*ARIEL GORE

Zine publisher/writer Gore will be reading from and signing her new stereotype-bustin' book about parenthood, The Mother Trip: Hip Mama's Guide to Staying Sane in the Chaos of Motherhood. Bailey/Coy Books, 414 Broadway E, 323-8842, 7 pm, free.

SUSAN RICH

Seattle resident Rich served a Peace Corps gig in Niger, helped monitor elections in Bosnia, and was a human rights educator in Gaza and a writer-in-residence in Zimbabwe. In other words, she's active. Her debut collection, The Cartographer's Tongue, features work that, according to Naomi Shihab Nye, will "wound and haunt you," J. M. Coetzee called her poems "sensual yet exact in their language, generous in the range and power of their emotion." Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, advance free tickets available at store.

MURRAY TAYLOR

What could be more totally exciting than a slide show given by a veteran smokejumper who's been at it since 1965? If you answered "Umm... nothing?" you're exactly right. Taylor's memoir, Jumping Fire, was praised by Patrick F. McManus as "the best action adventure thriller I've read in years," while William Kitterage called it "a vivid, compelling story." Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way NE, 366-3300, 7 pm, free.

DIANE SMITH

This Montana native's debut novel, Letters from Yellowstone, received a Pacific Northwest Booksellers award last year. Smith now ventures westward to promote said book's recent paperback release. Of Letters, James Welch enthusiastically intoned: "I loved this book in a way I haven't loved a book in a long time... this may be a first novel, but Diane Smith is a seasoned observer of man's relationship with the natural world. And lucky for us, she is a completely wonderful writer who has scored one for the good guys." Hip hip hoo-ray! Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, advance free tickets available at store.

*ZAP BENEFIT READING BY LOCAL CARTOONISTS

ZAP (the Zine Archive Project) hosts a night of local cartoonists reading from their favorite fanzines. Featuring Jason Lutes (Berlin, Jar of Fools), Donna Barr (publisher of The Desert Peach), David Lasky (Urban Hipster), Greg Stump (Urban Hipster), Blair Wilson (publisher of From Hell to Breakfast), Lisa Maslowe (publisher of Northbound) and regular Stranger contributor Ellen Forney (I Was 7 in '75). Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030, 7:30 pm, $3 door/$5 advance seating at tables.

TERRY HERSHEY

This former-Protestant-minister-turned-landscape-designer and current Vashon Island resident will ferry his merry way to Seattle preaching the good news of his debut publication, Soul Gardening: Cultivating the Good Life. Barbara DeGrote-Sorensen testifies: "When I looked up from reading Soul Gardening I was surprised to find myself in my own living room and not in Mr. Hershy's garden." Amen, and pass the rutabaga. Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 3 pm, advance free tickets available at store.

BILLY CHILDISH

The man whom The Observer called "a seething, dyslexic, better-looking, British Bukowski" visits Seattle to give three cheers and a sporty leg up to his largest, most recent collection, I'd Rather You Lied: Selected Poems 1980-1998. Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, advance free tickets available at store.

Go to church.

*CANDAS JANE DORSEY

Clarion West's press release for this event is so terse and well conceived that I hereby humbly defer, and quote it in full: "Candas Jane Dorsey's compressed, complicated stories view science fiction and fantasy themes through a feminist perspective. Her memorable story '(Learning About) Machine Sex,' found in the collection Machine Sex, interrogates cyberpunk and unravels its suppositions." Her most recent novel, Black Wine, won the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award. Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, $4 at door/$3 students & seniors.

Nothing is happening today, not because it's a national holiday, but because literature can't hold a candle to the primitive joy of blowing shit up.

ANDREW JORON & APRIL DENONNO

Subtext-sponsored poetry reading featuring Joron (author of the recently published collection The Removes) and DeNonno (a UW graduate with a manuscript-in-progress called Kind Mocking Type). Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030, 7:30 pm, $5 suggested donation at door.

KAREN ROBERTS

Publishers Weekly said of this Sri Lankan-born writer's first book, The Flower Boy: "Set during the 13 uneasy, final years of British rule in Ceylon, Roberts's debut novel relates in simple yet eloquent prose the story of children and their families whose lives, despite cultural and class differences, become deeply entwined.... With sensitivity and touches of gentle humor, Roberts renders a quiet tragedy of small, good lives crushed beneath larger circumstances." Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, advance free tickets available at store.