Community Minded TV airs Get Lit!

Have you noticed the Get Lit! coverage on TV lately? If you haven't you should check out Community Minded TV (channel 14 on Comcast). CMTV is an awesome program that produces and aires locally made TV. Started in January of 2007 by Community Minded Enterprises, CMTV has grown into an excellent place to go if you want to learn about TV production. Their goal is "to bring a new voice to television by providing programming that builds and strengthens the Spokane community." Not only do they run a TV station, they create TV programs for local organizations, teach classes, and offer graphic design services. The programs they create cover many topics, and come in many forms: documentaries, commercials, and fundraising videos. The classes they offer include video production, Adobe products, lighting, and many more.

For the past couple of months, CMTV has been playing a few selections from the 2009 Get Lit! Festival. They have been airing the panel discussion "The Changing Media Landscape in the Inland Empire" as well as selections from the Teen Poetry Slam. Check out their listings for when Get Lit! will next be on.

Remembering Youth Poetry Slam!

Here are some pictures to help you remember how much fun we had during the 2009 Festival Youth Poetry Slam. Hope you stay cool this summer and perfect your prose for next year.

Our MC Daniel:

A Series of Poets in action:

Poets Gone Wild!

Thank You and Recap

The 2009 festival is over and here at the Get Lit! office we're tidying up the last few details before we get started on the preparations for next year's big event. We hope you enjoyed all of the fantastic authors and literary events that the festival offered.

Many of you filled out the feedback forms we handed out at the events, but we'd still like to hear from you in terms of what we did well, what we can improve on, and what you'd like to see at future festivals. Please use the comment section for this post to let us know.

It may seem like a year is a long time to wait for the next Get Lit! festival, but don't despair, we'll keep the blog going to let you know about literary news and events in our community. You can also check out our community calendar on the Get Lit! website.

Meanwhile, read some of the festival authors' blogs for the insider perspective of participating in a literary festival. Midge Raymond posted some glorious photos of the Spokane Falls in her Dispatches from Get Lit!. Oliver de la Paz's blog, Pugnacious Pinoy, has great shots of the other authors, as well as other stuff. (Our favorite: Food Porn!)

Martha Silano blogged diligently throughout the festival. Read about her first impression of Spokane and joy over her goody bag in Live From Spokane/Get Lit!, find out how sparkles might help you channel your muse in A Little Bleary Eyed but Still Very Lit, recognize the top ten highlights of a successful Charles Baxter event in Post-Charles Baxter Reading & Conversation at the Bing Theatre, Spokane, learn how to save the environment in David Suzuki Rocks Spokane, find out why Simon Armitage and Kathy Fagan impressed Martha in Get Lit! Finale: Kathy Fagan & Simon Armitage.

A big thank you to all of the festival authors, organizers, olunteers and attendees. Without you, the festival would not have been the great success it was.

THANK YOU!

Does it hurt to slam a poem?

Walt Whitman might appreciate the fact that slam poetry takes a lively road. Don't expect to sleep through it, though, because slam poetry is anything but subdued. This isn't anything like a poetry reading. As part of the EWU intern staff promoting the poetry slams for the past two years, I can tell you that these are definitely exciting events. Sure it's great to experience the work and wisdom of published authors here during Get Lit!, but the poetry slams are an excellent opportunity to experience some true local talent.



What should you expect? For the youth slam (ages 5-12), you should expect some animated skits from very talented emerging writers. Don't be surprised if the stage is overtaken by dancing bananas or animals. And some of them will absolutely blow your mind with their command of language. Hearing a fifth-grader turn a metaphor in on itself or make the sound of a word into a living creature is pretty amazing.

What about the Teen Slam? This is for the 13-18 age group. Well, expect some beat-boxing and expect volume--lots of it. (FYI: use your hands to form a box in front of your mouth and create a rhythmic series of bass-line noises). Expect a performance. Expect to be jolted by fresh language and creative twists. Yeah, I know the teen slam is at the Empyrean coffee house, but you won't need the caffeine to stay awake. Expect to be assaulted by words. Poetry will slam into you.

And the College Slam? That brand new, squeaky clean college slam, omplete with plasticy smell? Hmm. To be honest, we aren't exactly sure what to expect. We wanted to give the big guys (and girls) a chance to play too since the kids seemed to be having a great time. But it is yet to be seen what comes of it. Words. I can guarantee some words strung together in unique ways...ways that will... Well, just come and check it out for yourself.

Slamming April 13, 14, 15. Check the website for details: www.ewu.edu/getlit

Letting Their VOICES Be Heard OVER The Crowd

Have you ever had an uncle, grandfather, mother, or friend who told really good stories? It's captivating to sit and listen as they spin their words into something tangible.

