Literature Search
Ethan Rutherford
Tues May 21 at 7 pm.Reading
Rutherford, who is from Seattle originally, reads from his much-praised new book, The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories. Free.
Writers Get to the PowerPoint
Tues May 21 at 7 pm.Reading
A bunch of writers including Kathleen Flenniken, Rachel Kessler, Sierra Nelson, David Schmader, and Greg Stump will perform new work via PowerPoint presentations. Free.
Nathaniel Philbrick
Tues May 21 at 7:30 pm.Reading
Philbrick's newest historical account is titled Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution. $5.
Annalee Newitz
Wed May 22 at 7:30 pm.Reading
Newitz is a writer for sci-fi blog iO9. Her new book is titled Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, and it's reportedly an optimistic non-fiction book about the apocalypse. Free.
Steve Keen & Gerard Fitzpatrick: Money, Monetary Policy, and Financial Repression
Thurs May 23 at 11:30 am.Reading
A pair of economists embark on a "lunchtime discussion of Federal Reserve monetary policy." $29/$24 for Town Hall members/$14 for students.
Steve Keen
Thurs May 23 at 6 pm.Reading
Keen "most accurately predicted the great financial crisis," which means you should pay attention to his new book, Debunking Economics. $5.
Luis Negrón
Thurs May 23 at 7 pm.Reading
Negrón, who is an "acclaimed Spanish-language writer and queer activist," will read from his new collection of stories, Mundo Cruel. Free.
Nancy Bartley
Thurs May 23 at 7 pm.Reading
The Boy Who Shot the Sheriff: The Redemption of Herbert Niccolls Jr is the real-life story of the 12-year-old boy who killed the sheriff of a small Washington town. Free.
Brian Switek
Thurs May 23 at 7:30 pm.Reading
Press materials say that Switek is a dinosaur fanatic. The title of his new book, My Beloved Brontosaurus, seems to indicate that this is a true statement. He'll talk about dinosaurs and feathers and other dinosaur-nerdy things. $5.
Jack Straw Writers at NW Folklife Festival
Fri May 24 at 6:30 pm.Reading
Jack Straw authors Peter Munro, Jay McAleer, Larry Crist, Kate Carroll De Gutes, Josephine Ensign, and Corry Venema-Weiss read at Folklife, along with our state's poet laureate, Kathleen Flenniken. 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.
Jack Skillingstead, Ted Kosmatka
Tues May 28 at 7 pm.Reading
Skillingstead's Seattle-based sci-fi novel is titled Life on the Preservation. Kosmatka's Prophet of Bones is a sci-fi novel about an archaeologist who discovers the world is more than six thousand years old. 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.
Ryan McIlvain
Tues May 28 at 7 pm.Reading
Elders is a novel about Mormons by an author who resigned the Mormon church. Free.
Liner Notes 9 Marvin Gaye-What's Going On with featured poet Paulie Lipman
Wed May 29 at 8 pm.Reading
Nine poets were each assigned a song poets 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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