Announcing the 2013 Festival Readings!
All readings listed below are free and open to the public.

Patricia McCormick & Emily Danforth
McCormick is the author of five powerful novels with varied subjects, ranging from the psychological suspense of Purple Heart (2009), to teenage substance abuse in My Brother’s Keeper (2006). Joining her will be Danforth, whose debut novel, The Miseducation of Cameron Post(2012), was recently a finalist for the William C. Morris YA debut award. Join us for what is sure to be a powerful reading by these two young adult authors. Saturday, April 13, 11:30 a.m., Downtown Public Library.

The Reading Public A Community Reading
The literary community in Spokane is vibrant, nationally recognized, and growing all the time. In fact, it's growing so quickly that you may have trouble keeping track of who's who. To showcase some of our local talent, this reading will feature three writers living and working in Spokane, with the opportunity for other local writers to take the stage during an open mic.. Saturday, April 13, 12:30 p.m., Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Manito/Audubon Room, Lobby Level.

Jim Lynch & Joe Wilkins 
From urban underbellies to Big Sky dreaming, writers have always sought to capture the true essence of the Northwest. In their writing, both Lynch and Wilkins take us on a journey through the Northwest with humor and heart, through familiar landscapes that local readers will particularly appreciate. Saturday, April 13, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Manito/Audubon Room, Lobby Level.

Lidia Yuknavitch
Yuknavitch writes to give voice to the maligned and the silenced. In her writing, she is adept at exploring what it means to be human, drawing on her personal experience as well as creating complex, flawed, and fascinating characters. Saturday, April 13, 3:00-4:00 p.m, Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Manito/Audubon Room, Lobby Level.

Sherril Jaffe & Sharma Shields
The line between the real and the fantastic is a blurry one. In their writing, 2011 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction winner, Jaffe, and Spokane writer, Shields, utilize humor, empathy, and wit to dazzling effect, exploring the strange, the disturbing, and the profound. Saturday, April 13, 4:00-5:00 p.m, Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Manito/Audubon Room, Lobby Level.

A Conversation with Shawn Vestal & Jess Walter Moderated by Sam Ligon
A conversation between the authors and the audience will be facilitated by fiction writer and associate professor of creative writing at EWU, Sam Ligon. Ligon, who edits the literary journal Willow Springs, also had a hand in shaping many of the stories in both We Live In Water andGodforsaken Idaho. Join this trio of writers and friends for captivating stories, insight into the writing process, and certainly many laughs.Saturday, April 13, 5:00 p.m., Barrister Winery, Suggested $5 donation.

For more information on these readings, click here and scroll down to the Saturday, April 13th heading.

Don't Forget to Register for Workshops!
Visit BrownPaperTickets.com and type in "Get Lit"

The Voice is a Muscle with Lidia Yuknavitch
In this workshop we will tease out the wide varieties of voice strategies available to prose writers and practice the fine art of building voices that no one can forget. In the process we will develop a series of metaphors that match the voices you call forth in your writing. You will go home hearing voices in the best of ways. Saturday, April 13, 9:30-11:30 a.m., Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Willow 1.

Literary Collage with David Shields
Shields's work often defies strict categorization and challenges other writers to break free from the constraints of tradition and of their genres. His highly controversial manifesto, Reality Hunger (2010), is a collage of hundreds of quotes from un-cited sources, from surrealist painters to hip hop artists. On the topic of appropriation, Shields says, "Art is a conversation between and among artists, not a patent office." Saturday, April 13, 3:30-5:30 p.m., Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Riverside 1.

Graphic Novel Workshop with Dr. Sean Agriss
This graphic novel workshop considers the place of the genre in the academic canon. For beginners and intermediates that either want to start reading or creating graphic novels, this workshop will investigate the history and development of the graphic novel, will introduce essential "must read" graphic novels, and will explore possible benefits of using graphic novels as teaching tools. Saturday, April 13, 3:30-5:30 p.m., Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Riverside 2.

Registration will open starting March 1. Space is limited to 20 people per session, so pre-registration is recommended. (We will also allow day-of registration, as space allows.) Registration cost is $20 for students with ID, and $30 general. Learn more about these and other writing workshops or pre-register by visiting the Get Lit! website. You can also pre-register by clicking the workshop titles above.

Author Spotlight: Lidia Yuknavitch
Join Yuknavitch for her workshop and reading on Saturday, April 13.

Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of three short fiction collections: Real to Reel (2003), Liberty’s Excess (2000), and Her Other Mouths (1997), as well as the novel Dora: A Headcase. She is also the author of the award-winning memoir, The Chronology of Water (2011). In addition to teaching writing, literature, film, and Women’s Studies in Oregon, Yuknavitch has created the Eugene-based magazine “two girls review,” and a press in Portland called Chiasmus Press. 

Meet the 2013
Get Lit! Festival Nonfiction Writers:

Dr. John Marzluff is Professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington. His book, In the Company of Crows and Ravens(2007), reveals the hidden relationship between humans and corvids (crows, ravens, magpies). His latest work, Gifts of the Crow(2012) combines biology, conservation, and anthropology to present an in-depth look at the way humans and crows have mutually influence each other. 

Chris McDougall has worked as an AP journalist and a writer for Outside,New York Times Magazine, andMen’s Health. In Born to Run (2009), he travels from Harvard’s laboratories to Mexico’s Copper Canyon where he meets a unique tribe of runners who often cover over 100 miles, for fun, without injury or rest.

David Shields is the acclaimed author of fourteen books of fiction and nonfiction, including work that often defies strict categorization, blending and defying conventions from multiple genres. His most recent work, How Literature Saved My Life (2013), continues his appeal to writers and readers to demand more from their art.

Glenn Stout is the author of Young Woman and the Sea (2009), the true story of Trudy Ederle—the first woman, and sixth person, to swim the English Channel. He is also the author of Fenway 1912 (2012), which covers the early days of Fenway Park.

Joe Wilkins's poems, essays, and stories have earned vast recognition and awards. In his memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers (2012), Wilkins captures life in the Big Dry, a desolate region in eastern Montana that shapes the men who live there and rarely lets them go.
 

Upcoming Events:

15th Annual Get Lit! Festival
April 8-14 - Spokane, Wash.

Announcing the Get Lit! Kids and YA Headliners!

Announcing the 2013 Youth Headliners

Patricia McCormick is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the author of five critically acclaimed young adult novels, including Never Fall Down, the story of a young Cambodian boy whose musical talent proves to be his sole chance of surviving the Khmer Rouge. Joining her will be Emily Danforth, author of the widely acclaimed novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post. This event will be free and open to the public. Saturday, April 13, 11:30 am, Spokane Public Library Downtown Branch.

Rebecca Stead is the Newbery Award-winning author of When You Reach Me and First Light. Her newest book, Liar & Spy, is a story about spies, games, and friendship. The story centers on seventh-grader Georges, his eccentric new homeschooled friends, and an apartment building spy mystery that needs to be solved. This event will be free to all youth; tickets for adult general admission are available through TicketsWest. Sunday, April 14, 11:30 am, Bing Crosby Theater.

Get your Get Lit! Festival Passes Now
Buy a pass and save $20-$25 off individual ticket costs and service fees.

Eastern Washington University’s 15th Annual Get Lit! Festival will feature over 50 events including author presentations and readings, writing workshops, panel discussions, poetry slams and writing contests. A Festival Pass gets you in to see the all of the headlining events: Jonathan Evison and Kim Barnes on Thursday, April 11; Joyce Carol Oates, Jaimy Gordon, and David Shields on Friday, April 12; Major Jackson and Robert Wrigley on Saturday, April 13; and Rebecca Stead on Sunday, April 14. The Festival Pass is regularly priced at $45, saving you $20-$25 off individual ticket costs and convenience charges. Individual tickets can also be purchased for each of the headlining events for $15. (Note: Students get in to all headlining events free with current ID.) 

Author Spotlight: Major Jackson
Join Major Jackson and Robert Wrigley for a conversation about poetry.

Major Jackson is an American poet, a professor of creative writing, the author of three poetry collections, and the Poetry Editor for the Harvard Review. His work has earned him the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize as well as the honor of being a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the NAACP Image Award. He has taught in the graduate MFA programs at Columbia University and New York University. He lives in Burlington, Vermont, where he is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at University of Vermont. While his earlier works consisted mostly of long narrative poems, Holding Company signals a creative evolution with its concise ten-line lyrical poems and ecstatic tone.

“True enough,/he wanted a row of filaments inside like Times Square./The sockets were dead” –Lying

Poetry Out Loud Regional Final
Learn more about the National Poetry Out Loud Competition here.