The EWU MFA's Voiceover began as an opportunity for graduate students in creative writing to share their work with an audience outside of the classroom. It's a chance to see how an audience might react to a poem or short story or essay. Because this is a read-out-loud situation, writers often choose a humorous or an intense work--something that can be performed. And being in the audience is much more like attending a play or series of dramatic monologues than a stuffy reading.

It's a chance to really have fun with a piece of writing since it's not the same as working on thesis material or even preparing a text for workshop review by other students. It's a break--mentally--from that rigorously intense, academic, focus. Some serious writers break out the jester's hat and dance around on stage while throwing water balloons and custard pies (metaphorically speaking). Others use it as a way to try out new kinds of writing. Like the time somebody wrote a fiction story about all the things not to do in a fiction story.

Overall, it's a time for storytelling. Come and listen tonight at the Empyrean Coffeehouse (April 10 at 7:30). Because, I mean, who doesn't love a good yarn?

Got Get Lit!?

Are you anxiously awaiting the fantastic line-up of literary events that the Get Lit! Festival is offering this year? Can't wait to hear your favorite authors and discover new ones? Having trouble sleeping because you crave literary prose being read out loud to you?

If you answered yes to these or any other questions today, you should attend one of the many Milk Crate Readings that kick off all around Spokane this week. Works of the festival authors will be read by highly trained volunteers dressed in teal t-shirts while towering over you on a milk crate.

Wednesday 4/8
Gonzaga University (outside Foley Center Library) 12:00 - 1:00 pm

Friday 4/10
Spokane Falls Community College (outside of Library) 12:45 - 1:10 pm
Spokane Community College (outside Library) 10:20 - 11: 30 am
Whitworth University (on campus) 3:00 - 5:00 pm

Saturday 4/11
Thomas Hammer Coffee 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Auntie's Bookstore 2:00 - 3:00 pm
River Park Square Mall (front entrance) 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Northtown Mall/Barnes & Noble 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Barnes & Noble in Valley 3:00-4:00 pm
Spokane Valley Mall (food court) 4:00 - 5:00 pm

Monday 4/13
Eastern Washington University (Cheney Library) 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Moo to you too...

Starting April 6, you can listen to Spokane Public Radio's own Tony Flinn read excerpts from Jane Smiley's novel Moo. Listen to KPBX on 91.1 FM from 6:30 pm-7:00 pm Monday through Thursday. The readings will continue throughout April, so tune in!

Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about Moo:

"Smiley delivers a surprising tour de force, a satire of university life that leaves no aspect of contemporary academia unscathed. The setting is a large midwestern agricultural college known as Moo U., whose faculty and students Smiley depicts with sophisticated humor, turning a gimlet eye on the hypocrisy, egomania, prejudice and self-delusion that flourish on campus-and also reflect society at large. Everybody at Moo U. has an agenda: academic, sexual, social, economic, political and philosophical. Among the more egregious types that Smiley portrays are Dr. Lionel Gift, an intellectual whore who calls students "customers" and is willing to skew research to further his name and line his pocketbook; Dr. Bo Jones, who is conducting a secret experiment on an appealing boar named Earl Butz (Earl and the horses on campus are nicer than the humans by a mile); and a superlatively bossy secretary who is a lot smarter than the Ph.Ds she serves. A chapter titled "Who's in Bed With Whom" clears things up in that department-but only temporarily, since musical beds is a continuous game. A quartet of women roommates who all hide secrets from each other, an unscrupulous "little Texan with jug ears" who wants to give the college tainted money, and a stuffy dean who thinks that anything he desires is God's will are some of the large cast of characters that Smiley manipulates with remarkable ease-and though some portrayals verge on caricature, she never goes over the line. Details of midwest topography, weather and culture are rendered with unerring authenticity. The narrative sails along with unflagging vigor and cleverness, and even the ironic denouement has an inevitability that Smiley orchestrates with hilarious wit."

You can see Jane Smiley in person on Thursday, April 16 at 7:30 at the Bing Crosby Theater. Tickets are $20 ($10 students). Click here to purchase tickets.

Charles Baxter and the Cure for Insomnia

In the National Book Award finalist novel Feast of Love, an insomniac and semi-retired professor of philosophy named Charlie Baxter spends his nights roaming the streets of his hometown. In a Random House interview, the author of the book admits that the character who shares his name and is a writer also shares his insomnia, but "...at the bottom of the stairs in his house is a mirror that I don't own, an imaginary mirror, and everyone he meets or talks to is imaginary. 'Charlie Baxter' suffers from 'identity lapses,' as every novelist does." The book was adapted for the big screen in 2007, starring Morgan Freeman in the role of Charlie.

