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts and The American University. Retiring from a career in technology Patti has rediscovered her love of writing and shares her voice as the poet and spoken word artist “little pi.” Her poems are published in various literary journals, PoetryXHunger website, Oyster River Pages: Composite Dreams Issue and several ekphrastic and nature anthologies. Her debut chapbook, St. Paul Street Provocations, was released in July 2021 by Yellow Arrow Publishing. Her poem “Indemnity” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021. She is the founder of EC Poetry and Prose collective.
Patti Ross graduated from Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts and The American University. Retiring from a career in technology Patti has rediscovered her love of writing and shares her voice as the poet and spoken word artist “little pi.” Her poems are published in various literary journals, PoetryXHunger website, Oyster River Pages: Composite Dreams Issue and several ekphrastic and nature anthologies. Her debut chapbook, St. Paul Street Provocations, was released in July 2021 by Yellow Arrow Publishing. Her poem “Indemnity” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021. She is the founder of EC Poetry and Prose collective.

Humanities in the Village: Peter Pomerantsev (with Dave Troy)
2024-10-28 18:30 - 20:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
You’re invited to the October edition of 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.
This month, the series features Dr. Peter Pomerantsev, author of How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler.
Investigative journalist Dave Troy will join Dr. Peter Pomerantsev in conversation.
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.
Click here to RSVP!
Click here to order How to Win an Information War!
Peter Pomerantsev is a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where he co-directs the Arena Initiative. He is the author ofNothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, which won the 2016 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, and ofThis is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality.
Dave Troy is an investigative journalist addressing threats to democracy. His background as a technologist and as a student of history gives him a unique perspective on current events. He writes a newsletter about the bigger themes behind the news, does frequent public speaking, and hosts a podcast where he researches and explores the history behind current events. He also works with researchers from around the world to understand disinformation (paper) and other threats to democracy using network analysis and other methods.

Marian Crotty: NEAR STRANGERS (with Danielle Evans)
2024-10-29 18:00 - 19:30 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Marian Crotty’s new short story collection, Near Strangers, follows the unexpected, inviting lives of queer characters in middle America. Join us to launch it into the world with a conversation between Crotty and Danielle Evans, author most recently of The Office of Historical Corrections! These two brilliant writers of the short story form have much to offer us, as does the collection Near Strangers, through which we can find hopeful, connective themes against the backdrop of the everyday.
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Purchase Near Strangers Here!
Marian Crotty is the author of the short story collections Near Strangers, which won the 2023 Autumn House Fiction Prize, and What Counts as Love, which was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her short stories have appeared in venues such as the Kenyon Review, The Sun, Ploughshares, and Best American Short Stories 2020. She has received fellowships or scholarships from Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the US Fulbright Program. She is an Associate Professor of Writing at Loyola University Maryland.
Danielle Evans is the author of two short story collections, The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. Her first collection won the PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Hurston-Wright award for fiction, and the Paterson Prize for fiction; her second won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and was a finalist for The Aspen Prize, The Story Prize, The Chautauqua Prize, and The Los Angeles Times Book prize for fiction. She has also been awarded The New Literary Project Oates Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a US Artists Fellowship. Her stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies including four editions of The Best American Short Stories. She is an Associate Professor in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Halloween Dog Happy Hour
2024-10-30 17:00 - 19:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Garden, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209, United States
Bring your dog to the Ivy Gardens in costume for pup cups, puperonies, and play! Parade through the garden to show off the costume your dog has been dreaming up all year, then make a new costumed puppy friend.
Click here to let us know you’re coming!

Bird in Hand Presents: Meghan Keane, PARTY OF ONE (with Andrew Limbong)
2024-10-30 18:00 - 19:30 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Meghan Keane, founder of NPR’s Life Kit, visits Bird in Hand in celebration of her warm, witty, and affirming self-help guide: Party of One! Subtitled “Be Your Own Best Life Partner,” Party of One engages with what it actually means to love yourself in a society built around the priority of the romantic relationship. It’s the self-help book Meghan wished she’d had from the start–a deeply researched, encouraging guide to bridging the gap between knowing that being single is awesome and feeling and embodying it.
We’re so excited that Andrew Limbong, host of NPR’s Book of the Day podcast, will join Keane in conversation. We hope you will join us for this event about being good company for ourselves, and one another.
RSVP Here!
Purchase Party of One here!
Meghan Keane is the author of Party of One: Be Your Own Bet Life Partner. She’s also founder and supervising editor for NPR’s Life Kit, which brings listeners advice and actionable information about personal finances, health, parenting, relationships and more. She is responsible for the editorial vision of Life Kit, which aims to serve NPR’s larger mission of public service.
Prior to founding Life Kit, Keane was a producer for NPR’s award winning podcast Invisibilia. Keane is also a founding producer of NPR’s TED Radio Hour.
Andrew Limbong is a correspondent for NPR’s culture desk covering books and publishing. He’s also host of NPRs Book of the Day podcast, a daily show which collects the best author interviews from across the NPR newsroom.

First Friday Comedy Show: Jeff King, Bobbie Ray, Hannah Alden Jeffrey
2024-11-01 18:00 - 21:00 | Bird in Hand Coffee & Books, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
The beloved monthly comedy series continues at Bird in Hand, hosted and curated by the one & only Satarah Fisher! This month’s featured comedians: Jeff King, Bobbie Ray, Hannah Alden Jeffrey.
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.

Ivy Kids Saturday: Owl Puppets with Author Jia Liu!
2024-11-09 09:00 - 10:00 | The Ivy Bookshop, Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD, 21209
Let’s make owl puppets with author Jia Liu! Liu’s adorable picture book, Who Needs Friends?, tells us about Little Merlin the owl, who’s ready to make his first friends—but it’s going to take some practice! On this Saturday morning, we’ll have a storytime and puppet craft with the author, plus a fun surprise scavenger hunt at the end to bring the spirit of this sweet story alive.
With coffee for the parents and the shop open for browsing, we invite you to stick around and make a morning of it. Can’t wait to see you there!
Purchase Who Needs Friends? at this link!
RSVP at this link!
Jia Liu received her MFA in Illustration Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art. She is also the illustrator of Terrific Tongues! Visit: www.jia-liu.com.
