Book(ed) at The Tea Smith featuring Bloomsbury author Ryan T. Pozzi

Council Bluffs writer and essayist Ryan T. Pozzi is the featured author. His Bloomsbury book, The Mess That Made Them: How History’s Greatest Artists Failed, Floundered, and Made Something Brilliant Anyway, looks at creative persistence through figures such as Caravaggio, Mary Shelley, James Baldwin, Yayoi Kusama, and others. The event also includes a brief reading from Pozzi and a guest performance by Nebraska State Poet Emeritus Matt Mason.

The Tea Smith pairs the book-launch conversation with a seated tasting built around traditional teas, a samovar preparation, a mocktail, and a tea-infused affogato-style dessert. The evening is designed around the book’s central theme: moving past polished “genius” myths to look at the rejection, doubt, grief, illness, reinvention, and persistence behind creative work.

This Book(ed) event offers a local way to mark the launch of a Council Bluffs author’s Bloomsbury debut while spending time with the ideas behind the book. For readers, writers, artists, and curious tea drinkers in Omaha, it combines author conversation with a tasting experience that reflects the book’s focus on creativity under pressure.