Literature Search
Amber Dawn, Mattilda Sycamore Bernstein
Thurs June 6 at 6 pm.Reading
Dawn's new memoir is How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir. Bernstein Sycamore's memoir is titled The End of San Francisco. Gay City is a great place. Free.
Joan Didion
Wed June 5 at 7:30 pm.Reading
Do you really need me to tell you why you should attend a reading by Joan Didion? Come on. $15-$50.
Ryan McIlvain
Tues May 28 at 7 pm.Reading
Elders is a novel about Mormons by an author who resigned the Mormon church. Free.
Anchee Min
Thurs May 30 at 7 pm.Reading
Red Azalea was Min's breakout memoir. It's a book that is loved by many. Her followup memoir, The Cooked Seed, has a steep hill to climb. It's about her arrival in America and what happened after. Free.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Mon June 3 at 7 pm.Reading
Aidichie is a celebrated novelist whose previous book, Half of a Yellow Sun, was praised by many. Her new novel is titled Americanah, and it's already starting to get very good reviews. Free.
Octavia Butler Birthday Tribute Reading
Sat June 22 at 3 pm.Reading
Featured readers including Nisi Shawl, Gabriel Teodros, Rahwa Habte, Zola Mumford and Mayumi Tsutakawa will read work inspired by the incredible Butler on what would have been her birthday, and there will be an open mic, too. Free.
Interrupture Presents: Trope Opera
Fri May 31 at 7:30 pm.Reading
The fabulous experimental poetry group presents Trope Opera, which they describe as "the days of our lives as the world turns, as rendered by interpretations of Freud, pop psychology, and the republic of dreams." Sounds mimetic! Free.
Matthew Simmons
Tues May 28 at 7 pm.Reading
If you’ve attended his readings, you know Matthew Simmons is one of Seattle’s best short-story writers. Problem is, his published output has been slim—just one excellent novella and a tiny chapbook of stories about one-man death metal bands—but today that all changes with the publication of a collection titled Happy Rock. Any chance to hear Simmons read his own funny, intelligent stories about awkward lonely people and the roadside attractions they love is cause for celebration, so this launch party for Happy Rock ought to be a goddamned citywide holiday. Free.
Rebecca Hoogs
Thurs May 30 at 7 pm.Reading
Self-Storage is the first full-length collection of poetry from Hoogs, which seems kind of crazy, because she's been reading her very good poetry all around town forever. She's joined by fellow poets Kevin Craft, Rachel Kessler, Sierra Nelson, and Jason Whitmarsh to celebrate her publication. Free.
BOOST: Poetry to Uplift Your Spirits (A Benefit for Tara Hardy)
Fri May 31 at 7 pm.Reading
Beloved local author Tara Hardy is suffering from a medical condition that requires "a rigorous two-year treatment, the cost of which, not covered by health insurance is $18,000 per year." So this fundraiser features local authors Cedar Adison Smith, Sara Brickman, Karen Finneyfrock, Dorothy Kent, Lisa Slater, and Casey Tonnelly, among others. If we had a single payer health plan in this country, we wouldn't need to throw events like this. But we don't, and so we do. $15 advance, $20 door, $100 reserved seat.
Siren Songs: Fine Wine and Writing
Thurs June 6 at 7 pm.Reading
Readings from Stacey Levine, Nicole Hardy, Kevin Craft, and Kenyon Brown are paired with fine wines. $15/$10 for Hugo House members.
Book Launch Party for Ed Skoog's Rough Day
Thurs June 13 at 7 pm.Reading
Stranger Genius shortlister Ed Skoog is an unforgettable and brilliant reader of his own work. At any given reading, he brings poems to life with a thoughtfulness that alerts you to the fact that every single word is important. And his riffs in between poems—where he talks about jazz, sex, New Orleans, and anything else that skitters across his big, beautiful brain—are kind of improvised poems in themselves. Tonight is the launch of Skoog’s long-awaited second book of poetry, Rough Day, with musical performances by The Gloria Darlings and Jon Pontrello & Kevin Murphy, and lots of booze. Get excited for this one now. Free.
