The Ohio Center for the Book is partnering with the Michigan Center for the Book to promote an online event with Ohio author and Oberlin College assistant professor of creative writing Ghassan Zeineddine, author of the short story collection Dearborn (Tin House, 2023)…
Michigan Notable Book Authors Ghassan Zeineddine and RS Dereen
May 30, 2024, 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Streaming live via Zoom from the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Michigan.
“The Henry Ford Centennial Library will host Michigan Notable Books Authors Mr. Ghassan Zeineddine and Mr. Raymond (RS) Deeren for an in-person conversation on Wednesday, May 30, 2024 at 6:30 pm regarding their books Dearborn and Enough to Lose.
“Each author’s book presents a vivid portrait of life in Michigan whether it’s in the City of Dearborn or a rural area such as the Upper Peninsula. Both Mr. Zeineddine and Mr. Deeren will share insights on their writing processes on their acclaimed books.
“The Michigan Notable Books is an annual program with roots stretching back to 1991. Every year, the Library of Michigan selects up to twenty of the most notable books, either written by a Michigan resident or about Michigan or the Great Lakes. The selected books are honored in the year after their publication or copyright date. Each selected title speaks to our state’s rich cultural, historical, and literary heritage and proves without a doubt that some of the greatest stories are found in the Great Lakes State.
“The Michigan Notable Books program is sponsored in part by the Library of Michigan Foundation, Michigan Center for the Book and Michigan Humanities which is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanties.”
Zeineddine’s debut short story collection, Dearborn, “examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan. … By turns wildly funny, incisive, and deeply moving, Dearborn introduces readers to an arresting new voice in contemporary fiction and invites us all to consider what it means to be part of a place and community, and how it is that we help one another survive.” (from the publisher)
The stories in RS Deeren’s Enough to Lose (Wayne State University Press, 2023) weave together “the colorful lives of landscapers, hunters, artists, parolees, retirees, and entrepreneurs, characters who reckon with their relationship to this unique slice of the rural Midwest.” (from the publisher). The author is an assistant professor of creative writing at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and originally hails from Michigan’s rural Thumb.