Buffalo Area Poetry & Literature Calendar (week of March 11-March 16)

Tuesday, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.: Open mic at Cucina, a restaurant inside Hotel Richardson. Sara Ali and Meg Specksgoor are the co-hosts of this weekly series featuring poetry, music and  comedy. Sign up at 6 p.m., performances at 6:30 to 8 p.m. Hotel Richardson, 444 Forest Ave., Buffalo.

Tuesday, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesdays at Cabernet, monthly open mic poetry and prose reading series hosted by Sinead Tyrone. Cabernet's Wine Café , 9 N. Ellicott St., Williamsville.

Thursday, 6 p.m.: Book launch: The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express  (North Country Books, 2024) with Tom Reigstad.

The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express collects ten feature stories published by Twain in the Buffalo Express during his year-long tenure at the publication, accompanied by illustrations drawn by six artists over a span of nearly 115 years alongside insightful analysis from author and Twain scholar Thomas J. Reigstad.

Reigstad is a fourth-generation Buffalonian, an English professor and a journalist. After graduating from high school and college in his native city, he attended graduate school at the University of Missouri, where he first learned of Twain's late 1860's affiliation with Buffalo.

Fitz Books and Waffles, 433 Ellicott St., Buffalo.

Thursday, 6 p.m.: Poetry Open Mic and Game Night at co-hosted by Sara Ali and Meg Specksgoor. 26 Allen St., Buffalo.

Saturday, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.: Book signing with Thomas J. Registad, author of The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express (North Country Books, 2024).

Reigstad is a renowned Mark Twain scholar and emeritus professor of English at Buffalo State university. He is the author of SCRIBBLIN' FOR A LIVIN': Mark Twain's Pivotal Period in Buffalo (Prometheus Books, 2013). His articles on Twain have appeared in the Mark Twain Journal, Mark Twain Encyclopedia, Mark Twain Society Bulletin, and other publications.

Talking Leaves Books, 951 Elmwood Ave.,  Buffalo.