Not With a Bang, But a Whimper

“I’m Lyall Bush, programs and education manager and soon to be
executive director of Hugo House.” This was as much of an announcement
as was ever offered to the public when Lyall Bush took his new job at
Richard Hugo House, and it was offered almost offhandedly in the course
of introducing Matthew Stadler at a reading. Christopher Frizzelle, in
a February 2006 edition of The Stranger, commented that Bush was
almost “shy” about the announcement, which was “slipped in sideways…
like it isn’t big news.”

If that announcement was painfully understated, Bush’s departure
from Hugo House is even more so: On September 11, rumors of Bush and
Hugo House parting ways spread through Seattle’s literary community
with the speed usually reserved for an apocalyptic plague outbreak in a
thriller. The Stranger sent e-mails to Hugo House and promptly
received confirmation from Brian McGuigan, Hugo House’s program
associate: “Yes, it’s true; Lyall is no longer the executive director
of Hugo House.”

Even murkier are the reasons behind the change. Six weeks ago, Bush
took a sudden and unexpected leave of absence from his position, which
Matt Carvalho, the president of Hugo House’s board of trustees,
described as “basically Hugo House’s CEO.” At the time of the leave,
Bush was working with Wier Harman, the director of Town Hall, to put
together a September 3 event starring Mike Daisey and Reggie Watts.
Bush was supposed to introduce the pair, but Harman received a vague
e-mail from Hugo House. “I was informed [Bush] was on leave and I was
not told why,” Harman says. “I just assumed he was dealing with a
family problem.” Harman was not told whether Bush would return in time
for the event; he wound up introducing Daisey and Watts himself.

But Hugo House is currently shrouded under a mafialike code of
omertà: Nobody is saying anything to anybody about Bush’s
departure. The silence has caused at least one major Seattle book
critic—John Marshall, of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
according to McGuigan—to carpet bomb Hugo House with petulant
phone calls (“I’m going to find out why he left anyway, so you might as
well tell me”) and outraged e-mails. Speculation about Bush’s departure
is rampant and leaning toward the lurid, but Bush and the Hugo House
board are restraining themselves to curt declarations of pride in past
achievements and wishing each other well in future endeavors.

During that 2006 reading, Stadler announced Bush was “going to make
something” of Hugo House that “we can’t even imagine.” The Bush years
at Hugo House may not have been as mythical as all that, but there were
some solid gains for the city. “Instead of this thing where you float
in a famous author from South Africa like [J. M.] Coetzee to
semi-insult Seattle audiences with his wisdom,” Bush sniffed to
Frizzelle, “what about Stacey Levine going up onstage with Aimee
Bender? On a theme?” The Hugo House’s readings series drastically
improved, bringing authors such as Greil Marcus, Rick Moody, Michelle
Tea, and Charles D’Ambrosio to town to read new work—Bush even
placed on this paper’s 2006 Genius Awards shortlist for improving the
Hugo House’s reading series.

But Bush also made embarrassing missteps at those readings. Bush
would read his own work at those star-studded events, casting himself
as an unbilled extra reader. At a March 23 reading titled “Answered
Prayers and Other Tragedies,” with a full complement of authors
including Sherman Alexie, Tea, and Stranger writer David
Schmader already scheduled to perform, Bush read for 15 minutes to an
impatient crowd about how “answered prayers” were like “warm
doughnuts.”

“Lyall certainly has his own style,” Carvalho says in reference to Bush choosing to read his own work before other readers, “and I’d expect his replacement to do things differently.”

Hugo House under Bush’s leadership looks drastically different from
the Hugo House of his predecessor, cofounder Frances McCue. Matt
Briggs, who was a Hugo House writer in residence during the beginning
of Bush’s tenure, says: “Lyall pretty much tossed out a lot of the
fuzzy social, community activism, and accessibility stuff and began to
put in place a more standard, programmed literary structure.” Ron
Starr, on his blog Library of Babel, claims that the poets at Floating
Bridge Press and The Raven Chronicles were railroaded out of
Hugo House for more profitable tenants. Starr blames Bush.

Around the same time, Hugo House ended its support of the
experimental SubText reading series, which relocated to Wallingford,
and closed its Books to Prisoners program.

Briggs critiques Bush for changing Hugo House from “a
community-owned organization” to “a corporate enterprise that gave
merit-based gifts… I remember him telling me he wanted to make it
more in the image of Seattle Arts & Lectures. Local writers need
another Seattle Arts & Lectures about as much as we need another
Barnes & Noble.” Briggs has his suspicions about what happened:
“The fact that [Bush] left without a party means he isn’t leaving
because he wants to leave,” he says.

Hugo House’s 2008 to 2009 season—which includes appearances by
Bender, Alexie, Vikram Chandra, and Laura Veirs—has already been
planned; Carvhalo and McGuigan insist nothing about Bush’s departure
will change those readings. Carvalho says an interim executive director
will be announced “in the next two weeks,” and McGuigan says that Hugo
House will then embark on “a national search” for Bush’s replacement.