Thursday, February 7th, Get Lit! Programs hosted the Eastern Washington Poetry Out Loud Regional Final at the Bing Crosby Theater. Students from nine regional high schools recited classical and contemporary poetry for a chance to proceed to the state finals and get one step closer to becoming national champion. Tom Zbyszewski from Liberty Bell High School won the competition with his incredible performances of “Golden Retrievals” by Mark Doty and “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye. Langston Ward from Mead High School, last year’s state champion, placed second with stirring recitations of “The Gift” by Li-Young Lee and “A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest and the Road Unknown” by Walt Whitman. Both Zbyszewski and Ward will compete in the state finals in Tacoma on March 9. 

For more information about this year's festival, visit our website.

Tom Wayman Reading at Riverpoint

Get Lit! Programs and Eastern Washington University's Visiting Writers Series are pleased to announce author Tom Wayman will be reading in the Phase 1 Auditorium at Riverpoint this Friday, February 22nd, at 7:30pm. The event will be free and open to the public.

Wayman is the author of 18 collections of poetry, two collections of short stories, and the novel Woodstock Rising (2009). He'll be sharing work from his latest collection of poetry, Dirty Snow (2012).

About Dirty Snow:

Tom Wayman's newest collection of poems, Dirty Snow, unflinchingly considers the impact of the Afghan War: its absence and presence in Canadians' everyday lives as citizens of a nation at war. The collection explores Wayman's view that Canada's military intervention in a civil war between two odious sets of combatants has degraded Canadians' quality of life by, among other means, the conflict's relentless absorption of public funds in pursuit of dubious ends...

The Beacon Hill Reading Series Presents...

The 2nd installment of this year's Beacon Hill Reading Series is on its way!

Event: An Evening of Poetry and Prose
When: Tuesday, February 12, 6:30-7:30 pm
Where: The Hagan Foundation Center at SCC
Cost: Free and open to the public

The reading will feature the following authors:

DIANE SHERMAN published her first collection of poems, Walkabout, in 2011, which won an honorable mention in the New York Book Festival in 2012. Her poems have been featured in various journals including Pisgah Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Spokesman Review, and The Cape Rock. Diane grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives with her husband in Spokane, where she teaches yoga as well as the Bare Bones Writing workshop for women.

SHARMA SHIELDS' short story collection Favorite Monster won the 2011 Autumn House Fiction Contest. Sharma’s short fiction has appeared in Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and Sonora Review, among other places. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor, a Grant for Artist Projects from Artist Trust and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose. Sharma lives in Spokane with her husband, son, and newborn daughter.

PAUL LINDHOLDT grew up on Puget Sound but now lives in Spokane. A professor of English at Eastern Washington University, he teaches literature and environmental studies. He has won awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Society of Professional Journalists, and most recently from the Washington Center for the Book for his ecological memoir In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia       Plateau (University of Iowa Press, 2011).

Upcoming Poetry Out Loud Regional Final

It's almost here.

On Thursday, February 7, students from nine regional high schools will compete in the Eastern Washington Poetry Out Loud Regional Final, hosted by Get Lit! Programs. Two winners will be chosen to proceed to the State Finals in Tacoma where they'll be one step closer to becoming the 2013 National Champion.

The Regional Final will take place at the Bing Crosby Theater from 7:00 to 9:00 pm and will include the school winners from the following high schools: Central Valley, The Community School, East Valley, Lakeside, Liberty Bell, Mead, Medical Lake, The Oaks, and Okanogan. The competition will take place in two rounds, with participants reciting one poem for each round.

Poetry Out Loud Regional Final

Thursday, February 7, 7-9 pm

The Bing Crosby Theater

Free and open to the public

Now in its eighth year, Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages the mastery of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic competition to high schools across the country. The competition begins at the classroom level, progressing through school-wide, regional, and state competitions and culminating in the National Finals in Washington, DC. More than 250,000 students across the country are expected to take part in Poetry Out Loud this year.

2013 Get Lit! Festival Lineup Announced!

2013 Festival Authors

Drumroll, please: Eastern Washington University’s Get Lit! Programs is delighted to announce the lineup for the 2013 Get Lit! Festival!

