Raina Telgemeier ("SMILE," "Baby-Sitters Club") and Dave Roman ("Astronaut Academy," "X-Men: Misfits") discuss how reading comics affected their lives, inspiring them to become full-time cartoonists. This event includes live comics readings from graphic novels with lots of audience participation and silliness! Volunteers from the audience will be chosen to play a few of the comic characters.

MSU Professor Weinberger looks behind the many masks of Ben Franklin and proves that the man was far more remarkable than anyone has yet discovered!Moral paragon, public servant, founding father; scoundrel, opportunist, womanizing phony: There are many Benjamin Franklins. For this event, Jerry Weinberger, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University and 2007 winner of the the Michigan State University Distinguished Faculty Award, will reveal the real Franklin, in a lecture that explores Franklin's life and many accomplishments.

David Malki! is the nationally-known author of the celebrated comic strip Wondermark, which repurposes illustrations and engravings from 19th-Century books into sarcastic, silly, and surreal collage-style comic strips! For this special event, David will present a slide show of fascinating, forgotten articles unearthed from Victorian-era newspapers and magazines. A man breathes fire! A steam-powered flying machine attempts its first flight! Inventors and adventurers dream big, and often die! And human nature remains unchanged through the ages.

Laura Resau has lived and traveled extensively in Latin America and Europe - experiences that inspire her books for young people. Acclaimed for her sensitive treatment of immigration issues, she donates a portion of her royalties to indigenous rights organizations in Latin America.Her novels have garnered many starred reviews and awards, including the IRA YA Fiction Award, the America's Award and a spot on Oprah's Kids' Book List. Her latest, "The Queen Of Water," (co-written with Maria Virginia Faringo) was praised as "riveting..heartbreaking...

PBS-featured Michigan author Doc Fletcher invites you to enjoy a photographic journey down rivers selected from his 3 books: the 2011 release "Canoeing & Kayaking Wisconsin" and his two Michigan river books. You will take a virtual trip down several rivers & hear what makes each of those rivers uniquely FUN! Histories of towns along the way are shared and tales are told of local, old-time, neighborhood taverns in those towns. At the end of the program there will be a drawing for a free canoe or kayak trip, good for a day trip down one of Michigan's or Wisconsin's rivers.

Over the course of fifteen months, acclaimed author Sebastian Junger (author of The Perfect Storm) followed a single platoon based at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan. His objective was to convey what soldiers experience--what war actually feels like. The resulting New York Times Bestseller 'War,' (now available in paperback), describes what few civilians will ever witness - what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a constant basis.His time in Afghanistan is also the subject of the documentary feature film Restrepo, which Junger directed with award-winning photographer Tim Hetherington. Restrepo received the 2010 Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance and an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. In addition to 'The Perfect Storm,' (the basis for a major motion picture starring George Clooney), other Junger bestsellers include 'Fire' and 'A Death in Belmont.' A contributing editor to Vanity Fair, Junger has been awarded a SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism as well as a National Magazine Award. This event includes a booksigning and books will be on sale.

Lovers of the mystery genre -- and aspiring writers -- mark your calendars! Do not miss this presentation by international bestselling suspense authors Brian Freeman and Craig McDonald. Co-sponsored by Aunt Agatha's, the event will include a booksigning and books will be on sale.Brian Freeman's debut novel "Immoral" won the Macavity Award in 2005 and was a finalist for the Edgar, Dagger, Anthony, and Barry Awards for best first novel. "Immoral" was also named International Book of the Month, a distinction shared with authors Harlan Coben and Karin Slaughter. Since then, Brian has released five more critically acclaimed psychological suspense novels, which have been published in 19 languages. His sixth novel "The Bone House" - has just been released. Edgar-nominee Craig McDonald is an award-winning journalist, editor and fiction writer. His short fiction has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and several online crime fiction sites. His 2007 debut novel, "Head Games," selected as an Edgar-nominee for Best First Novel by an American Author, was also a finalist for the Anthony, Gumshoe and Crimespree Magazine awards for best first novel. His nonfiction books include "Art In The Blood," a collection of interviews with 20 major crime authors, which was followed by a second collection "Rogue Males: Conversations and Confrontations About the Writing Life." Don't miss his fun, inspiring look inside the world of the mystery genre as two of its masters share anecdotes about the mystery genre, the creative process, and the ups and downs of the writer's life.

