For nearly half of his life, Davy Rothbart has devoted time to celebrating discarded and found notes, letters, and photos.

Collectively, those items have helped tell the beautiful and hilarious stories he’s published over the last 25 years through Found Magazine.

The Ann Arbor resident has published 13 editions of the cult-classic magazine, which has spawned everything from books to podcasts to tours and brought Rothbart to all 50 states to connect with fans of the Found franchise.

Over the years, he has also narrated several stories from Found Magazine for his current job at This American Life.

Earlier this month, he celebrated Found Magazine’s silver anniversary with a party and storytelling event at his parents’ house in Ann Arbor, which still serves as the magazine’s mailing address and headquarters.

Now, Rothbart is honoring the magazine and franchise with a June 28 Found Magazine & Friends event at Ann Arbor Summer Festival. The event will feature his famed live show, where he’ll read some of the magazine’s most profound finds and help close out the festival.

Is Ann Arbor becoming an improv hotspot in the Midwest?

Considering how deftly I just improvised that amazing sentence while sitting at my Ann Arbor desk, the answer is surely a resounding YES.

Meanwhile, the brand new Yes, Ann Improv Festival is going to make a much stronger case for Tree Town's spur-of-the-moment comedy bona fides than my extemporized prose.

From June 24 to 27, improv comedians will fill the Michigan Theater and the hear.say brewing + theater with laughs conjured from thin air and a variety of prompts:

The inaugural Yes, Ann Improv Festival brings four days of improv comedy to Ann Arbor, featuring national headliners, standout local teams, visiting ensembles from across the country, workshops, special events, and more than 50 improv teams from 12 states. The festival features performers known from Dropout, Smosh, Upright Citizens Brigade, NBC’s Superstore, film, television, podcasts, and stages nationwide.

A few years ago, some family members decided to go up in a hot-air balloon, and they asked me if I wanted to join them. Considering I don't even like to be on a ladder, let alone be floating above the Earth in a contraption powered by hot air, I declined their offer to plunge to an untimely death. (Note: They survived—and so did I.)

But for those of you who get a lift from going up, a new exhibit at the University of Michigan's Clements Library will float your basket.

Up, Up, and Away: A History of Ballooning in America features rare photos, postcards, books, advertisements, and other historic records that document the daring and innovative rise of balloon flight.

While you can fly over to the Clements and see the exhibition in person, the library also does a bang-up job in presenting Up, Up, and Away online, featuring a wide array of images and insightful text.

Isaac Burgdorf, William L. Clements Library's marketing coordinator, wrote a short article about Up, Up, and Away that gives you a good sense of what's covered in the exhibit:

A University of Michigan class is immersing students in the regional music scene.

“Inside the Local Music Community” encourages students to attend shows in Washtenaw County at venues such as The Blind Pig, North Star Lounge, and Ziggy’s.

After attending shows, students write concert reviews as class assignments and also interview different musicians and supporters of local music.

The class culminated in an April 14 event at AADL, which included presentations from U-M lecturer Garrett Schumann and students Sofia Doolittle and Jack Lukasik. I hosted a panel discussion with musicians Sara Tea, Laura McAndrew, and Kyler Wilkins, as well as media member Daniel Long from WEMU (89.1 FM).

Ten years ago, Ann Arbor District Library put its own spin on Record Store Day.

In April 2016, the library reintroduced vinyl to its collection to coincide with Record Store Day, a now semiannual event started in 2008 to encourage patronage of independent record stores.

Some of the first records circulating in AADL’s collection include Taylor Swift’s 1989, The Cure’s Disintegration, The Beatles’ White Album, and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

As the collection grew, AADL evolved, hosting a Record Store Day pop-up record fair in the lobby of the Downtown location a year later.

Now an annual event each April, the fair targets vinyl enthusiasts and features vendors selling used records, memorabilia, and gear. Patrons can dig through crates for different items or browse the library’s vinyl collection while DJs spin records.

For Record Store Day 2024, AADL created For the Record, a special zine highlighting the city’s lost music and record stores in connection with Ann Arbor 200.

With the library gearing up for its next Record Store Day event on April 18, we took a closer look at some of the most popular records in AADL’s collection.

Josie Eli Herman and Michael Alan Herman met while studying theater at Eastern Michigan University. They later married, have acted in numerous plays in the area, and founded the media company Acorn Arts and Entertainment, much of which focuses on creating original audio dramas, also known as fiction podcasts.