Chances are you've read something, if not many things, by Joyce Carol Oates. Maybe you spent a winter afternoon bundled up with We Were The Mulvaneys, an Oprah’s Book Club selection. Or you might have spent the summer lost in her genre-bending re-imagining of Marilyn Monroe's life and death, Blonde. Her widely anthologized short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" likely sparked discussion during your high school or college English courses, or you might have read her 2011 memoir, A Widow’s Story. As the author of more than 100 books, including novels, novellas, memoirs, poetry collections, plays and children's books, and countless essays and short stories, Joyce Carol Oates is among America's most prolific and beloved writers.

Joining her will be Jaimy Gordon, whose National Book Award-winning novel, Lord of Misrule (2010), launches readers into the corrupt and cutthroat world of cheap horse racing. At a rundown racetrack in West Virginia, horseman Tommy Hansel and his girlfriend, Maggie, plan to get rich and get out fast. But soon everyone has taken an interest in the pair, and by the time Hansel's fourth horse, Lord of Misrule, takes to the track, the stakes are far more than money. (Friday, April 12, Bing Crosby Theater, 7 p.m.)

As a poet, a professor of creative writing, and the Poetry Editor for the Harvard Review, Major Jackson's career is defined by dedication to the arts community and the drive for poetic evolution. He can portray the complexity of human relations in anything from a long narrative examination of urban life to a brief ten-line poem about forgotten possessions. Of his most recent collection, the Hudson Review writes, "the poetry Major Jackson offers us in Holding Company—unashamedly lyrical, in flight from narrative, layered with allusion and homage—sounds different from any other being written today." Jackson is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Holding Company (2010), Hoops (2006), and Leaving Saturn (2002), a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Jackson will be joined by notable poet Robert Wrigley, who will read from his latest work, The Church of Omnivorous Light: Selected Poems (2013). Wrigley is the widely anthologized author of eight previous collections of poetry, including Beautiful Country (2010), and a winner of the Poets' Prize, the Kingsley Tufts award, and six Pushcart Prizes. (Saturday, April 13, Bing Crosby Theater, 7 p.m.)

Get Lit! will also welcome Kim Barnes, award-winning author of In the Kingdom of Men, “a mesmerizing, richly imagined tale of Americans out of their depths in Saudi Arabia, a marriage in peril, and one woman’s quest for the truth, no matter what it might cost her.” Barnes’ previous work includes the highly acclaimed novel A Country Called Home (2009) and the memoir In the Wilderness (1997), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Jonathan Evison is the author of All About Lulu and the century-spanning bestseller West of Here. With his new novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, Evison is covering miles rather than years. In this “hilarious, harrowing road trip,” Ben Benjamin—forty, newly single, and unhinged—meets Trey, a nineteen-year-old with a vivid imagination and muscular dystrophy. Together, they set out across the country to learn what it means to care, and to heal. (Thursday, April 11, Bing Crosby Theater, 7 p.m.)

Festival Passes and individual tickets for the headlining events go on sale Friday, January 25, via TicketsWest (1-800-325-SEAT). The festival pass will be $45, which will gain admission to all headlining events. By purchasing a pass, you can save $15-$20 off individual ticket costs and service fees.  Individual tickets for each event are only $15. All headlining events are free to all students with a valid high school or college ID.

Additional Featured Authors

Christopher McDougall’s career as an AP journalist and a writer for Outside, New York Times Magazine, and Men’s Health has sent him into the midst of wars in the Congo and Rwanda, into the coconut trees of Brazil to investigate an unusual form of exercise, and on a hunt for a fugitive Mexican superstar. In Born to Run (2009), he sets out test his limitations as a long-distance runner. His journey takes him from Harvard’s laboratories to Mexico’s Copper Canyon where he meets a unique tribe of runners who often cover over 100 miles, barefoot, without injury or rest.
(Wednesday, April 10, Spokane Community College, free and open to the public. Bloomsday Training Run, 6 p.m. Talk and book-signing, 7 p.m.)

Other featured authors for the 2013 festival include David Shields, author of fourteen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, a controversial work that pushes at the boundaries of nonfiction, asserting that “all art is theft” and that “reality cannot be copyrighted.” His latest book is How Literature Saved My Life (February 2013). Novelist Jim Lynch has written three novels set in Washington State, including Truth Like The Sun, which takes place in Seattle during the 1962 World’s Fair. Lynch was the winner of the 2009 Washington State Book award for Border Songs. For a complete list of participating festival authors, visit our website.

