Seattle Lit Calendar April 21-April 27, 2008

Here are the literary events for this week that I could glean from the calendars of Richard Hugo House, Elliott Bay Book Company, and University Book Store. I will, time permitting, edit in other events as I track them down (for example, I know there are at least a couple of open mics in various locations). In cases where no ticket cost is mentioned, the event is free.

Question for readers: should I weed out some of the less "literary" events? For example, do readers of this page care about books about planning weddings? Or do you want all of the bookish events I can track down? My temptation is to include only events that pertain to either fiction or poetry, but then that leaves out all the memoir-type stuff and some good non-fiction as well. What are your thoughts?

Also, if you're a part of Seattle's lit scene and you know of events that aren't being covered here, shoot me an email at dclapper@smokelong.com, and I'll add them to future calendars. I'm still playing with format, too. Right now, I'm pretty much copying and pasting (with a little tweaking to make all events follow a similar format). If there's a particular event that I have a little more insight into, I'll make sure to include that.

Monday, April 21

7:00pm
University Book Store
THEO PAULINE NESTOR
Theo Pauline Nestor, teacher of memoir writing for University of Washington's Extension program, reads from How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed, her own memoir of motherhood and divorce. Those in a similar circumstance to Nestor's will no doubt appreciate her humor and honesty.

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
NATHANIEL RICH
From Paris Review editor Nathaniel Rich—whose essays and reviews have appeared, variously, in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, and more—comes one of the year's most touted and awaited debut novels, The Mayor's Tongue (Riverhead). "I read The Mayor's Tongue with ever-increasing delight, rooting for all my heart for the young protagonist on his near-mythic quest. This is an elegantly structured, brilliantly-told novel, by turns terrifying, touching, wildly funny, and always generous and magical. The Mayor's Tongue is about how we talk to each other and how make-believe helps us get on with our lives; most of all, it's about love." - Stephen King. "Ambitious, intelligent, hallucinatory, and, most importantly: heartfelt. Here is a young writer who is not afraid to give literature a kick in the pants, a writer deep in the thrall of language." - Gary Shytengart.

Tuesday, April 22

6:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
STAGES - ELLIOTT BAY DRAMA BOOK GROUP
Elliott Bay's Drama Book Group, Stages, meets once a month to read, enjoy and discuss great plays and dramatic works, contemporary and classic, from the U.S. and around the world. This month we examine another controversial play by Neil LaBute, a playwright always popular for bookgroup discussions. Labute's In a Dark Dark House, is a confrontation between two brothers. Court-confined to a psychiatric facility, Drew has called his brother Terry to corroborate his claim of childhood sexual abuse by an older mentor of Terry's many summers past. Is Drew using his repressed memories just to save himself while smearing the name of his brother's friend? Through pain, betrayal and hidden animosities, the brothers come to grips with and begin to understand the legacy of abuse inside and outside their family home. Please join us for what is sure to be a lively discussion.

7:00pm
University Book Store
JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
Using his nonfiction work (like his oil-production-in-decline cautionary book, The Long Emergency) as a jumping off point for fiction, James Howard Kunstler presents a novel about what a post-oil, changed climate, pandemic-ridden America might look like a few decades hence. World Made By Hand centers around the small town of Union Grove, New York, where the catastrophe-weathered townspeople must adjust to a new way of life.

7:00pm
University Book Store (Mill Creek Store)
WILLIAM DIETRICH
The Rosetta Key is a historical thriller full of danger, deception, and derring-do from the author of The Scourge of God. Ethan Gage arrives in the Holy Land to search for an ancient scroll that Napoleon Bonaparte is also pursuing—in hopes that its powerful magic will help him conquer the world.

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
NANCY HORAN
A writer who lives 'on an island' here in Washington, Nancy Horan garnered great attention, much praise, and a considerable readership for her debut novel, Loving Frank (new in paper, Ballantine), when it was first published a year ago. "Frank" was and is Frank Lloyd Wright; this novel tells of a complex, prolonged affair he and a married woman, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, conducted. "It takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright's love affair is vivid and intelligent, unsentimental and compassionate." - Jane Hamilton. "Horan's nuanced evocation of these flawed human beings plays beautifully against the lurid facts of their situation. As in the best historical fiction, she finds both the truth and the heart of her story." - Los Angeles Times.

7:30pm
Town Hall Seattle
MARYA HORNBACHER

Presented by The Elliott Bay Book Company. When Marya Hornbacher wrote her best-selling memoir Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet know that the underlying reason for the chaos of her life was severe bipolar disease. In her new book, Madness: A Bipolar Life (Houghton Mifflin), she traces the story of her bipolar childhood, illustrating how bipolar disease often spawns a myriad of problems—from substance abuse and eating disorders to promiscuity and self-mutilation. Hornbacher's story also shows the power and endurance of love and friendship, and the possibility of achievement and redemption even in the face of severe mental illness. "With the same intimately revelatory and shocking emotional power that marked her earlier book, Hornbacher guides us through her labyrinth of psychological demons, characterized by public meltdowns and private craziness, which led to multiple stays in locked wards." - ELLE Magazine. $5 at the door (no advance tickets). Town Hall Seattle is located at 1119 Eighth Avenue (entry downstairs on Seneca. For more information, please see www.townhallseattle.org, or call Elliott Bay Book Company at (206) 624-6600.

7:30pm
Richard Hugo House
CASTALIA
The University of Washington's Creative Writing program is proud to present a brand-new installment of Castalia, featuring readers Anni Armas, Brian Christian, Chelsea Jennings, Cassie Kosty and Scott Provence. www.depts.washington.edu/castalia

Wednesday, April 23

6:30pm
University Book Store (Mill Creek Store)
THE MAIN STREET BOOK CLUB
Join host Amanda Corr on the fourth Wednesday of each month in the Book Store Café to discuss the very best in contemporary fiction. Save 20% when you purchase this title at our Mill Creek store. This month's title: Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcón.

7:00pm
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center
MICHAEL MEADE
Presented by MOSAIC Multicultural Foundation. Our friends at Seattle-based Mosaic have this special evening, celebrating the publication of mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade's long-awaited new book. His landmark 1993 book, recently re-published as The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul, is now followed by The World Behind the World: Living at the Ends of Time (GreenFire Press). This is, from our perspective, the most resonant application of looking at the world we're in now through a mythically-informed viewpoint that we know of. "Michael Meade is a master-storyteller and story-teacher of the soul's unfolding. He addresses the mess we're in and helps us each discover the unique threads, the poetic DNA we must live out. As interpreter and mythic guide, he is the best there is." - Coleman Barks. "As a teacher and mythologist, Michael Meade is genius let out of the bottle. The World Behind the World is his strong medicine for hard times, an elixir of amazing stories, rich ideas, heart-breaking truth, and brilliant seeds of wisdom for remaking the world." - Jack Kornfield. Donation suggested, but everyone is welcome (the door is handled by Mosaic). Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center is at 104 - 17th Avenue South (at Yesler) in central Seattle. For more information, please see www.mosaicvoices.com or call (206) 935-3665.

7:00pm
University Book Store (Bellevue Store)
WILLIAM DIETRICH
The Rosetta Key is a historical thriller full of danger, deception, and derring-do from the author of The Scourge of God. Ethan Gage arrives in the Holy Land to search for an ancient scroll that Napoleon Bonaparte is also pursuing—in hopes that its powerful magic will help him conquer the world.

7:00pm
University Book Store (Mill Creek Store)
BARBARA DAMROSCH
Every gardener needs Barbara Damrosch's, The Garden Primer, the definitive guide to the care of a backyard garden. And the brand new edition is entirely revised and newly, 100% organic. Gardeners with an ecological inclination will appreciate the expanded interest this reference guide takes in native species, wildlife-friendly gardens, and greener ways to discourage harmful invasive species.

7:00pm
University Book Store
SAADIA PEKKANEN
University of Tokyo's Junji Nakagawa says of UW professor Pekkanen's Japan's Aggressive Legalism: Law and Foreign Trade Politics Beyond the WTO: "A must for those interested in Japan's foreign trade and investment policies since the 1990s, Japan's Aggressive Legalism combines amazingly thorough research and strong empirical evidence. This book is probably the best reference work around for this subject." The book looks at the way law has shaped Japan's foreign trade politics, to the benefit of the trade-dominant industries.

7:00pm
Science Fiction Museum
LOIS McMASTER BUJOLD
In an alternate, magic-using future world, where a great catastrophe has reverted North America to a 1800's technology, a young farmer and her soldier husband must leave their homes in The Sharing Knife: Passage. Their marriage is one of separate cultures, and frowned upon by their kin. And so off they go, a ragtag group of friends in tow, downstream to a new home. Tickets are free. Reserve one at EMP/SFM box office at 206.770.2702 or 1.877.EMP.SFM1.

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
SUSAN JACOBY

Periods of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism are not new, writes Susan Jacoby, but the addition of "infotainment addiction" distinguishes this era from those past. In The Age of American Unreason (Pantheon), she examines the costs of pervasive "mass media, triumphalist religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public. Susan Jacoby's previous books include Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. "Jacoby's is a moderate, sensible, well-founded position, shared by many Americans, yet it somehow rarely got voiced amid the raging hyperbole of the culture wars." - Salon.

