Scott McClanahan, Chelsea Martin, and Elizabeth Ellen read at Elliott Bay Book Company at 4. McClanahan is the author of The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan. Martin is the author of The Really Funny Thing About Apathy. Ellen wrote a very good brick of a book titled Fast Machine, which I reviewed earlier this year. Martin and Ellen are both very good writers. I do not know McClanahan at all, but even if he turned out to be the worst writer ever, two out of three authors at this event are excellent, and those are good odds.
And then, down the street at Spine and Crown Books at 7 pm, there's a special reading titled Oulipo in Seattle. The Believer's Daniel Levin Becker is the "youngest member of Oulipo (Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle), the Paris-based constraint-driven group of writers and mathematicians." His new book about Oulipo is titled Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature. Seattle-area writers Doug Nufer, Jason Conger, and Sierra Nelson will read Oulipian work. Here's my review of Nufer's most recent novel about horse-racing and authorial perspective. Here's my review of Nelson's new, emotional choose-your-own-adventure book.
None of these authors are bestsellers, but they're all doing interesting work, and they all have great, long careers ahead of them. These readings should be fun, intimate, intelligent affairs and you should check them out.