Hometown favorite and award-winning author Jess Walter will also appear at the Get Lit! Festival, reading from his new collection of short stories, We Live in Water (February 2013). He’ll be joined by Shawn Vestal, Spokesman-Review columnist and author of the story collection Godforsaken Idaho. The pair will read from their brand-new collections, discuss writing, and answer questions. Moderated by writer, editor, and EWU professor Samuel Ligon.

In addition to the incredible lineup of authors, Eastern Washington University’s Theatre program will offer a special engagement of Ode, an original play based on the whirlwind romance between the great English poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, a romance cut short by tragic events. The play, written by poet and EWU professor Jonathan Johnson, will run during March 2013, and return for an encore performance on Tuesday, April 9, as part of the Get Lit! Festival.

Other Events To Look Forward To:

• The 2nd Annual Pie & Whiskey reading
• Poetry slams for kids, youth, teens, and college students
• Exhibit at the Chase Gallery featuring work created by pairs of local artists & writers
• The Come One, Come All community reading
• Writing workshops, panel discussions, and more!

Updates will be posted to the Get Lit! website over the next two weeks, including the complete festival schedule with all dates, times, and venues. Check back soon! 

Spokane: Where the Weather is Horrible and the Writing is Amazing

When people think of vibrant arts communities, they usually think of New York, LA, Seattle--cities on the coastlines. But in Spokane, if you were to pull out a calendar and put your finger on a random date, you'd probably land on a reading. To name a few, we have: Auntie's, DANGER! Live Writers, Naked Lunch Break, Broken Mic, Beacon Hill, Spokane Poetry Slam, EWU's Visiting Writers Series, and the magnificent Get Lit! Festival (this isn't journalism, bias is permissible).

It's kind of insane, really, how lucky us Spokanites are. So, let's take a minute and forget about the deadly ice-pavement we've been careening over for weeks, and the fact that we live somewhere that has "Stagnant Air Advisories," and bask in the knowledge that our writing community is better than their writing community, whoever they may be.

On a less narcissistic note, take a few minutes to look at the amazing work Spokane writers have been producing. Then forward the links to your friends in the Midwest and gloat.

Mari Hunt: 

You might remember Mari Hunt from the 2011 Inlander Short Fiction Contest, which she won with the story "Her Daughter." Now her story "In the Shadow of Elizabeth Smart" is being featured in the literary journal YARN.

From "In the Shadow of Elizabeth Smart":

Three years ago, when I was fourteen, I waited for my mother to pick me up from a department store downtown. Katie Rennert and I spent Saturday afternoon shopping, but she had to leave early. Her mom called while we were in Women’s Shoes saying she had to go out to dinner with her grandmother—or maybe it was her aunt—I can’t remember anymore. The point is, I waited for my mom by myself at the department store between two sets of doors. One set led outside, where my mother didn’t want me waiting alone, and the other led into the store. The space in between, the space where I waited, is called a vestibule. It’s a nothing space. Like being nowhere, like being fourteen.

Get the full story here.

Kevin Taylor:

Kevin Taylor spent 7 years writing for the Inlander before leaving in 2011 to pursue freelancing. No surprise here, freelancing looks good on him. His piece “Haiti: Home of Her Heart,” just won a Gold Award in the Individual Features or Feature Articles category of the 2013 CASE District VIII Communications Awards, which is a long way of saying that his feature writing is the best of the best in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Western Canada. Read more about it here.

From "Haiti: Home of Her Heart":

In Cité Soleil [site so-lay, Sun City] the poorest slum in Port-au-Prince, the chaotic capital of Haiti, Analiesse Isherwood (’11, Behavioral Neuroscience) came bearing gifts for the Christmas toy giveaway in the church. Boy. She saw the boy on the dirt street in Cité Soleil, naked but for a scrap of undefinable cloth. Plastic bottle on a string. Sitting in the passing tap-tap with her mission team, Analiesse Isherwood had the sack filled with toys – real, American toys – she had spent all her spare dollars on. 

Get the full article here.

Robert Lopez Reading at Auntie's

Get Lit! Programs and Eastern Washington University's Visiting Writers Series are pleased to announce author Robert Lopez will be reading at Auntie's Bookstore this Friday, January 18th, at 7:30pm. The event will be free and open to the public.

Lopez is the author of Asunder, a collection of short fiction, and of the novels Part of the World and Kamby Bolongo Mean River, which was named one of the 25 most important books of the decade by HTML Giant. Reviewer Blake Butler said of its inclusion on the list, "Robert Lopez helped close out my decade by closing out my brain with just about every single sentence and paragraph in this thing. It just did not stop. There is not another book I can think of that moves emotionally the way this one does."


