It's not hard to see why Taste of Soul Sunday is the Grand Rapids Public Library's most well-attended event. With music, food and entertainment covering so many different aspects of African-American culture and history, Taste of Soul has something for everyone's heart, soul and mind.

"[Taste of Soul Sunday] is going into its seventh year this year," said Kristen Krueger-Corrado, the library's marketing and communications manager. "For last year's four-hour event, we had 2,000 people in the main library. It's always jam-packed with people ... it's a very uplifting and very bright event."

Among Taste of Soul's offerings are numerous literary opportunities highlighting different aspects of African-American culture. The library will once again partner with Grand Valley State University's Community Reading Project, this time offering The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. GRPL will have copies on-hand so patrons can read and discuss this book about the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to northern and western cities in search of a better life.

Another literary offering is Ralph Richard Banks' Is Marriage for White People? How the African-American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone. Krueger-Corrado said the author discussion will be a little bit different than usual, as "the author presentation will be a Skype discussion with the author."

According to the library's events page, Banks provides an "in-depth explanation of the experiences of black middle-class women, and the economic and cultural influences that shape them," while looking at the nationwide marriage decline.

However, Taste of Soul Sunday transcends just literary events; the entire day features a wide array of cultural entertainment.

Taste of Soul Sunday Grand Rapids Public Library - Main Library Feb. 19, 1-4 p.m. FREE grpl.org, (616) 988-5400

"Every year our committee comes up with different professors, authors and musicians [we'd like to invite], but the event always has the same elements; food, music and dance, history and scholarly programs and family friendly offerings to show different aspects of African-American heritage," Krueger-Corrado said.

Some of these events include musical performances by Serita's Black Rose & The Disciples of Funk, jazz artist Edye Evans Hyde, Motown selections from the North American Choral Company and soloist Carolyn Quinn-Allen. Guests can also enjoy historical talks on a variety of subject and children's activities can be found all over the library. Patrons will also be able to sample the tastes that give Taste of Soul its name with selections from Southern Fish Fry, Chez Olga and Jamaican Dave's.

Krueger-Corrado's favorite part of the event, however, is the sense of community it fosters every year.

"I've been going every year since I've been working here ... and my favorite part is when we open up the doors and there's a line that wraps around the building. The music has started and you can smell the food and hear the music and see the community coming forth. Watching all these groups of people having conversations in the library and watching it become a gathering place is such a unique thing."

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Other Literary Events

Reading & Signing: Jeni Decker
Literary Life Bookstore, Grand Rapids
Feb. 9, 7p.m.
literarylifebookstore.com, (616) 458-8418

Michigan author Jeni Decker's life can be described as many things, but "normal" definitely is not one of them. After all, her new memoir, released in January, is titled I Wish I Were Engulfed in Flames: My Insane Life Raising Two Boys with Autism. The book details Decker's experiences with tantrums, hatred of Pokémon, poop scenarios and life on both ends of the spectrum. Decker will be available for a reading and a question and answer session immediately following.

Reading and Signing: Gary Eberle
Schuler Books & Music, 28th Street location
Feb. 28, 7p.m.
schulerbooks.com, (616) 942-2561

Gary Eberle, a professor of English at Aquinas College, is a prolific writer, having published numerous fiction and nonfiction titles since 1994 (coincidentally, the same year he received an award from Aquinas for outstanding scholarship). His most recent work, however, is the most Grand Rapids-centric book to date. Eberle will read from Aquinas College: the First 125 Years and host a question-and-answer session at Schuler Books & Music, followed by the chance to have your book signed.

Local libraries have, for a long time, been places of reading, learning and fostering community, but throughout the beginning of the year, Kent District Library is taking things a step further. In partnership with the Michigan Humanities Council, KDL will be featuring seminars and discussions that are free and open to the public during the Great Michigan Read, which this year is Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age by Detroit native Kevin Boyle.

The book itself is about a now-famous civil rights case involving a black slave's grandson who became a doctor. The man, named Ossain Sweet, galvanized by his success, moved to a predominately white neighborhood in Detroit in 1925. When a white mob threatened his home one night and stray shots killed one of the white protesters, Sweet was accused of murder. Along with acclaimed defense attorney Clarence Darrow, Sweet put Detroit on the map of the Civil Rights movement and started the ball rolling for racial equality in America -- but not without significant personal cost.

Great Michigan Read Book Discussions Jan. 17, 1:30 p.m. - Sand Lake/Nelson Township Branch Jan. 18, 6:30 p.m. - Plainfield Township Branch Jan. 23, 1 p.m. - Gaines Township Branch FREE kdl.org, (616) 784-2007

"It's a fascinating book; it's nonfiction, but it reads like fiction," said Cheryl Garrison, the library's assistant director. "[The Great Michigan Read has] been going on for several years, and it's our third time partnering with them. We're doing several things to participate this year, like hosting book discussions at different locations."

In addition to providing local readers with copies of the book and book discussion guides for reading groups, school groups and families alike, Garrison is quick to point out the numerous other events at KDL in connection to the Great Michigan Read through the month of March. In partnership with Davenport University, the Kentwood branch of the library will host "Us vs. Them: A Critique of Divisiveness in Popular Culture," a lecture by Dr. David Pilgrim of Ferris State University, on Feb. 21, and an Arc of Justice panel presentation with local experts and Davenport students on March 19.

