Monday, Sept. 30, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Book Release Party for Dean Brownrout’s memoir No Big Deal (Guernica Editions, 2024). No Big Deal is Dean Brownrout’s tragicomic recollection of his 25 years in the music industry, as LPs were morphing into CDs, and the internet loomed. Starting out as an enterprising teenager in Buffalo, NY in the late 1970s, Brownrout rode the music business on punk, new wave, and metal, until finding himself and founding the independent record label, Big Deal. Location: Marble + Rye, 112 Genesee St., Buffalo.

Monday, Sept. 30, 6:30 p.m. to 8 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 University at Buffalo Professor Fernanda Negrete. Fernanda Negrete is the author of The Aesthetic Clinic: Feminine Sublimation in Contemporary Writing, Psychoanalysis & Art (SUNY Press, 2020). She directs the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis & Culture at the University at Buffalo, hosts Penumbr(a)cast–The Other Scene, and co-directs Penumbr(a)–Journal of Psychoanalysis & Modernity. Crane Branch Library, 633 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. Free & open to the public.

Tuesday, Oct.1, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesday Night Open Mic Series at the Em Tea Coffeecup Café hosted by Lynn Ciesielski. 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. 1, 7:30 p.m.: The Literary Café Series at the Center for Inquiry hosted by Ryki Zuckerman and featuring fellow Saddle Road Press published poets Philip Terman, Trudy Stern, Jennifer Campbell and Terez Peipins. The Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Rd. in Amherst, NY. The event is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 7 p.m.: Ground and Sky Poetry Roundtable, informal reading and poetry discussion group led by Joel Lesses. Format is ‘no mic, no list, no podium,’ but an organic discussion of life and poetry. Inspiration Point, 483 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public. Program also available via Zoom. Contact www.educationtrainingcenterinc.com/ for the link.

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 9 p.m.: Poetry Night at Caffe Aroma, biweekly open mic reading series hosted by Ben Brindise and Justin Karcher. 957 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

Thursday, Oct. 3, 6:30 p.m.: Burchfield Penney Art Center Book Club, featuring an author talk by Kim Chinquee to discuss her book Pipette. A novel told in flash fiction style. Pipette starts with a woman on a train returning from the ballet, to her dogs, her partner. Trouble at home escalates. The country is on edge. She tries to escape a threatening situation. Then comes a pandemic; our protagonist hangs out with her dogs, manages remote teaching. With leitmotifs of skiing, dogs, trains, waterways, birds, nature, spiritual guides, triathlons, she writes, she teaches, she swims/bikes/runs. The novel dips into her past―trauma, relationships, activities, working in the lab―which pendulums, then finally propels forward.
Kim Chinquee is the author of the collections OH BABY, PRETTY, PISTOL, VEER, SHOT GIRLS, WETSUIT, SNOWDOG, and most recently her novel PIPETTE. Her fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies including NOON, THE NATION, CONJUNCTIONS, PLOUGHSHARES, STORY QUARTERLY, THE INDIANA REVIEW, DENVER QUARTERLY, MISSISSIPPI REVIEW, HUFFINGTON POST, and others. She is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and a Henfield Prize, is senior editor of NEW WORLD WRITING, chief editor of ELJ (ELM LEAVES JOURNAL), and co-director of SUNY-Buffalo State University’s writing major. Her webpage is www.kimchinquee.com

Saturday, Oct. 5, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.: Where We Live: A BABEL Big Read Bilingual Family-Friendly Writing Workshop inspired by the theme “Where We Live” led by Christina Vega-Westhoff. Writing prompts & craft supplies provided for participants of all ages. Christina Vega-Westhoff is a poet, translator, aerialist, and teaching artist. She is the author of Suelo Tide Cement, which won the 2017 Nightboat Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best American Experimental Writing, Emergency Index, Jacket2, and Words Without Borders. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona and a BA in English and Latin American Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She choreographs and performs interdisciplinary works independently and for festivals and theatre, dance, and circus companies. Crane Branch Library, 633 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo.

Saturday, Oct. 5, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.: Where We Live: A BABEL Big Read Bilingual Family-Friendly Writing Workshop inspired by the theme “Where We Live” led by Annette Daniels Taylor. Writing prompts & craft supplies provided for participants of all ages. Annette Daniels Taylor is an award-winning theater artist, poet, and artist-filmmaker. The author of the children’s series The Marvelous Marvella J.Q: Marvella Finds Her Magic (west44books, 2022) about an Afro-latina who talks to animals, and her novels in verse, Shoot the Storm (west44books, 2022) and Dreams on Fire (west44books, 2018). As a filmmaker, Annette’s cinematic poems are screened and exhibited internationally. Her poems are featured in The Poetry Collection of the University at Buffalo Libraries, and in New York’s 15th “Three Poems” chapbook series. Other titles include Street Pharmacist and Other Poetic Tales; and Hush Now: Poems to Read Aloud. Annette teaches Writing for Broadcast at SUNY Buffalo State College Communication Department, and Acting with D’Youville University’s Dramatic Theater Arts MFA program, and is a recipient of the Creatives Rebuild New York Artist Employee Program. Frank E. Merriweather, Jr. Library, 1324 Jefferson Ave., Buffalo.