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Lines, Squiggles, Letters, Words – Ruth Rocha and Madalena Matoso, 1987, English translation 2016

Press Here – Herve Tullet, 2010, English translation 2011

One Was Johnny – Maurice Sendak, 1962

Hello kids, neighbors, friends and families – welcome, everyone! Kids In The Cliff’s storytime is now monthly on the THIRD Sunday of each month, so rain or shine, join us for the August edition at The Wild Detectives bookstore in the Bishop Arts District of Oak Cliff.

It may still feel like summer, but many children are heading back to school already. This storytime is all about colors, ABCs and 123s – perfect for kids going back, just starting or just curious about classes (even the youngest ones wonder where DO older kids go?!?). Tullet’s popular French translation is a boisterous, interactive intro to color, while Sendak’s classic tiny-hands counting book charms with hilarious rhymes and signature illustrations. In addition to the two short books, our colors/numbers/letters trifecta is completed with the story of a child who goes to school and gradually learns to recognize the mysterious patterns of lines and symbols all around as letters and then words, and finally, joyously learns to read. Originally written in Portuguese, the experience of unraveling the secrets of written language is universal, and the graphics are bright and captivating. We’ll sing and have activity time too, so come join us at The Wild Detectives’ little house for a cozy morning of reading together this Sunday, and stick around after for extra fun. See you there!

*Special note for parents: We’ve brought back the fun for curious young minds and moved the stories outdoors. We have plenty of shade and covered patio space in case of rain, but if it is too hot when we begin, we may hold the event in the kids’ section indoors. As usual, we’ll have related extra books on hand in case you are looking for other excellent picture books we recommend. Particular emphasis is placed on striking illustrations, great graphic design or standout writing. Titles may be brand new, old treasures, foreign finds, from home, our kids’ section or the local library, but they are always picked with love and a sense of adventure. If there’s a book you’d love, consider our ordering service!

Next month’s 3rd Sunday storytime will be held September 18th, and you can look for Kids In The Cliff weekend storytime events anytime at The Wild Detectives’s events page. As people who’ve been there, we strive to select themes or titles that will be interesting enough to pique not only children’s, but also the attending adults’ curiosity. It’ll be about a 30-45 minute read each time with something different and fun for the kids – that’s going to be interesting; we can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Bring your kids and infuse them with a love of reading. All ages are welcome.

314 W 8th St (between Bishop & Madison), Dallas, TX 75208 thewilddetectives.com Tel 214-942-0108

Kids In The Cliff is organized by Lanie DeLay, who has worked at Dallas Contemporary, the Dallas Public Library, Hamon Arts Library at SMU, at area preschools and the School For The Blind in Austin. She has written for Glasstire and Art&Seek, and she tutored children in early reading skills at Dealey Montessori. When she isn’t looking at art or reading with kids, she’s reading about art or looking for a new read.

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Welcome to the Oak Cliff Chess Club, a monthly gather for chess lovers of all levels to play, have fun and meet chess players in the neighborhood. Everyone is welcomed, it’s free and it’s a BYOB (bring your own board).

Hope to see you there!

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Named A Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by *Essence* and *Esquire*

Join us Tuesday, August 23, at 6:30 pm CST with author LaToya Watkins in conversation with author Sanderia Faye for a discussion and Q+A in celebration of the launch of PERISH. This event will be IN-PERSON and books will be available to purchase the night of the event.

About the Book

From a stunning new voice comes a powerful debut novel, Perish, about a Black Texan family, exploring the effects of inherited trauma and intergenerational violence as the family comes together to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed.

Set in vividly drawn Texas and tackling themes like trauma, legacy, faith, home, class, race, and more, this beautiful yet heart heart-wrenching novel will appeal to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of family and the ways bonds can be made, maintained, or irrevocably broken. Set in vividly drawn Texas and tackling themes like trauma, legacy, faith, home, class, race, and more, this beautiful yet heart heart-wrenching novel will appeal to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of family and the ways bonds can be made, maintained, or irrevocably broken.