Asunder Book Description:

The unforgettable stories in Robert Lopez's Asunder vary in length and style, but all of them devastate, all constantly cross the boundaries between poetry and prose. Here we have characters who are uncertain of themselves, of the people surrounding them. Here people are in trouble and need help. The compressed lyricism of these stories seems driven by the silence of what is not said, what lies beneath the lines and between them. As in his novels Part of the World and Kamby Bolongo Mean River, this elliptical tension of the language gives way to moments of grace and savage humor, leaving the reader startled, as though the world were a complete surprise.

Find more information, including reviews and an author bio, here.

Holiday Events for Kids Starting This Weekend!

The snow is coming and Bing Crosby is all over the radio, which means...the holidays have officially arrived. Since many of us are scrambling to come up with ways to make this year's holiday season a memorable one for our loved ones, we thought we'd help out by providing you with a list of some of the kids and youth events and activities we're most excited about...

Theater:

Babes in Toyland
Presented by Theater Arts for Children
        Dates:  December 7-16
        Times:  Fridays 7pm
                     Saturdays 4pm and 7pm
                     Sundays 2pm
        Cost: $10 adults, $8 seniors, students, and military
                 *Advance purchasing through TicketsWest is recommended.

The Nutcracker
Presented by the State Street Ballet and the Spokane Symphony Orchestra
        Location: Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox
        Dates:  December 6-9
        Times: Thursday-Friday 7:30-9:30pm
                    Saturday 2-4pm, 7:30-9:30pm
                    Sunday 2-4pm
        Cost: $16-65 depending on seating. See the above link for more details.

It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play
Presented by Interplayers 
        Dates:  Now through December 30
        Times: Wednesday-Saturday 7:30pm
                    2pm showings on select Saturdays and Sundays
        Cost: $28 adults, $22 seniors and military, $15 students

An Evening of Theatrical Music at the Bing

 On Friday, November 30, at 7:30 p.m., Eastern Washington University's music faculty will present "An Evening of Theatrical Music at the Bing Crosby Theater.

Produced by pianist and impresario Kendall Feeney, this event will feature fourteen members of the EWU music faculty. Performances will include: tango music; songs from Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods," a musical based on the Brother's Grimm fairy tales; and a fully narrated performance of Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale, the story of a fiddle-playing soldier who makes a deal with the devil. Elvis plans to make an appearance during Michael Daugherty's over the top piece, Dead Elvis, and EWU English Professor Anthony Flinn will join vocal faculty members, Randel Wagner and Steven Mortier, in the narration of A Soldier's Tale.

That's quite a line-up. Don't miss out!

What: An Evening of Theatrical Music

Where: The Bing Crosby Theater

When: November 30, 7:30 p.m.

Cost: $15 general admission, $8 for students. 

Tickets are available through TicketsWest.

David Shields Reading This Week!

The Inland Northwest Center for Writers and Get Lit! Programs, in cooperation with Gonzaga University, are pleased to announce to upcoming author events. Visiting author David Shields will be conducting a Q&A session and a reading on Friday, November 30th.

1-2pm
Author Q&A with David Shields
Foley Teleconference Room (Library)
Gonzaga University

6pm
David Shields Reading
Wolfe Auditorium--Jepson Center
Gonzaga University


David Shields is the author of thirteen books, including Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (2010) and the NY Times bestseller The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (2008). His most recent publication is Fakes (2012), a collection of short fiction in the form of itineraries, instruction manuals, forwarded emails, and other seemingly mundane artifacts, written by today's best writers and compiled and edited by David Shields and Matthew Vollmer.



Reviews for Reality Hunger: A Manifesto...

"David Shield's radical intellectual manifesto, Reality Hunger, is a rousing call to arms for all artists to reject the laws governing appropriation, obliterate the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form." --Vanity Fair

"This is the most provocative, brain re-wiring book of 2010. It's a book that feels at least five years ahead of its time and teaches you how to read it as you go." --Alex Pappademas, GQ

"...I don't think it would be too strong to say that Shield's book will be a sort of bible for the next generation of culture-makers." --David Griffith, Bookslut

The Inlander Short-Fiction Contest 2012

 Do you like The Inlander? Would you like it even better if you were in it?