It sounds like a storybook tale for this Ann Arbor-based couple—just not the kind that you'd find powering an Acorn Arts-produced narrative. 

Acorn's main audio dramas—The Call of the Void, Silvertongues, and Liminal—combine sci-fi, mystery, and horror (while The Inn at the End of Things is made to put you to sleep using folklore-based tales).

Those award-winning dramas, while set in vastly different milieus, all exist in the same multiverse: the Void.

On Wednesday, March 25, the Hermans left the Void and visited the Ann Arbor District Library's Downtown location for a talk titled "Building a Multiverse: World-Building in Podcasts with Michael Alan Herman and Josie Eli Herman of The Call of the Void."

Below is a video of the couple's talk, which gives a history of multiverses in literature and film—from the 6th-century BCE Greek philosopher Anaximander to modern examples like those in the Marvel Universe(s)—and discusses ways for you to create your own linked-world projects. We also round up numerous interviews with the Hermans—including their 2025 appearance at AADL for a chat titled "The Call of the Void: Learn How to Podcast"—reveal the name of their next podcast, and list three fictional dramas they recommend.

Julianna Loera-Wiggins’ journey in standup comedy has been a bit more academically motivated than most.

A Ph.D. candidate in the University of Michigan’s Department of American Culture program of Latino/a Studies, Loera-Wiggins decided to write her dissertation about the Latina stand-up comedy scene in Chicago, where she moved to take stand-up comedy classes.

“I figured you can't really write about comedy without doing it,” said Loera-Wiggins. “I like the idea of being sort of unruly, because you’re brought up with these sorts of cultural expectations, especially as a woman, and comedy sort of breaks those a little bit, or you can lean into that.”

While Loera-Wiggins hopes her time in Chicago as a scholar could one day lead to publishing a book about her research, she has worked to create additional opportunities for representation in stand-up in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area during the completion of her Ph.D.

After returning to the area from Chicago, the Ypsilanti resident inherited Femme Feedback, a monthly comedy open mic in Ann Arbor that offers feedback for aspiring female, trans, and nonbinary comics.

While Femme Feedback has elements of a typical open mic where comedians can try out four to five minutes of new and old material, it also provides a teaching element courtesy of a headlining veteran comedian who gives feedback via written comments to less experienced joke tellers.

“It's one of the few places where we can talk directly to the femme and trans experience, where if we were to do this material elsewhere, we would get no reaction, or we're often kind of met with unfortunate circumstances,” Loera-Wiggins said. “So, this is definitely a safe place for people to do that. My goal as the producer is for femme and trans comedians to know how to advocate for themselves and their own needs.”

Loera-Wiggins will showcase what Femme Feedback is all about during a special showcase hosted during this week’s Tree Town Comedy Festival at 7:15 pm on Thursday, March 5, at 212 South Fourth Avenue in Ann Arbor.

UMS and the City of Ypsilanti are once again filling up the old Freighthouse with a month full of artists and musicians. "UMS at the Freighthouse" is a twice-annual residency in the historic building that offers a diverse lineup of local creatives putting on a variety of shows, all of which are all either free or pay what you wish. This year's spring residency runs April 9-25, and Ypsi residents get priority access with early registration starting Tuesday, February 24, at 10 am. The general public can register for shows beginning on March 10.

Here are the performers and events for the April residency; click on the performance to go to UMS's website page for the event:

The bleak midwinter is here, and there's only one way to cope:

Eat.

A lot.

Two upcoming foodie events in Ann Arbor will offer the succor your brain (and tummy) needs to get through this season.

If you're an Ann Arbor District Library cardholder, you receive a weekly email newsletter listing news, upcoming events, and a slew of recommendations from the catalog. Those recs are also available at aadl.org/reviews, and we're always happy to make suggestions for books, audiobooks, streamable content in the catalog, DVDs, board games, tools, etc., if you visit us at the branches.

But our 2025 Staff Picks allow the AADL crew to go beyond the library catalog—and the calendar year.

We don't limit our year in review to things that came out in 2025 or items that can be checked out from AADL; the staff comments on whatever favorite media and events they experienced this year, no matter when or where they originated. Maybe a favorite album of 2025 came out in 1973, or the best book someone read this year is so old that it's out of copyright. It's all good, and it all counts.

Here are the categories of AADL's 2025 Staff Picks: