Before moving to Seattle, Maria Semple made her living in La-La Land, where she spent a decade and a half writing for such shows as Arrested Development and Ellen. Once out of that madhouse, Semple focused on fiction, releasing her well-received debut novel, This One Is Mine, in 2008. Tonight brings a reading/party celebrating the release of Semple’s second novel, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, a perfectly delightful 21st-century epistolary novel (e-mails!) about, among many other things, family, fear, contentious mom cliques, and a woman who moves to Seattle and absolutely hates it. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, 7 pm, free)

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...