“I’d be hard-pressed to say what I admire most about LaToya Watkins’s debut novel—the nuanced, fully realized characters, the firmly rooted sense of place, or the author’s fierce, elegant, and fearless prose. Perish is a heartrending story, urgently told, about family, trauma, and the salvific power of forgiveness and love. Helen Jean Turner and her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will linger in my heart for a long time.”
―Elizabeth Wetmore, New York Times bestselling author of Valentine

“LaToya Watkins writes with a gaze that is warm and compassionate, but courageous and unflinching, refusing to look away from difficulty. Perish is a resonant debut novel, a robust family story told with beautiful cadences and textures. Watkins has a wonderful heart that animates every page from beginning to end.”
―Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man

About the Author

LaToya Watkins’s writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney’s, The Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize XXXIX (2015), and elsewhere. She has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and A Public Space (she was one of their 2018 emerging writers fellows). She holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. Perish is her debut novel.

Sanderia Faye

Dr. Sanderia Faye is an Assistant Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Dallas Literary Festival at Southern Methodist University (SMU). She is also a professional speaker at American Program Bureau, and sommelier, where she pairs wine with books. Her novel, Mourner’s Bench, a coming-of-age story set in the Arkansas Delta during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, is the winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Philosophical Society of Texas Award of Merit for fiction, and Arkansas Library Association, Arkansiana Award. She is the co-leader of Pen America/DFW, co-founder of Kimbilio Center for Fiction and the founder of LitNight Reading Series.

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First Draughts at The Wild Detectives is hosted by Writing Workshops Dallas and The Writer’s Garret.

Each month we’ll raffle off gift certificates to Wild Detectives, enjoy drink specials, and talk reading, writing, and everything in between. Come out if you want to meet other writers in Dallas and talk shop. We’d love for you to be part of the thriving literary community at one of our favorite bookstores in town.

Our mission is to bring writers out of the wilderness and into community. In fact, we were founded on the basis that having a literary community is essential to the life of any creative writer. Finding a community is an important step that leads most writers to take their work and craft more seriously. Along with The Writer’s Garret, we’re proud to be part of the thriving literary scene in Dallas and we hope to see you at First Draughts!

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this monthly happy hour.

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——THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT——

Join us for a special meet and greet with podcast queen Ashley Flowers!

Ashley will make a little stop in our store during her visit to Dallas to sign books and take photos with fans.

A ticket will be needed to access the signing; the ticket will include a hard cover of All Good People Here which will be autographed by Ashley.

You can purchase your ticket HERE

In the propulsive debut novel from the host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie, a journalist uncovers her hometown’s dark secrets when she becomes obsessed with the unsolved murder of her childhood neighbor—and the disappearance of another girl twenty years later.

You can’t ever know for sure what happens behind closed doors.

Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the infamous case of January Jacobs, who was discovered in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January—and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown up, moved away, and become a big-city journalist. But she’s always been haunted by the feeling that it could’ve been her. And the worst part is, January’s killer has never been brought to justice.

When Margot returns home to help care for her uncle after he is diagnosed with early-onset dementia, she feels like she’s walked into a time capsule. Wakarusa is exactly how she remembers—genial, stifled, secretive. Then news breaks about five-year-old Natalie Clark from the next town over, who’s gone missing under circumstances eerily similar to January’s. With all the old feelings rushing back, Margot vows to find Natalie and to solve January’s murder once and for all.

But the police, Natalie’s family, the townspeople—they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie’s disappearance, the more resistance she encounters, and the colder January’s case feels. Could January’s killer still be out there? Is it the same person who took Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night twenty years ago?

Twisty, chilling, and intense, All Good People Here is a searing tale that asks: What are your neighbors capable of when they think no one is watching?

Come join us!

TICKETS

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Infinite Arts Movement and The Wild Detectives Presents: P.O.P Kulture (Poetry on the Patio)

An all new poetry open mic in the Bishop Arts District.

Hosted by National Spoken Word Artist Verb Kulture (from TV One Verses and Flow)

Music by International DJ Frances Jaye

Visual Art Display and  Poetry Open Mic…Come out and witness some of the best poetry in town, view the amazing artwork for local artists and enjoy drinks, networking, and supporting the arts.

For tickets visit http://www.verbkultureevents.com  Call or text 972 815 3724 for more info or to sign up for Open Mic

Early Arrival Strongly Suggested.

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With its most ambitious line up to date, The Wild Detectives and Hay Festival are excited to combine forces again to bring together Latin and North American culture to stimulate, educate, and foster engaging global conversations on literature.

This year’s Hay Forum Festival will include nine authors from six different countries, three days of panels and book presentations, and will conclude with live music and DJ sets each night of the festival.

All the events will be free, you can RSVP for day 1 here.