7:30pm
Town Hall Seattle
CHARLES HALPERN

Co-presented by Elliott Bay Book Company with the TOWN HALL CENTER FOR CIVIC LIFE. Charles Halpern is a pioneer in legal education, public interest law advocacy, and philanthropy. The founder of the nation's first public interest law firm, and first public interest law school, he ran the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and was the founder of Demos, a New York-based think tank. During his years of activism, he began to see ways to develop his inner resources to complement his cognitive and adversarial skill, a journey described in his book, Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom (Berrett-Koehler). This book illustrates the life-enhancing benefits of integrating a commitment to social justice with the cultivation of wisdom. $5 at the door (no advance tickets), with preferred seating for Town Hall members. Town Hall Seattle is located at 1119 Eighth Avenue (entry downstairs on Seneca. For more information, please see www.townhallseattle.org, or call (206) 652-4255 (Town Hall), or Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600.

Thursday, April 24

7:00pm
Richard Hugo House
CHEAP WINE AND POETRY
A special all-poetry "Cheap Wine and Poetry" celebrating National Poetry Month. Featured readers: Roberto Ascalon, Elizabeth Austen, Rebecca Loudon and Cody Walker. Hosted by Charla Grenz. Open mic; wine is $1 a glass. FREE. Co-sponsored by Richard Hugo House. www.cheapwineandpoetry.com

7:00pm
University Book Store
THE DEAD POETS MEMORIAL READING
Every year during National Poetry Month, University Book Store opens its microphone to you, our poetry-loving customer, for a reading of short work by your favorite dead, famous poet. Grab your favorite volume and join us! Click here for a chance to win some fabulous, poetry-related prizes!

7:00pm
University Book Store
GARY MARCUS
"Kluge" is a term engineers use to refer to a clumsily designed solution to a problem. Gary Marcus, in Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, uses the term to refer to the brain, an organ that evolution has tinkered with to get us where we are, cognitively speaking, but without any change to the organ's basic structure. Thus, he says, we are prone to irrational beliefs, inaccurate memories, war—the holdovers of our pre-hominid brain.

7:00pm
University Book Store (Bellevue Store)
ZA RINPOCHE and ASHLEY NEBELSIECK
There's no shortcut to having an enlightened spirit. But maybe, just maybe, you can find a backdoor. Za Rinpoche and Ashley Nebelsieck combine ancient and contemporary wisdom in The Backdoor to Enlightenment, which advises readers on how to findthe path to rising above the trappings of modern life, without having to travel deep into the Himalayas to do it.

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
BRIAN HALL
Out from his Ithaca home and making this welcome Elliott Bay return is Brian Hall. The author of such novels as I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company and The Saskiad, he is here with a much-anticipated new novel, The Fall of Frost (Viking). "This defiantly nonlinear fictionalization of the life of poet Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) alternates between Frost's late-life visit to Communist Russia, where he met with Khruschev, and dozens of vignettes and scenes from the rest of his long life ... the book's real weight comes from the tragedy of Frost's children's deaths ... Hall gets deep into Frost's head, an approach that brings a startling immediacy to a complex figure many know only as the author of classics like The Road Not Taken." - Publishers Weekly.

Friday, April 25

6:00pm
University Book Store (Bellevue Store)
Mindy Weiss MINDY WEISS
Pulling off the wedding you've always wanted isn't easy. The planning, the expense, the hundreds of unforeseen little details—some people invest in a wedding planner, like Mindy Weiss, to make sure everything goes smoothly. Now you have another option: The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day is a compendium of Weiss's best advice, a complete reference guide to the perfect nuptial day.

7:00pm
University Book Store
ELLEN BRANTLINGER
Ellen Brantlinger studied the relationship between social class and educational success in her Indiana hometown. And instead of simply looking at the way the historically marginalized lower classes fail or succeed based on class, she looked at the middle and affluent classes as well to see how their value systems corresponded to their educational goals in Dividing Classes: How the Middle Class Negotiates and Justifies School Advantage. Sponsored by the University of Washington School of Education.

7:30pm
Richard Hugo House
MR. THOREAU TONIGHT
A staged reading of a new one-act play by Hugo House writer-in-residence David Wagoner, featuring Todd Jefferson Moore. Directed by Sheila Benson. The play follows one night in the life of the great man as he prepares for a lecture. $12 ($10 members).