The Inlander is still accepting submissions for its 2012 Short-Fiction Contest. Submissions should be stories fewer than 2,000 words and in some way related to this year's theme, "The End." Winning entries will be published in their December 20th issue.

The submission deadline is November 22nd, 11:59 pm.
Email submissions to Luke Baumgarten at luke@inlander.com

So, get writing! And if you need inspiration, here's some of what the internet as to say about "The End..."

1. NASA's take on the end of the world


2. Remember the 90s? When the end of the world would just be one giant jelly-bean boom?

3. The Simpsons' Escalator to Nowhere, anyone?

4. And of course...

Happy writing!

Mortal Geography: Alexandra Teague at EWU

 
The Inland Northwest Center for Writers and Get Lit! Programs are proud to present the first event in the 2012-2013 EWU Visiting Writer series, featuring poet Alexandra Teague. 

Tomorrow evening, on Friday, October 26th, Teague will be reading from her collection Mortal Geography at the EWU Riverpoint Campus, in the Phase 1 Auditorium, at 7pm.  

If Spokane's been getting too frosty for you, a reading is the perfect place to thaw. And remember, nothing inspires brilliant poetry like bleak weather.


The Heartland

In the beginning was snow, fluffy and colored
like cabbage. Pale green leaves of light
folded in toward the ground.

We who were from nowhere
changed zip codes often, moving
into uncertain weather. The sameness of change

never ceased to astound us. Blocks away,
the American Ice Company’s red bricks
melted to white. It was possible to believe

a whole city’s snow came from inside.
Sidewalks turned into tightropes. The sky waited.
We all had something we’d rather stayed buried.

We all had something staked on the thaw.
One morning, the mailbox backed up
with forwards, which overflowed

down the steps. We’d been located by names
that chapped our lips when we said them.
Ice hung from the gutters of the art museum

like sculptures. People paid to stay outside.
Shovels made soft sweeps, brushes
across the unalterable, as men poured salt

to our doorstep, a great evaporated sea.
The papers tallied up deaths
and reported freezing was variable.

In Houston, people start dying
when the temperature drops below thirty,
while in Anchorage, death starts

at minus five. We had become
the midpoint of a mortal geography.


From Alexandra Teague's Mortal Geography 

 

Pacific Walkers: A New Collection from Nance Van Wickel

Anticipation is building for Nance Van Winckel's forthcoming poetry collection, Pacific Walkers (2013).

The collection takes its name from the brand of shoes worn by a John Doe, one in a series of unidentified bodies found during Van Winckel's time as a reporter. The poems give voice to the nameless and forgotten--from the anonymous deceased to the portraits in discarded photo albums.

 

Nance Van Winckel is the author of five collections of poetry and three collections of short stories. She is a two-time National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient. You can find more information about her here.

Frank Zafiro: A New Novel and an Appearance at INWG

Spokane's own king of crime fiction, Frank Zafiro, has just released a new novel, Lovely, Dark, and Deep. The summary from his website says:

A city councilman is dead of an apparent suicide. Ex-cop Stefan Kopriva finds himself drawn into the case, serving an unlikely client. Once involved, he discovers that things are not as they seem.

Kopriva is quickly embroiled in dirty city politics. Along the way, he encounters pimps, prostitutes, gangsters, contractors, and the police as he tries to get to the bottom of what happened, and why. That is something no one wants, so Kopriva must risk his own freedom and his very life to find the answers, no matter how deep the corruption goes.

The novel is currently available as a Kindle edition, and a paperback version is due out soon.

If you'd like to learn more about Frank Zafiro's work and his experiences with writing and publishing, he'll be a guest speaker at the Inland Northwest Writers Guild meeting at Auntie's Bookstore tomorrow, Tuesday, October 17th, at 6:30pm!

You can learn more about him at www.frankzafiro.com

Upcoming Alexandra Teague Poetry Readings

Alexandra Teague, author of Mortal Geography (2010), will be featured at two upcoming readings!

The Beacon Hill Reading Series

Thursday, October 25^th

The Hagan Foundation Center at SCC

6:30pm

EWU’s Visiting Writers Series

Friday, October 26^th

Riverpoint Campus, Phase 1 Auditorium

7:00pm

 

Alexandra Teague is a former Stegner Fellow and NEA Fellow whose poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2008 and Best American Poetry 2009, as well as many notable journals, including The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, and Prairie Schooner.