Daring to Live in Democracy: Free Speech in Cuba –Carlos Manuel Alvarez

Join Cuban journalist and writer Carlos Manuel Alvarez for a book presentation for his recent essay collection The Tribe (Graywolf Press, 2022). Blending reportage, narrative nonfiction, and novelistic techniques, this collection chronicles a vibrant portrait of Cuba during a particularly turbulent period of history, including the author’s own account of the San Isidro Movement and his experience of being detained and uncommunicated during the 2021 Cuban protest.

Raise of Latin Music in the US

Mexican cumbia singer songwriter Amandititia, will be in conversation with music chronicler Carlos Velazquez and DJ Suxxy Puxxy  about the raise and influence of latin American sounds like cumbia in the US, and how they are establishing the new international musical canon. Amanditia, considered La Reina de la Anarcumbia has been a seminal figure in the cumbia boom within the us over the past decade.

LIVE SHOW AMANDITITA

DJ Set Nick Van House (Boom Boom Pum) & Suxxy Puxxy (Peligrosa)

FREE RSVP

Hay Forum Dallas is made possible with the help of The Mexican Consulate in Dallas, UTD (Center for Translation Studies), UTA (Center for Mexican American Studies), SMU (World Languages and Literature), UNT WGST (Women’s and Gender Studies), UNT (Latina/o and Mexican Studies) and PEN America

ABOUT HAY FESTIVAL
www.hayfestival.org

Hay Festival is a not-for-profit organization that brings readers and writers together to share stories and ideas in sustainable events around the world. The festivals inspire, examine and entertain, inviting participants to imagine the world as it is and as it might be.

Nobel Prize-winners and novelists, scientists and politicians, historians and musicians talk with audiences in a dynamic exchange of ideas. The Festival’s global conversation shares the latest thinking in the arts and sciences with curious audiences live, in print and online. Hay Festival also runs wide programmes of education work supporting coming generations of writers and culturally hungry audiences of all ages.

In 1987, the festival was dreamt up around a kitchen table in Hay. Thirty-one years later, the unique marriage of exacting conversations and entertainment for all ages has travelled to editions in 30 locations, from the historic town of Cartagena in Colombia to the heart of cities in Peru, Mexico, Spain and Denmark. The organization now reaches a global audience of hundreds of thousands every year and continues to grow and innovate, building partnerships and initiatives alongside some of the leading bodies in arts and the media.

Acclaimed author, actor and writer Stephen Fry is President of the organization; Peter Florence is Director; and Caroline Michel, CEO of leading literary and talent agency Peters Fraser + Dunlop, is Chair of the Festival board.

Don’t miss out and sign up to our newsletter

With its most ambitious line up to date, The Wild Detectives and Hay Festival are excited to combine forces again to bring together Latin and North American culture to stimulate, educate, and foster engaging global conversations on literature.

This year’s Hay Forum Festival will include nine authors from six different countries, three days of panels and book presentations, and will conclude with live music and DJ sets each night of the festival.

All the events will be free, you can RSVP for day 2 here.

DAY 2

A conversation with Alma Guillermoprieto

Join us for a very special event with one of the most relevant journalist of our continent. Alma Guillermoprieto began her career in the Nicaragua of the Sandinista struggle. She covered conflicts in Central America for The Washington Post and The Guardian, and has since written tirelessly on Latin America for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, National Geographic magazine and occasionally also for El País. She entered the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. In 2008, at the invitation of Gabriel García Márquez, she held the Julio Cortázar Chair at the University of Guadalajara. Among her many awards, the 2018 Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, the MacArthur Fellowship and El País’s Ortega y Gasset career award stand out. As a lecturer she has taught courses on Latin America at the universities of Harvard, Chicago, Princeton, and California-Berkeley, and on science journalism at Bogota’s Javeriana University. She has written, among other books, Desde el país de nunca jamás (2011), La Habana en un espejo (2017), ¿Será que soy feminista? (2020) and her latest publication, La vida toda (2022).

Centering Margins: Social Conflicts in Latin America –Yasnaya Elena, Dolores Reyes, and Joseph Zarate

This panel will follow Mexican linguist rights activist and writer Yasnaya Elena, Peruvian journalist and activist Joseph Zarate (Wars of Interior, Granta 2021), and Argentina writer Dolores Reyes (Eartheater, HarperCollins 2021) for discussion exploring the complexities of language, cultural homogenization, environmental conflicts, and gender violence within their respective homelands.

