The one thing you need to absolutely do today at AWP is to visit the AWP Bookfair at Washington State Convention Center. It's open from right now until 6 tonight. There are hundreds of publishers and literary magazines just waiting to be discovered.

After the book fair, here are some of the most interesting-looking events happening today, in chronological order. (You can find a full list of events in our readings calendar.)

12:30 PM:

At Black Coffee Co-op, writers will perform new work on the topic of video games.


4 PM:

Stellar publishers Archipelago, New Direction, and New York Review of Books meet in Elliott Bay Book Company's reading room for a "low-key talk about books." After all the readings, a chance to hang out and maybe share a beer with a publisher and talk shop sounds positively delightful to me.

6 PM:

Local publisher Alice Blue Books teams with Bloof Books and Coconut Books to bring a huge lineup to the Pine Box.

Sole Repair is home to a number of poets, including Shin Yu Pai, author of Aux Arcs.

6:30 PM

Did you know that a bunch of local writers went to school at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington? It's true! And the Alibi Room is hosting a UNCW reading party, with plenty of local writers who attended the school (Corrine Manning and Eli Hastings among them) and also non-Northwest-based UNCW alumni.

7 PM:

Drawn-to-Marvel-Front-Cover-web-fast-loading-668x1024.jpg
Speaking of local writers, a pair of beloved former Seattle writers who now live elsewhere, Eric McHenry and Cody Walker, read at the Waywiser Press reading at SAM.

The Raygun Lounge is hosting a reading of comic-book-themed poetry to celebrate the launch of Drawn to Marvel: Poems From the Comic Books, an anthology that includes Sherman Alexie.

8 PM:

Elliott Bay Book Company is hosting a bedtime-story-themed reading with Suzy Vitello, Lidia Yuknavitch, Chuck Palahniuk, Monica Drake, and Chelsea Cain. You're encouraged to show up at this reading in pajamas, blankets, pillows.

10 PM:

To wind down the weekend, six small publishers present "The Great Unwind" at Gallery 1412, featuring a lineup of poets including Stranger Genius Maged Zaher, who is motherfucking incredible.

And so on:

To see everything else happening today, including all the book events happening in Seattle over the next three months, you need to visit our readings calendar.