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We are thrilled to welcome visiting authors Nathan W. Pyle, Chris La Tray, and Carmen Bugan for the 2026 Midwest Literary Walk! New this year - LIt Walk will open with a play reading at Purple Rose!
Now a staple in the library’s annual calendar, the Midwest Literary Walk draws visitors from near and far. This single-day event features nationally recognized authors giving interviews or presentations at venues within walking distance of one another in Chelsea's historic downtown. This year’s Walk offers attendees the chance to see one of Chelsea’s most iconic venues and experience a play reading at the Purple Rose Theatre, while engaging with the actors and playwrights. Lit Walk is intended to be a celebration of literature, reading, and the Chelsea community, removing barriers between everyday people and fantastic literature and authors. All three author talks are open to the public with no admittance charge.
Books by Lit Walk authors can be borrowed from the library in print, ebook, or audiobook formats. Additionally, our fantastic Indie bookstore, Serendipity Books, will also offer print copies for sale during the event. Each author talk concludes with a book signing.
Purple Rose Theatre Company Concert Reading
10am | Purple Rose Theatre | 137 Park St. | Registration required
Join us for the 2026 Purple Rose Theatre Company New Works Comedy Fest! Enjoy scenes performed from several plays written by Michigan playwrights including a featured new work by Founder and Artistic Director Jeff Daniels! PRTC artists will perform readings of scenes and acts from various plays and give the audience an opportunity to share feedback with the actors and select playwrights*. Please register through the library’s event calendar to attend in-person at the theatre or enjoy a Zoom webinar. Doors open at 10am, reading begins approximately 30 minutes after doors open.
*Please note: While one of Jeff Daniels' plays will be featured in the reading, a professional schedule conflict prohibits him from being present at the event.
Chris La Tray | former Poet Laureate and award-winning Memorist
1pm | Main Street Church | 320 N. Main St.
Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller and enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. In addition to serving as Montana’s Poet Laureate from 2023-2025, he is also the recipient of the Montana Book Award, the High Plains Book Award, and Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of the Year selection. Becoming Little Shell is a memoir combining the story of the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe, the history of the Métis people, and La Tray’s own search to find a place with them. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass) calls it “a story as strong and beautiful as a Métis sash, a story of identity, kinship and the journey toward justice.”
Carmen Bugan | George Orwell Prize Fellow
3pm | First Congregational Church of Chelsea | 121 E. Middle St.
Born in Romania, Dr. Carmen Bugan is a prize-winning poet and writer based in Chelsea, MI. She won the Bread Loaf Nonfiction Prize, received a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was named 2018 Helen DeRoy Professor in Honors at the University of Michigan. She is on the faculty of the Oxford Writing Mentors, the Poetry School in London, and the International Women Writing Guild. Her poems and memoir draw inspiration from her family’s oppression and rebellion in 1980s Romania.
Nathan W. Pyle | New York Times Bestselling Author and Cartoonist
4:30pm | Chelsea First United Methodist Church | 128 Park St.
Nathan Pyle has spent the last decade making art for the Internet and his creations have taken the world by storm. He is the author of comic collections Strange Planet, Stranger Planet, NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette, and 99 Stories I Could Tell, as well as children’s books such as Tuck Me! Strange Planet began as a webcomic series, was published as a graphic novel, and was adapted into an Apple TV series in 2023 with Pyle as Executive Producer. Pyle’s work pokes and prods the social traditions we take for granted and shines a light on how weird they really are, from singing happy birthday to feeling like we need to tidy up our apartment before guests arrive. When asked why he creates his cartoons, Pyle replied “I want to celebrate humanity! I think that so much of what we are doing here is meaningful and absurd simultaneously.” (NPR interview with Liz Metzger).
Thank you to all who make the Chelsea District Library’s Midwest Literary Walk possible, including The Friends of the Chelsea District Library, Serendipity Books, and the Chelsea Area Chamber of Commerce.
The Chelsea District Library is a single branch library serving the City of Chelsea and surrounding townships. The library has 4 small study rooms, one medium meeting room, and the McKune room, our main programming room.
