Literary calendar: Patry Francis discusses foster family story, 'All the Children Are Home'

Apr. 17—PATRY FRANCIS — Discusses her novel "All the Children Are Home," which follows a family in the late 1950s made up of foster parents and their long-term foster children and the changes in their lives when a 6-year-old indigenous girl comes to live with them. 7 p.m. Monday, April 19, presented via Zoom by Next Chapter Booksellers. Go to: nextchapterbooksellers.com.

WALTER ISAACSON: Bestselling biographer discusses "Codebreaker: The Power and Peril of Gene Editing," a profile of Jennifer Doudna, the scientist behind the gene-editing technology CRISPR. What does it mean for humankind that we can now rearrange the building blocks of life? Noon Tuesday, April 20, presented in Westminster Town Hall Forum series. Streams on westminsterforum.org and Facebook.com/WestminsterTHF and on air at Minnesota Public Radio.

TYLER J. KELLEY: Presents "Holding Back the River: The Struggle Against Nature on America's Waterways," comprised of reporting on the men and women wrestling to harness and preserve America's most vital natural resource, our rivers, including the Mississippi. The author spent two years traveling the heartland, getting to know these people dealing with the vast network of waterways impacted by America's old and underfunded infrastructure. 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 21, presented by Magers & Quinn. Free. Live on the store's Facebook page and YouTube channel.

DREW LANHAM: Dr. J. Drew Lanham, author of "The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature," gives the Kolshorn lecture that honors Otto W. Kolshorn, a farmer, teacher, school board member, and Justice of the Peace from Goodhue County, who served five terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Lanham is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University. Free. 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 21, presented by the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota in partnership with the Bell Museum. Information: fwcb.cfans.umn.edu/news/kolshorn-lecture.

JESS PHOENIX: Volcanologist and executive director and co-founder of the environmental scientific research organization Blueprint Earth presents "Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life," about her experiences into still-flowing Hawaiian lava fields, congressional races, parties at Manhattans' elite Explorers Club and with numerous pairs of work boots. Free. 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 20. Livestreamed on Magers & Quinn's Facebook page and YouTube channel.

RALL/CALLEJO: Graphic novel creation duo Ted Rall and Pablo Callejo discuss their new book "The Stringer," an ode to when fact-based journalism mattered, set at an important turning point a few years ago about how a society without a vibrant independent culture of reporting can degenerate into chaos. Free. Noon Tuesday, April 20, presented by Rain Taxi Review. Information/registration: raintaxi.com/ted-rall-and-pablo-callejo.

RICHARD ROTHSTEIN: National expert on the impact of government-sponsored racist segregation, author of "The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America," gives his perspectives on institutional racism; includes Q&A. 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 21, presented by Plymouth Congregational Church, Hennepin History Museum, Alliance Housing and Align Mpls. "Pay as you can" event. Tickets available at: hennepinhistory.org/events/color-of-law.

JEFF VANDERMEER: Presents "Hummingbird Salamander," in conversation with award-winning actor Lili Taylor, moderated by Megan Mayhew-Bergman, professor of Literature and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, where she also directs the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference. 7 p.m. Monday, April 19, presented by Magers & Quinn and Left Bank Books. $5. Registration or book purchase required. Go to: magersandquinn.com/events.

LAURA MAYLENE WALTER: Cleveland-based writer and editor discusses her debut novel "Body of Stars," an exploration of fate and female agency in a world very similar to our own except that the markings on womens' bodies reveal the future in their freckles, moles, and birthmarks. Free. 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 20, via Zoom. Presented by Next Chapter Booksellers. Information: nextchapterbooksellers.com.

WASHBURN/SLAGHT: Earth Day conversation between Kawai Strong Washburn, author of "Sharks in the Time of Saviors," and Jonathan C. Slaght, author of "Owls of the Eastern Ice." Free. 7 p.m. Thursday, April 22, live on Magers & Quinn's Facebook page and YouTube.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Acclaimed journalist, screenwriter and novelist whose nonfiction titles include the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11." His recent fiction includes the prescient novel "The End of October," being reissued in paperback this month. Free. 7 p.m. Monday, April 19, presented in the Club Book series. Streamed in real time at facebok.com/ClubBook.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

Rain Taxi Review's Twin Cities Literary Calendar is teaming up with 18 Twin Cities area bookstores to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day on April 24 by creating the 2021 Twin Cities Independent Bookstore Passport. Packed with bookstore coupons and illustrations by local artist Kevin Cannon, the Passport is free to pick up at any independent bookstore. In 2019, more than 2,000 book lovers took advantage of the program, which this year allows participants to take a full week — April 18 to April 24 — to get their Passports stamped at the stores they visit. Each stamp activates a store coupon. (The stores will be open in different ways but no matter the method, they will be happy to give you a Passport and a stamp.) Those who collect 10 stamps can ask the last store to stamp a special square that activates 23 store coupons. (Five participating stores are currently online only.) Collect all stamps by the end of the day April 24, and you'll be entered to win a literary prize pack, full of new books and other prizes from sponsors. Information at: raintaxi.org.

It's almost time for sidewalk repair, and Sidewalk Poetry, a program of St. Paul's Public Works department and Public Art St. Paul are hosting a Sidewalk Poetry contest. Writers who live in St. Paul can submit poems for the chance to have them stamped into city residential sidewalks starting this summer. The contest will accept submissions from new, emerging or professional writers of any age. Winning writers will receive a small prize and will have their poems stamped into city residential sidewalks. Submissions in four non-English languages will be accepted this year — Dakota, Hmong, Somali and Spanish — reflecting the diversity of St. Paul. Submissions will be accepted through April 25. For information go to: publicartstpaul.org/sidewalk-poetry.

Milkweed Editions has announced Multiverse, the Minneapolis-based literary press' new series curated by editor-in-charge Chris Martin, who announced the inaugural title, "The Kissing of Kissing" by Hannah Emerson, will be published next spring. Multiverse emerges from the practices and creativity of neurodivergent, autistic, neuroqueer, and disabled cultures. Emerson is a nonspeaking autistic artist and poet whose work has appeared in a variety of national magazines.