This month's Carol Connolly reading series will not just bring together a group of seven writers to read aloud, though that is the main point of the evening. But the May "Readings by Writers" has a bonus -- the announcement of the winners of the annual Sidewalk Poetry competition.

So you can go at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday to the University Club on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, and you can listen to Sharon Chmielarz, Matt McConnell, Kim Ode, James Silas Rogers, Dara Syrkin, Francine Marie Tolf, and Tracy Youngblom.

And you can happily wait until the end, when St. Paul artist in residence Marcus Young announces the winners. If you're a winner, he'll invite you up to read the lines you wrote that will be immortalized in cement somewhere around town.

Also ...

  • Poet Marilyn Nelson will read at 7 p.m. May 21 as part of Plymouth Congregational Church's Literary Witness program. She will be accompanied by jazz pianist Brian Nichols. Nelson is a University of Minnesota graduate and the recent winner of the Poetry Society of American's Frost Medal, a lifetime achievement award that has also gone to Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks and Allen Ginsburg. She is the author or translator of 14 books, three of which were finalists for a National Book Award. Plymouth Church is at 1900 Nicollet Av. S., Mpls.
  • "Twelve Desperate Miles: The Epic WWII Voyage of the SS Contessa," by Tim Brady, has been published by Crown. Brady lives in St. Paul and is the author of "The Great Dan Patch and the Remarkable Mr. Savage." He is a frequent contributor to History Channel Magazine. He'll sign books at 7 p.m. Thursday at Common Good Books, 38 S. Snelling Av., St. Paul.
  • "Spirit of the Ojibwe: Images of Lac Courte Oreilles Elders," by Sara Balbin, James R. Bailey and Thelma Nayquonabe, will be published in July by Holy Cow! Press of Duluth. Twelve of the portraits in the book will be on display through August at the Duluth Art Institute
  • "BookSpeak!," a picture book by Laura Purdie Salas, has won a White Raven Award from the Bologna Children's Book Fair. The award goes to books worldwide that are deemed exceptional. The book also won a Minnesota Book Award.
  • "Ma's Dictionary," a memoir by Milan Kovacovic, has been published by Greysolon Press of Duluth. Kovacovic teaches French language and literature at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. The book is about his life in France, Slovakia and the United States.
  • "Hmong and American: From Refugees to Citizens," an anthology edited by Vincent K. Her and Mary Louise Buley-Meissner, has been published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.