Rebecca Brown is Seattle's smartest writer, and Seattle is home to tons of smart writers. If you've ever read one of her essays—which effortlessly bounce between Nathaniel Hawthorne and transubstantiation and the Beach Boys and sex—you're excited about this event already. Tonight, Brown and two other smart writers, poet Eric McHenry and playwright Keri Healey, will read brand-new pieces on the theme of "truth or dare." And for the first time ever, Hugo House has commissioned a hiphop artist—the up-and-coming Macklemore—to participate. Come for Brown, but expect to find a favorite new artist or two. (Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030. 7:30 pm, $15–$25.)