Dangers of the Internet: A Cautionary Anti-Apocalyptic Tale –Marta Peirano in conversation with Sarah Hepola

Addressing the current climate crisis and potential for disaster capitalism, Spanish journalist and researcher Marta Peirano will join Dangers of the Internet: A Cautionary Anti-Apocalyptic Tale, and will feature a book presentation and discussion of Peirano’s newest book Contra El Futuro (Debate, 2022). Panelists will discuss the relationship between technology and power and what action strategies can be utilized to deal with the acceleration of climate feudalism and mass surveillance. Plaform for Great Ideas. Sponsored by Baillie Gifford

Spoken Identities: Crafting Characters through Exile and Multiculturalism –Zain Khalid, Lizzie Davis, Jeremias Gamboa

Featuring NY Times Writer to Watch, Zain Khalid author of Brother Alive (Grove, 2022), English-Spanish translator and Coffee House Press senior editor Lizzie Davis, and Peruvian novelist Jeremias Gamboa for a discussion

Hay Forum Dallas is made possible with the help of The Mexican Consulate in Dallas, UTD (Center for Translation Studies), UTA (Center for Mexican American Studies), SMU (World Languages and Literature), UNT WGST (Women’s and Gender Studies), UNT (Latina/o and Mexican Studies) and PEN America, and Baillie Gifford

FREE RSVP

ABOUT HAY FESTIVAL
www.hayfestival.org

Hay Festival is a not-for-profit organization that brings readers and writers together to share stories and ideas in sustainable events around the world. The festivals inspire, examine and entertain, inviting participants to imagine the world as it is and as it might be.

Nobel Prize-winners and novelists, scientists and politicians, historians and musicians talk with audiences in a dynamic exchange of ideas. The Festival’s global conversation shares the latest thinking in the arts and sciences with curious audiences live, in print and online. Hay Festival also runs wide programmes of education work supporting coming generations of writers and culturally hungry audiences of all ages.

In 1987, the festival was dreamt up around a kitchen table in Hay. Thirty-one years later, the unique marriage of exacting conversations and entertainment for all ages has travelled to editions in 30 locations, from the historic town of Cartagena in Colombia to the heart of cities in Peru, Mexico, Spain and Denmark. The organization now reaches a global audience of hundreds of thousands every year and continues to grow and innovate, building partnerships and initiatives alongside some of the leading bodies in arts and the media.

Don’t miss out and sign up to our newsletter

Inner Moonlight is the monthly poetry series for the Wild Detectives! RSVP to meet us in the backyard at 7:30pm on Wednesday August 10th for live reading from one featured writer, with a brief open mic to follow. Don’t worry, podcast fans! We will record the live show and release it as a podcast episode for y’all. This month we are excited to feature novelist Bruce Bond!

Bruce Bond is the author of thirty books including, most recently, Plurality and the Poetics of Self (Palgrave, 2019), Words Written Against the Walls of the City (LSU, 2019), Scar (Etruscan, 2020), Behemoth (New Criterion Prize, Criterion Books, 2021), The Calling (Parlor, 2021), Patmos (Juniper Prize, UMass, 2021) and Liberation of Dissonance (Schaffner Press, 2022). His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including seven editions of Best American Poetry. Presently he teaches part-time as a Regents Emeritus Professor of English at the University of North Texas and performs classical and jazz guitar in the Dallas-Fort Worth area

Inner Moonlight is presented by The Writer’s Garret on the second Wednesday of every month. Mark your calendar and we’ll see you there!

“Follow your inner moonlight, don’t hide the madness.”
—Allen Ginsberg, from On Being a Writer

RSVP

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In honor of Banned Books Week, The Dallas Public Library is hosting a banned books trivia night with the Wild Detectives Book Store.

The event will include a general discussion about book bans and Dallas’ favorite banned books, followed by a fun trivia event with prizes for the winners!

Get a team together, grab your preferred beverage and test your knowledge of banned books at one of Dallas’s best local bookstores.

See you there!

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“Ten Spooky Tens: a night of short plays” Join Flexible Grey Theatre Company for a night of ten hilarious and sometimes spooky plays this Halloween performed by an ensemble of local actors. Grab a drink from the bar and join us in the yard for a scary good time! Show begins at 7:30pm, approximately PG-13 rating. Event is open to the public and general admission. We will be taking donations but it is not required for entry!

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