Charles Baxter, the author of Feast of Love, was born in Minneapolis and graduated from Macalester College, in Saint Paul. After completing graduate work in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he taught for several years at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1989, he moved to the Department of English at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor and its MFA program. He now teaches at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of 4 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 3 collections of poems, a collection of essays on fiction and is the editor of other works.

He originally wrote mostly poetry, but two years after completing his doctorate, Baxter experienced a crisis with his poetry prose. In an interview with Ploughshares, he describes it as: “I spent an entire summer trying to write poetry, and failing at it. It was as if the knowledge of how to do it had somehow left me, and I found myself ill-equipped to write. I was becoming more interested in sequences, characters, and characterizations, the rickrack of detail surrounding people.”

He turned to fiction writing instead, but even there, the words didn't work out. When talking about his first books, he says,“They were very abstract, these novels, very schematic, in some sense like bad postmodernism,” he says. “Nothing in them felt particularly real, although I didn’t realize that at the time. You rarely do when you’re working. I thought they were great. I was utterly baffled by the indifference or loathing with which people read them.”

Several years later and many, many rejections and bad reviews, Charles Baxter is a successful award winning novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. In an interview with Barnes&Noble he advices writers who are still waiting to be discovered: "Don't quit. Don't quit. Don't quit. Don't quit."

And how does Charles Baxter sleep these days? Very well according to what he told Ploughshares: “I’ve found the best cure for insomnia,” he says, “is thinking there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be than in bed. And my other cure is one that I first heard from Stanley Elkin, which is to imagine and then to start reading an endlessly large memorandum from some functionary in the English department.”

Don't miss hearing Charles Baxter read from his new novel The Soul Thief at the Bing Crosby Theater on Friday April 17 at 7.30 pm. (Tickets through Tickets West $10 general.)

For a preview, read Charles Baxter discussing the novel with Publishers Weekly.

Get Lit! Website is Live

Our website is finally up and running. To keep up to date with your favorite festival events and authors, make sure to visit it often.

Here are some of the gems you can find there:

Our Festival Event Calendar lists all activites day-by-day. To view events by categories, use the Program & Events-->Literary Festival navigation menu.

Author pictures and bios are on the Get Lit! Festival Authors page.

To find out how much events are and how to purchase tickets, visit the online Get Lit! Box Office.

If you'd like to volunteer during the festival, visit the Volunteer with Get Lit! page to find out what you can do and the cool freebies we offer as reward.

See you in April!

Cyber Author Panel: What Keeps You Writing?

April will arrive sooner than we think, but it’s still not quick enough for those of us that can’t wait to pick the festival authors’ brains about living the writing life. To satisfy that craving, Get Lit! asked some of the festival authors to blog about what keeps them going. Each response to the question “What Keeps You Writing?” was as unique as the authors themselves. Take our Cyber Author Panel tour of these writers’ blogs:

Kelly Milner Halls writes about being a single mom and keeping your kids in college, but adds that her motivation includes “…a burning curiosity. I was born with an unyielding need to discover the who, what, when, where, why and how of virtually any topic that crosses my field of vision….”

Activists and keeping the fight going inspires Claire Rudolf Murphy to stay at her keyboard, while Midge Raymond describes what it’s like stay motivated as a “writer who is still ‘emerging’ after a decade of slowly but surely getting published stories into the world amid my various day jobs.”

For some, the drive to write is always present. Martha Silano describes writing as something that, “…gives me permission to be silly, absurd, childish, sarcastic, ironic, grave, witty, ponderous, ambivalent, obfuscating, someone else. Who doesn't want to be some or all of these?”

Brandon Schrand acknowledges the hard work but also the reward of realizing that “not only have you placed words in a place where they had not previously existed, but you have done it in a way that affords new ways to see the world, new modes for accessing meaning.”

Many thanks to these fine writers for participating. Visit their blogs, leave them comments, and don’t forget to meet up with them again during our festival! Click on Event Details in our Blog Category list in the right navigation panel to view our festival schedule or visit the Festival Event's Calendar on our new website to find out when and where they will appear.

The Long Hard Ride of the Free Range Writers

How does a writers group stay together for 20+ years?

Get Lit! is honored to have our guest blogger Buddy Levy reveal his secrets. Festival authors: Mark Steilan, Sam Green, Brandon Schrand, and Brenda Miller will join Buddy to discuss how to design a writers life...where you get the support and the time you need to be successful. That free panel will be at the Spokane Club, Saturday, April 18 at 1pm.

cc from top: Colling Hughes, Lisa Norris, Jane Varley, Kim Barnes

The Long Hard Ride of the Free Range Writers

Part 1--Origins


By Buddy Levy-- blogging for Get Lit!