By participating in these events, Garrison hopes readers all over the state will be encouraged to think about the events in the book and their impact at the time, as well as the book's implications today.

"These events are all about community and the chance to get together and talk about important issues in our lives, especially something as important and pertinent as racism," Garrison said.

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Other Literary Events

Ivan Jenson
Schuler Books & Music, 28th street location
Jan. 26, 7 p.m.
FREE
schulerbooks.com, (616) 942-2561

Schuler Books & Music will host author Ivan Jenson for a reading and signing of his newest tour de force, Dead Artist. The book follows former pop art superstar Milo Sonas as he navigates obscurity, his dying mother's funeral planning, his own wedding, and frequent visits from famous dead artists. Through the novel, Milo must come to terms with his fears that the art world would appreciate him more if he were dead.

History Detectives
Grand Rapids Public Library Main Branch
Jan. 21, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
FREE
grpl.org, (616) 988-5400

With topics like "Rescued from the Attic: A 1918 Grand Rapids Treasure Trove" and "The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Grand Rapids?" Grand Rapids Public Library's History Detectives event will prove to be an informative day covering multiple aspects of Grand Rapids' long and colorful history. This daylong seminar will cover topics from Civil War scouts to cartoonists and everything in between.

Friends of Poetry
Kalamazoo Public Library - Central Library
Jan. 31, 7-8:30 p.m.
FREE
kpl.gov, (269) 342-9837

Kalamazoo's Friends of Poetry invite you to come make friends with some local poets. Nancy Eimers, Judith Rypma and Janet Heller, all professors of English at Western Michigan University, will come to Kalamazoo Public Library for a public poetry reading sponsored by Friends of Poetry. Eimers, Rypma and Heller will read from their poetry collections Oz, Rapunzel's Hair and Traffic Stop, respectively, and the library will serve free refreshments at the event.

Bestselling humorist and memoirist Wade Rouse knows what it's like to be a struggling writer. He also knows what it's like to be a boy growing up gay in the Ozarks, a private school mommy wrangler and a casualty of countless disastrous family holidays, among other things. In every circumstance and with every new life experience, Rouse turns to two things: writing and humor.

"I consider myself to be a humorist first and foremost," Rouse said. "Humor is the best uniting factor. I try to raise awareness by laughter; I believe that if I get people laughing, then they're more ready to hear a more poignant message or lesson."

Rouse has significant experience finding and writing about humor in mundane situations. His latest solo work, It's All Relative: Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays, and 50 Boxes of Wine (A Memoir) chronicles the gritty details of something we can all relate to: crazy families, holiday get-togethers gone awry and the scarring-yet-treasured memories they yield, such as digging for Easter eggs that your engineer father has buried.

"I thought this was normal until I was talking to some friends about it and they were like, ‘he buried your Easter eggs? That is jacked up,'" Rouse said.

It's with this mentality of finding humor in the ordinary that Rouse leads his workshops and writers' retreats. In essence, he aims to be an encouraging voice, an attaboy or a pat on the back for any and every writer too daunted to write.

Writers Workshop with Author and Humorist Wade Rouse Schuler Books & Music, 28th Street location Dec. 10, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. $165 per person schulerbooks.com, (616) 942-2561

"Too many American writers come to the laptop saddled with fear, scared of what they want to write and scared of what they'll hear and how they'll be received," Rouse said. "As a society, we're scared to do what we're passionate about because we're afraid it's not right.

"After I wrote my first memoir, America's Boy, I got hundreds of questions through my website and my e-mail from aspiring writers about writing and how to get published," Rouse added. "A running theme was frustration; these writers felt like there was some sort of secret or golden key to getting published. I wanted to make them know that that sort of goal is obtainable, but it takes talent and a hell of a lot of hard work."

To make the workshop seem less daunting, Rouse breaks them down into two parts: the first for instruction and inspiration in writing, and the second in practical guidance and publishing skills such as how to write a query letter or secure an agent.

"A writer nowadays has to be a good marketer, a good PR person, a good social networking guy, a good interpretive dancer, a good everything," Rouse said. "It takes incredible talent, but it also takes incredible drive."

At the end of the day, however, Rouse conducts these workshops because he believes in one creative truth: no matter how many prompts they follow, how many workshops they attend or how long they slave over typewriters and computer screens, all writers essentially need the same thing: to be told "that it's OK to write."

Poetry Reading with Patricia Clark and Keith Taylor
Literary Life Bookstore, Grand Rapids
Dec. 2, 7 p.m.; Free!
literarylifebookstore.com, (616) 458-8418

Following in their tradition of booking excellent poetry readings, Literary Life Bookstore will host Keith Taylor and Grand Valley State University's poet-in-residence Patricia Clark on Dec. 2. Both are collegiate educators and poets with an impressive list of credentials. Clark is a professor at GVSU's Department of Writing and has most recently authored She Walks into the Sea. Taylor is the coordinator of the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan, author of Marginalia for a Natural History and the poetry editor for Michigan Quarterly Review. If you consider yourself a poet or a lover of poetry, this event should be at the top of your to-do list.