Her debut collection, Mortal Geography, won both the 2009 Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and the 2010 California Book Award. Drawing from sources as diverse as travelogue, ESL, and Dungeons and Dragons, Mortal Geography keeps readers on their toes with its balancing act of chaos and structure. Poems about the madness of public transportation appear in sonnet form while poems about love take on unexpected forms, as in this mindbender, "Two Drafts Written After a Fight":

I.

Do I love you: yes or no?
The question: Is love a figure of speech?

I do - sometimes. Everyone wonders about our love; still,
there can be no doubt I have been true (almost always).

Happily remembering the start of our romance; it seemed
so promising ...

And is love continual happiness or not?
Is not what matters?

I cannot tell you who I want to spend my life with.
Enough about our love.


II.

Do I love you? Yes or no - the question is, love,
a figure of speech. I do.

(Sometimes everyone wonders.)
About our love, still, there can be no doubt.

I have been true, almost always happily
remembering the start of our romance;

it seemed so promising, and is. Love,
continual happiness or not is not what matters.

I cannot tell you, who I want to spend my life with,
enough about our love.



What else is there to say? This is not a poet to miss.

Spokane is Reading with Chris Cleave

This Friday, October 12th, will be the 11th Annual Spokane is Reading. If you've never been before, Spokane is Reading is a series of events organized by the Spokane Public Library, the Spokane Country Library District, and Auntie's Bookstore. Every year, they bring an influential author to Spokane to discuss one of his or her books with the community.

This year's visiting author is Chris Cleave, who will discuss his international bestseller Little Bee at two free presentations:

The Garland Theater - 1pm
924 W Garland Ave

The Lincoln Center, Monroe Ballroom - 7pm

Not familiar with the novel? The publisher has this to say...

"We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn't. And it's what happens afterward that is most important. Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds."

Chris Cleave is the author of Incendiary (2005), which inspired the film of the same name. His most recent novel is Gold (2012).

For more information about Chris Cleave, visit his website: chriscleave.com

For more about Spokane is Reading, visit: spokaneisreading.org/2012

See Sherman Alexie This Friday!

If you haven’t yet, head over to Auntie’s Bookstore and get your tickets for this Friday’s Sherman Alexie reading! He’ll be introducing his new collection, Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories, at North Central High School.

 Booklist says, "He is mischievously and mordantly funny, scathingly forthright, deeply and universally compassionate, and wholly magnetizing. This is a must-have collection."

When: Friday, October 5. 7:00 p.m. Doors open at 6:45.
Where: North Central High School, 1600 N. Howard St., Spokane, WA.

Tickets available through Auntie’s.

"Cannibalistic Undertones" and Other Not-So-Common Threats

Get out your Sherman Alexie novels and Maurice Sendak illustrations. It's time to celebrate Banned Books Week.

Banned Books Week started in 1982, the same year that the Supreme Court ruled that “local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” This landmark decision made banning books much more difficult, but it didn’t stop people from trying. 

In 2011, there were a reported 326 book challenges, or attempts to "remove or restrict materials based upon the objections of a person or group." Even The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, has faced a challenge or two. When an individual or group complains about a book to a local library, the library decides whether or not to remove the material, and since libraries are dedicated to the right to read, challenges rarely result in actual bans; but over the years, the attempts have only gotten more…interesting.

A Light in the Attic: You might remember this Shel Silverstein collection for its fun rhymes and odd illustrations, but do you remember the parts about anarchy and barbarism?  In 1985, it was challenged because it "encourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them." Then in 1986 it was challenged again because it "glorified Satan, suicide and cannibalism, and also encouraged children to be disobedient."

 The Diary of Anne Frank: Not only did this text shed light on one of the most horrific and significant moments in human history, it did so in such a way that young readers could gain a better understanding of their own humanity. Unfortunately, it was also “a real downer,” which is why it was challenged in 1985 by the Alabama State Textbook Committee.

Where’s Waldo?: Did anyone ever figure out where he was? Surely a few people did. Others--actually hordes of others--gave up the hunt for the man in the striped hat when they noticed the pea-sized topless woman lying face down on a beach towel. And where did they go? Straight to their local libraries, making this one of the most challenged books of the 90s.  

If you've got a favorite book that's been banned or challenged somewhere, you should join in the Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out. Check it out, here.

Sources: bannedbooksweek.org, ala.org, and howstuffworks.com