2011 Caldecott Medal winner Erin and Philip Stead join other panelists in this discussion of issues in the children's book publishing industry, co-sponsored by the Detroit Chapter of the Women's National Book Association. The discussion panel includes: Shutta Crum, nationally known children's author, storyteller, former librarian and teacher; Heather Hughes, Marketing Director at Sleeping Bear Press; Colleen Kammer, co-owner of Oak Park's Book Beat Bookstore; and Marian Nelson, owner of Nelson Publishing & Marketing. Eastern Michigan University Children's Literature Professor Dr. Harry Eiss will moderate. The Women's National Book Association is a national organization of women and men who work with and value books. The original WNBA exists to promote reading and to support the role of women in the community of the book.

Cleveland Confidential Book Tour features three author-musicians who hail from Cleveland but whose influence is without boundaries. Cheetah Chrome (Rocket From The Tombs, Dead Boys), Mike Hudson (The Pagans) and Bob Pfeifer (Human Switchboard, Tabby Chinos)will read excerpts from their books, answer questions and discuss their careers. A book signing will follow and books will be on sale. Cheetah Chrome is best known as guitarist/founding member of both Rocket From The Tombs and Dead Boys. As a songwriter his work has been covered by artists such as Guns n Roses, Pearl Jam and the Beastie Boys. He still performs and records with Rocket From The Tombs, as well as Batusis (with Sylvain Sylvain). His new book "Cheetah Chrome - A Dead Boy's Tale From The Front Lines Of Punk Rock" is the no-holds-barred autobiography - a tale of success and excess--amazing music, legendary antics, epic drug use, and eventual resurrection--that only a true rock and roller could deliver.Mike Hudson founded the American punk rock group the Pagans in 1977. His work has appeared in Hustler, the Associated Press, Master Detective, Field & Stream and many other publications. He is currently the founding editor and CEO of the Niagara Falls Reporter, a New York tabloid specializing in politics and organized crime. "Diary of A Punk," his autobiography, is a classic rock and roll memoir that dishes the inside dope on the groundbreaking American punk rock movement and many of its top stars.Bob Pfeifer was a founding member and primary songwriter for the critically acclaimed band, Human Switchboard. He went on to be Senior Vice President A&R / Epic Records and President of Hollywood Records (The Walt Disney Company). He is responsible for the sale of 50 Million albums having worked with Alice Cooper, Joe Satriani, Ornette Coleman, The Screaming Trees, Elton John, among many others, and soundtracks like the Crow: City of Angels and Lion King. Bob's novel, "University of Strangers," has as its center a sensational case - that of American student Amanda Knox and the brutal murder of her roommate. A unique blend of fact and fiction, it is a spellbinding account of the violence, corruption and celebrity worship that characterize much of 21st century life.

When you grow up hating Germany because your parents are Holocaust survivors, what happens when you're invited to speak there about your books? Lev Raphael haunted by his parents' suffering and traumatic losses under Nazi rule, was certain that Germany was one place in the world he would never visit. Those feelings shaped his Jewish and gay identity, his life, and his career. Then the barriers of a lifetime began to come down, as revealed in this moving memoir "My Germany." While researching his mother's war years, Raphael found a distant relative living in the very city where she had been a slave laborer. What would he learn if he actually traveled to the place where his mother had found freedom and met his father? Not long after that epochal trip, a German publisher bought several of his books for translation. Raphael was launched on book tours in Germany, discovering not so much a new Germany, but a new self: someone unafraid to face the past and transcend it. Lev Raphael is a pioneer in writing fiction about America's Second Generation, publishing his first short story about children of survivors in 1978. Many of his early stories on this theme were collected in his award-winning book, "Dancing on Tisha B'Av," while the best of those appear in his second collection "Secret Anniversaries of the Heart." He is the author of 17 other books including two novels about survivors, "Winter Eyes" and "The German Money," two memoirs, "Journeys & Arrivals" and "Writing a Jewish Life" and dozens of essays, articles, and stories in a wide range of publications