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
JACK O'CONNELL
The Resurrectionist (Algonquin), Jack O'Connell's newest novel, works as a thriller in one sphere, and a brilliant charting of psychology in another. "Two worlds wrapped tight in gloomy gothic trappings vie for dominance in this engrossing, elaborately staged exploration of consciousness ... It's a measure of O'Connell's immense talent that, while creating his absolutely original and hyperbolic world, he also paints a striking vision of the haunting ways in which life and art mirror each other ... This strange brew is sure to enhance O'Connell's growing cult status." - Publishers Weekly. "The Resurrectionist—a brilliantly tuned, mesmerizing labyrinth of a quasi-real world as only a master artist could draw it—will jazz you, floor you, grab you, and shake you and leave you hung out to dry in that world. A brilliant break-through novel." - James Ellroy.

7:30pm
Town Hall Seattle
MISHA GLENNY
Co-presented by Elliott Bay Book Company with the TOWN HALL CENTER FOR CIVIC LIFE. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the deregulation of international financial markets, few foresaw that one of the greatest successes of globalization would be the limitless expansion of organized crime. Yet current estimates suggest that illegal trade now accounts for twenty percent of global GDP. In his new book, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Knopf), British journalist Misha Glenny traces organized crime's phenomenal growth, showing how it and terror are fueled by an identical source: the material affluence of the West and the poverty of the developing world. Misha Glenny's award-winning books include The Rebirth of History, The Fall of Yugoslavia, and The Balkans, 1804-1999. $5 at the door (no advance tickets), with preferred seating for Town Hall members. Town Hall Seattle is located at 1119 Eighth Avenue (entry downstairs on Seneca Street). For more information, please see www.townhallseattle.org, or call (Town Hall) (206) 652-4255, or Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600.

Saturday, April 26

all day
Richard Hugo House
CARMI WEINGROD
Hugo Gallery presents Carmi Weingrod's "Through Thick and Thin," a collection of new prints exploring idioms and other curiosities of language. Free and open to the public during business hours. Closes April 26.

11:00am
UW Communications Building
WASHINGTON WEEKEND: Rediscover Communication: featuring The Muse and the Manuscript, Faculty Book Club and Open House Conversations
Five Communication alumni (Deb Caletti, Carlene Cross, Mary Daheim, Tina Kim, and La'Chris Jordan) talk about creativity, inspiration and the blank page. Two Communication faculty (David Domke and Christine Harold) talk about their recent books: The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon and OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture. Sponsored by University Book Store. Advance registration is required. Space is limited. Please RSVP to comreply@u.washington.edu

2:00pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
KEVIN K. KUMASHIRO
Kevin Kumashiro, founding director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education, takes on the failures of both the political left and right in The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate of America's Schools (Teacher's College). Today, he talks about the reframing of 'common sense about education to embrace a commitment to human rights, a belief in equality, and quality education for all children.' "One of the most thoughtful books on education that I have ever read. Kevin Kumashiro condemns fear as a hallmark in our conversations about schools, and promotes instead a spirit of freedom and democracy." - Studs Terkel. "Bold, intellectually ranging, and inspiring challenge to educators, parents, and activists to reframe the debate and reshape the agenda." - Jeff Chang.

4:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
REBECCA WOLFF
A past contributor to Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, Rebecca Woolf dropped out of film school to see the world, and found herself pregnant at age 23. Now one of the "DYI" mothers rebelling against stereotypes of motherhood, while raising strong, independent kids, she tells her story in Rockabye: From Wild to Child (Seal). Rockabye began, and lives on, as a blog at www.girlsgonechild.blogspot.com.

7:30pm
Richard Hugo House
MR. THOREAU TONIGHT
A staged reading of a new one-act play by Hugo House writer-in-residence David Wagoner, featuring Todd Jefferson Moore. Directed by Sheila Benson. The play follows one night in the life of the great man as he prepares for a lecture. $12 ($10 members).

7:30pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
MICHAEL GRUBER
Bestselling Seattle novelist Michael Gruber makes this welcome return with his newest, perhaps most-praised psychological mystery yet, The Forgery of Venus (Morrow). "Gruber is on a roll. Not even a year after The Book of Air and Shadows, he delivers another terrific art-historical thriller, this time not about an undiscovered Shakespeare play but a forged Velázquez painting—or is it really a forgery? ... Mixed in with the plot twists and suspense—mostly psychological this time—are both fascinating details about art forgery and thought-provoking conversations about art and morality. It's a tale within a tale within a tale ... Once again, Gruber mines a popular vein and strikes gold." - Keir Graff, Booklist.

Sunday, April 27

1:00pm
University Book Store
JUDY NORSIGIAN
The people who brought us the indispensable Our Bodies, Ourselves bring their expertise to the subject of pregnancy. Judy Norsigian, co-founder of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective (BWHBC) and co-author of all editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves will be interviewed by Cheryl Murfin, the Executive Director of the Seattle Midwifery School.

Topics: literary calendar