America's Senator: The Unexpected Odyssey of Arthur Vandenberg
Grand Rapids Public Library Main Branch
Dec. 12, 7 p.m.; Free!
grpl.org, (616) 988-5400

Arthur H. Vandenberg of Grand Rapids was a U.S. Senator at a turbulent time in our country's history. Amid the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II, and the genesis of the United Nations, Vandenberg served proudly from 1928 until his death in 1951. This documentary draws from archival footage and pictures as well as interviews with figures such as Gore Vidal, David M. Kennedy and more. The film's executive producer, writer and consultant will be present for discussion after the film.

So you purchase a beautiful 1898 Victorian carriage house in northern Vermont. Naturally, you'll want to explore the three stories' worth of rooms, staircases and passageways. However, when you get to the basement, you find a door that's sealed shut with six-inch-long carriage spikes. After five years of living in that home, you finally muster the courage to wrench out the spikes and open the door, only to find that the room behind it is completely empty.

When this situation happened to bestselling author Chris Bohjalian, he knew that the mystery in the foundation of his house held not only dust and empty promises, but the beginnings of a gripping psychological thriller.

"We all love a good ghost story. When I was young, I loved Shirley Jackson's The Haunting and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist; those are my favorite novels of my childhood," said Bohjalian, who also cited Edgar Allan Poe as an influence in The Night Strangers.

Bohjalian notes that his three-story Victorian, on which the house in The Night Strangers is based, is the "archetype of the Great American Haunted House."

GRPL Main Branch (co-sponsored by Schuler Books & Music) Oct. 8, 2 p.m. Free grpl.org, (616) 988-5400

"If you were to deconstruct the house in The Night Strangers, there would be multiple hints and suggestions of my own house. I hope that the house in which [characters] Chip and Emily lived is itself a character and deeply disturbing," Bohjalian said.

On a seemingly unrelated note is the story's other influence, the Miracle on the Hudson, in which seasoned pilot Chelsey B. ‘Sully' Sullenberger successfully landed US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River following a disastrous impact with a flock of geese. What made the event remarkable is that all of the passengers survived the crash. Bohjalian's character, Chip, was not so lucky; when he had to ditch his flight in Lake Champlain after a double bird strike, 39 passengers either died on impact or drowned.

"Maybe it was the connection of the passenger jet door with the door of my basement, but I knew precisely what I wanted to explore next, which was a pilot who wasn't Sully Sullenberger," Bohjalian said.

After extensive research in a mock fuselage-filled dunk tank which included drills run by members of the National Guard, the fruits of Bohjalian's labor resulted in a pilot who must navigate a post-Sully world in which he is not Sully. He must also tackle his twin girls who become increasingly swayed by a band of herbalist women, and a wife and mother who watches her family's slow loss of its grip on reality. All of this exists with the threat of that mysterious door in their basement, sealed shut by 39 bolts, which happens to be the number of passengers Chip lost on his ill-fated flight. With these two intertwining plots, Bohjalian manages to take an empty, disappointing room and a real-life miracle and weave a chilling, suspenseful, good old-fashioned ghost story of an anti-miracle and a door that fulfills all of its suspenseful, spine-prickling promises.

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Other Literary Events
by Meaghan Igel

Clarence Darrow's Highly Political Legal Career
Oct. 10, 7 p.m.
GRPL Main Branch, Grand Rapids
grpl.org, (616) 988-5400

Andrew E. Kersten, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, will present his new book about well-known criminal defense lawyer Clarence Seward Darrow. Darrow, noted as one of the most brilliant defense lawyers of his time, took on cases that would make even seasoned lawyers blanch, such as the Ossain Sweet case (1925), Leopold and Loeb (1924), the "Scopes Monkey Trial" (1925) and other landmark cases. Darrow is truly one of the unsung heroes of civil rights and liberties, justice and the American Dream.

Book Signing with Dave Ramsey
Oct. 14, 6-8 p.m.
Schuler Books & Music, Grand Rapids (28th Street location)
schulerbooks.com, (616) 942-2561

Dave Ramsey, champion of personal finances everywhere, will come to Schuler Books & Music to sign his newest book, EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches. Drawing from his impressive body of work as a financial self-help guru, Ramsey explains how to grow your business, create effective team leadership and eliminate debt. It's definitely a must-read for anyone who wants to make and keep their finances healthy, and Ramsey is a must-see for anyone who aspires to being an EntreLeader.

Cooking Demonstration and Book Signing with Susan Clemente
Oct. 20, 7 p.m.
Kitchen Design Studio, Grand Rapids
Sponsored by Literary Life Bookstore
literarylifebookstore.com, (616) 458-8418

Book signing events just got a whole lot sweeter. Author Susan Clemente, who has written Michigan's Guide to Local Cooking, will not only be signing copies of her book at Literary Life Bookstore, but will give cooking demonstrations of recipes featured in the book, complete with Michigan food and wine selections. Clemente makes it easy to buy local and support Michigan businesses in the most delicious way possible.