Monday, Oct. 7, 6 p.m.: Fitz Books presents a book launch event for King, Queen, Knave (Mack Books, 2024), Gregory Halpern’s latest book of photographs, which centers on Buffalo. Over two decades, Gregory Halpern has been photographing in and around his hometown of Buffalo, New York, meticulously crafting the series of photographs that forms his latest monograph. King, Queen, Knave is an idiosyncratic vision of a city amidst its contradictions, defying familiar narratives of post-industrial decline and embracing an enigmatic strain of reality verging on surrealism. Halpern has published seven monographs, is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his photographs are in major public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He teaches photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Fitz Books & Waffles, 433 Ellicott St.., Buffalo.

Monday, Oct. 7, 6:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.: Just Buffalo Literary Center presents a BABEL Big Read bilingual book discussion of Sandra Cisneros’s beloved coming-of-age story The House on Mango Street, led by SUNY Buffalo State University Professor Lorna Perez. Perez is an associate professor of English at Buffalo State University specializing in Latinx literature who has published multiple scholarly articles on Sandra Cisneros’s work. The Special Issues Editor for Label me Latina/o journal, she most recently co-edited the special issue on Latinx Comics and Graphic Novels with Frederick Luis Aldama. She holds a PhD from the University at Buffalo. Tipico Coffee, 1084 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. $12 per person.

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesday Night Open Mic Series at the Em Tea Coffeecup Café. All are welcome whether be you new to poetry or a long-time member of the community. 80 Oakgrove Ave., Buffalo, NY. Free and open to the public.

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 7 p.m.: The University at Buffalo Exhibit X Fiction Series presents award-winning novelist Ed Park. Ed Park was born in Buffalo in 1970. Same Bed Different Dreams (2023), his second novel, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His debut novel, Personal Days (2008), was a finalist for the PEN Hemingway Award and other prizes. He was the editor of the Voice Literary Supplement, a founding editor of The Believer, and a book editor at Penguin Press. His reviews and essays appear in The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, Bookforum, and many other places. A collection of his short fiction, published in The New Yorker and elsewhere, will appear next year. A co-editor of the anthology Buffalo Noir (2015), he lives in Manhattan and teaches at Princeton. Hallwalls Cinema, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 7 p.m.: The Canisius University Contemporary Writers Series presents its 20th annual Hassett Reading featuring writer and literary scholar Clair Wills. Wills is the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Clair Wills is renowned for her contributions to literature and history. Her acclaimed works include Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain, which received the Irish Times International Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award. Wills is also the author of That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War, recipient of a PEN Hessell-Tiltman History Prize. Her most recent book, Missing Persons, or, My Grandmother’s Secrets, is part memoir, part social history, and “explores the holes in the fabric of modern Ireland, and in her own family story.” In addition to her book-length works, Wills is a frequent contributor to prominent literary journals such as the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books. The Wills lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session and reception. Books will be available for purchase courtesy of Talking Leaves Books. Montante Cultural Center, Canisius University, 2001 Main St., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesdays at Cabernet, monthly open mic poetry and prose reading series hosted by Sinead Tyrone. Cabernet’s Wine Café , 9 N. Ellicott St., Williamsville.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 8 p.m.: Just Buffalo Literary Center BABEL Series Lecture by and discussion with author Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros is a poet, short-story writer, novelist, essayist, performer, and artist whose work explores the lives of the working-class. Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, the Texas Medal of the Arts, a MacArthur Fellowship, several honorary doctorates and national and international book awards, including Chicago’s Fifth Star Award, the PEN Center USA Literary Award, the Fairfax Prize, the National Medal of Arts. Most recently, she received the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship, was recognized among The Frederick Douglass 200, won the PEN/Nabokov Award for international literature, a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation. Her classic, coming-of-age novel, The House on Mango Street, has sold over seven million copies, has been translated into over twenty-five languages, and is required reading in elementary, high school, and universities across the nation. In addition to her writing, Cisneros has fostered the careers of many aspiring and emerging writers through two non-profits she founded: the Macondo Foundation, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2020, and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation, which ran for fifteen years. She is also the organizer of Los MacArturos, Latino MacArthur fellows who are community activists. Her literary papers are preserved in Texas at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University. Cisneros is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico and earns her living by her pen. As a single woman, she chose to have books instead of children. She currently lives in San Miguel de Allende, México. A new collection of poetry, Woman Without Shame, her first in 28 years, was published in 2022 by Knopf and by Vintage Español in a Spanish language translation, Mujer sin vergüenza, by Liliana Valenzuela. In 2024, The House on Mango Street was published in the Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics Series. In her talk and conversation with Just Buffalo Artistic Director Barbara Cole, Cisneros will discuss her 1983 novel The House on Mango Street and how it relates to her subsequent work. Kleinhans Music Hall, 3 Symphony Circle, Buffalo. $40. Visit https://www.justbuffalo.org/ for tickets to the event, which also include an online livestreaming option.

Friday, Oct. 11,5:30 p.m.: Ground and Sky Open Mic Reading Series at Healing Grounds, 220 Grant Street in Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

Saturday, Oct. 12, 7 p.m.: The Pure Ink Tapings: A Live Spoken Word Poetry Concert featuring poets Jared Benjamin (aka J.B. Stone), Yamilla Tate, Jheanelle Kerr-Ewansiha, MYQ Farrow, Sir Rock Bottom 137, and Eddie Lartey. This is a two part series that will inspire you to reflect on the world around you. This series will be live taped, and broadcast nationally on streaming platforms as an episodic program. Early bird tickets are available now for $15. After the early bird deadline general admission tickets will be $20.00. Visit https://pureinkpoetry.com/ for additional ticketing information. Ujima Theater Company, 429 Plymouth Ave, Buffalo.

Sunday, Oct. 13, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.: Poets and spoken word artists Ben Brindise and Yamilla Tate will join the band Comienzos in a Fall Fundraiser for the new not-for-profit Arts & Culture journalism website The Buffalo Hive from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the 9th Ward at Babeville, 341 Delaware Ave. in Buffalo. For more information about the event, visit https://thebuffalohive.com/