Story Chairs Live Reading
Fri June 7 at 7 pm.Reading
Artist Tina Hoggatt’s new installation features comfy chairs with concealed speakers that tell you stories when you sit on them. A small battalion of 32 musicians and authors wrote and recorded new work for this project, including Kathleen Alcalá, Levi Fuller, Alex Gallo-Brown, Moe Provencher, and Stranger Genius shortlister Ed Skoog. (Added bonus: Hoggatt designed the chairs with the help of Visual Art Genius Jeffrey Mitchell, who contributes a story to the project, too.) Free.
Laura Read, Maya Jewell Zeller
Sun May 26 at 3 pm.Reading
Read has written a poem titled "This Time We'll Go to Kentucky Fried Chicken." Zeller's "I Give You Ten Reasons Why We Can’t Use Roundup on Our Lawn" begins: "As a girl the black-branched plums/behind the far fence were mine because/a giant row of nettle and snowberry/blocked them from the cows." Free.
James Arthur, Natalie Diaz, Tomas Q. Morin
Sat June 1 at 7:30 pm.Reading
Here's the beginning of a poem by Arthur: "I was there, and saw the half-ton rope/of human hair coiled like a python,/glinting." Diaz writes "Angels don't come to the reservation./Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things./Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—/death." And here's Morín: "It shouldn’t have surprised me while reading /Gorky’s remembrance of Tolstoy and/devouring chicken/on a blanket in view of the muddy waters/that I should see a parakeet misnamed/the Quaker parrot." Free.
What's Going On
Wed May 29 at 8 pm.Reading
Nine poets were each assigned a song from Marvin Gaye's album What's Going On. Tonight, they'll perform new work in response to those songs. This is a neat idea for a reading. $5.
Ruth Ozeki, Karen Joy Fowler
Tues June 4 at 7 pm.Reading
Ozeki's newest book is A Tale for the Time Being and Fowler’s new book is titled We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. The writers are here to celebrate those books and the great local women's writing program Hedgebrook. Free.
Dan Kennedy
Tues June 4 at 7 pm.Reading
Kennedy is the brilliant man behind storytelling sensation The Moth. American Spirit is his novel. Free.
UW Science Now: Makrand Sinha: P vs. NP: The Limits of Computers AND Jingda Wu: NCQD: Print Your Own Solar Cells
Thurs May 30 at 6 pm.Reading
This is a discussion about complex problems and whether computers will ever be able to solve them, paired with a discussion about solar cells. $5.
Jaron Lanier
Thurs May 30 at 7:30 pm.Reading
If you missed Jaron Lanier’s manifesto You Are Not a Gadget, you really have some catching up to do. The book, which imagines a more humane internet, was praised by people as diverse as engineers, software designers, Zadie Smith, and me. Now Lanier has returned with a new book titled Who Owns the Future?, and he’s giving a talk about how digital technology can save our economy. This one is not to be missed. $5.
Dick Falkenbury
Mon June 3 at 6 pm.Reading
Falkenbury is a former cab driver who wrote the initiative to create a monorail transit system in Seattle. Rise Above It All is his account of that process, which—spoiler alert—ultimately failed. $5.
Sherman Alexie, Jonathan Evison, Jess Walter: Pharos Editions Debut
Tues June 11 at 7:30 pm.Reading
Local publisher Dark Coast Press is making a splash with its new imprint Pharos Editions. Here’s the deal: Popular authors revive and write introductions for out-of-print classics in order to introduce their favorites to a new audience. The first wave of titles is a doozy: Sherman Alexie sponsors Todd Walton’s basketball novel Inside Moves, Jonathan Evison chose McTeague by Frank Norris, and Spokane author Jess Walter enthusiastically endorses Robert Cantwell’s 1935 Washington labor epic Land of Plenty. Tonight, Alexie, Evison, and Walter appear onstage with Stranger Books Editor Paul Constant to talk about what books they picked, why they picked them, and if they fear one day being the semi-forgotten author of a lost classic. $5.
Colum McCann
Mon June 17 at 7:30 pm.Reading
Let the Great World Spin was a novel that seemed to take the world by storm. McCann's followup novel, TransAtlantic, is set during three important periods in American and/or Irish history, and it stars Frederick Douglass, a pair of famous aviators, and Senator George Mitchell. $5.
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