Literary Calendar: Angela Duckworth on Grit, Alex Grecian, Art + Lit and Slam Nuba

Read all about it: This week you can delve into what it takes to get ahead, bury your head in a Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad mystery, compare high points in literature and art, or get your fill of a slam-poetry master. Keep reading for hightlights of Denver's literary calendar.
Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue
7 p.m. Monday, May 16
TEDTalk sensation Angela Duckworth says the fine line between toeing the line and finding real success can only be crossed through sheer grit, a quality that distinguishes people as they move up in business, politics, sports — and everything else. The 2013 MacArthur Fellow and professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania captures her theory in Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, which is destined to show its own grit by becoming a bestseller. Do you have what it takes?
Alex Grecian, Lost and Gone Forever
Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue
7 p.m. Tuesday, May 17
Author Alex Grecian continues his popular Scotland Yard Murder Squad series with a new chapter: Lost and Gone Forever, in which Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith, forced off the team, opens a private detective agency. His first case? Finding missing Inspector Walter Day, in competition with a pair of bounty hunters with secrets of their own. You’ll have to turn the rest of the pages yourself to find out what happens.
Art + Lit: Sleepless Nights, by Elizabeth Hardwick and Jackson Pollack's “Summertime”
Art Students League of Denver
6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 19
Registration fee: $10
Lighthouse Writers Workshop and the Art Students League of Denver join forces for another Art + Lit session, this time focusing on Elizabeth Hardwick’ s Sleepless Nights and Jackson Pollock's abstract expressionist work “Summertime.” A special guest, Dean Sobel of the Clyfford Still Museum, will be taking on the art side of the discussion at this session, making for a fascinating foray into the passionate painter’s life and work. To enjoy the evening, you don’t have to have read the book, although copies will be available for purchase in advance at a discount to registrants through the Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue.
Slam Nuba Featuring Danez Smith
Crossroads Theater
7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday, May 21
$5 to $10 cover
Be ready for a raw, in-your-face performance when Slam Nuba presents Danez Smith — the much-lauded poet who won the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry (for the book [insert] boy) — as its featured poet this month. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., followed by an open-mike session at 8; Danez takes the stage at 8:30 and the local slam tops the night at 9.

What's on the next page in Denver's literary world? Visit Westword's Literary Event listings for this week.