Short film of Elmo Morales printing Community High School anti-zebra t-shirts for the feature-length documentary Welcome to Commie High from 7 Cylinders Studio.

In this episode, AADL Talks to Ann Arbor playwright, coach, teacher, and songwriter, Jay Stielstra. Jay discusses his life and work as a teacher and a coach in the Ann Arbor Public Schools; how he became a playwright without ever having been backstage; and how a kid from Ludington, Michigan who just wanted to be a football coach ended up being one of Ann Arbor's most prominent singer-songwriters.

Historical articles and photographs about Jay Stielstra in our Community Collections 

Lola Jones and Carol Gibson are well-known to anyone familiar with Ann Arbor history. Over the past 30 years they have sought out and documented the history of the African American experience in Ann Arbor through a series of projects under the moniker Another Ann Arbor; it is largely through their work that the Ann Arbor African American story is a part of our shared community identity. Lola and Carol stopped by the library to talk with us one day about the work they have done over the years and where they are headed next.

Well known Indian and western musicians come together to talk about the concepts behind Indian and western music, and how they collaborate to create new music. This is accompanied by a short concert where they will present music based on these concepts.

Aaron Foley is an author, editor, Detroit native and current resident. He is the author of the 2015 book How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass and editor of the 2017 anthology "The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook." Currently, he is the chief storyteller for the City of Detroit government.

Miles Okazaki is the first artist to record all of Thelonious Monk's music on a solo instrument. In this concert he will be presenting selections from his 2018 album "WORK," a five-hour performance of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, praised by critic Nate Chinen as “an act of immersive scholarship and exhaustive scope. . . a singular achievement,” and selected by the New York Times as one of the best albums of 2018, a “monumental statement of devotion.”

Experience "Before We Remember We Dream"—a performance from the new book of Lao American speculative poetry by Bryan Thao Worra, a 2019 Joyce Fellow and a 2009 National Endowment of the Arts Fellow in Literature.

Navigating a relationship with your spouse or partner can be challenging enough–so why would you willingly work together on a project that can take a year or more to complete? Anne and Jerzy Drozd, authors of Science Comics: Rockets, explore how they handled the creative challenges of making a nonfiction comic about science and answer the most important question facing humanity today: WHO. DID. WHAT.

About Anne:

Nigerian-born chef and writer Tunde Wey opened a restaurant in Detroit in 2013. A year later, realizing that the influx of capital to the city was not contributing to an inclusive revival but to the profit of those already "fluent in the language of privilege," Tunde left the restaurant and moved to New Orleans. 

Marcus Wicker is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a Pushcart Prize, The Missouri Review's Miller Audio Prize, as well as fellowships from Cave Canem, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Join us as he discusses his life, his poetry, and his newest collection Silencer.