The thing is, none of us can remember exactly how it all started. That demon Time and Time’s wicked stepsister, the she-devil Memory, have conspired
against agreement on the precise details. But one thing is certain: the Free Range Writers were born in a bar.



And yet, even that claim isn’t unassailable. Better to say our writing
group, which has lasted over twenty years (again, there remains
disagreement as to our date of nascence) and which we now refer to as The
Free Range Writers, began as a core group of aspiring writers who happened
to be teaching college English and/or simultaneously going to graduate
school at the University of Idaho circa 1988, and
as an extension of our course writing, we formed our own weekly workshops
and took them to Moscow’s Garden Lounge, inside the vitals of the historic
Hotel Moscow.

There, in the dim and smoky tavern light, amidst the clink of ice cubes and
the swirl of Tennessee bourbon (or so I like to remember it now—it was more
likely Pabst Blue Ribbon and house Chablis), against the backdrop of frat
boys’ primal monosyllabic mating calls and the grating peal (think fake
fingernails scratching across a Dry Erase board) of acquiescent Sorority
sisters, five intrepid writers—Kim Barnes, Buddy Levy, Jane Varley, Lisa
Norris, and Collin Hughes—met each Monday to talk about, edit, critique,
question, assail and encourage each other’s writing. It is either
circumstantial, coincidental, or intentional that Monday at the Garden Lounge was Blue
Monday, which included a happy hour offering criminally inexpensive hard alcohol.



And we continue to meet--many children and pets and jobs, many
essays and poems and books and a couple of decades later—though now only
once a year.
 The point is that one of us (it must have been Lisa, The
Planner) suggested that we start meeting outside of classes taught and
classes taken, outside of jobs and lives and husbands and wives, and that was all it took: an impetus, a nudging of the stone down the
slope, a swift kick in the collective creative writing ass.

Once we had the outline of a weekly meeting place, a core of writers with
shared commitment, coupled with the expectation of productivity by assigned
deadlines, we were well on our way. Then it was only of matter of whose “turn” it was next week, and the minor detail of writing something you would
be willing to have close and competitive writing associates scrutinize
(verbally, and in pencil and ink) and deconstruct and nurture and sometimes,
though this was rare, suggest be orphaned or abandoned or aborted.



Meeting like that, in those early days of our group, fostered discipline and
devotion, both to the craft and to each other. And it yielded results, not
only in the tangible sense, in books and articles and poems and reviews
published, but by helping us to become writers, supporting our individual
need to live the writer’s life.



For those few golden years when we all lived together in one small college
town, we continued to meet religiously (and indeed, some of us [KIM!!!] even
wrote about religion) once a week, or sometimes once every few weeks, if a
holiday or spring break got in the way. Most importantly, we established a
routine, a pattern, a habit and even a desire to gather. A collective need
to gather. At the start, we were merely writing cohorts, colleagues, and acquaintances, but through our writing group we became much more. We became friends. We became lovers (of the written word, of the story). We became a family.

And when our group—because of graduation and jobs and the like—started to
scatter across and away from the rolling and quilted Palouse (Kim to
LCSC down in Lewiston, Jane and Lisa to Virginia Tech, and Collin and Buddy to Washington State University) we determined not to let our mission, or our writing group, die.

We simply moved it from the bar to the farm.




Note: Don't miss Buddy's reading from Conquistador, Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs along with William Dietrich (The Dakota Cipher) at Auntie's books on Friday, April 17 at 5pm. It should lead to an interesting discussion on historical fiction vs. nonfiction.

What's New with You?

Our festival authors are working authors that publish new prose, win awards, and participate in literary events (like the awesome festival we're putting on this year!).

Here's what some of them have been up to lately:

Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has been nominated as one of 2008's best books by both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. A BBC4 documantary, presented by Armitage, follows Gawain's journey from Camelot to the Green Chapel across the rural landscapes of Wales and England. It will be broadcast in 2009.

Jane Smiley recently wrote an article about Academy Awards recipient Sean Penn for the New York Times Magazine's "The Oscars Issue."

The Twin Cities' Decider, among others, loved Charles Baxter's The Soul Thief. Read their interview with the writer.

The Shanghai Daily agrees with Paul Roberts' The End of Food and says this is also a problem in China.

Phillis Levin and Martha Silano will both have poems published in The Best American Poetry 2009 (edited by David Wagoner, series editor David Lehman) which is due out from Scribner in September. Phillis was also the Guest Poetry Co-editor for the 2009 Pushcart Prize XXXIII Best of the Small Presses and Martha has been nominated for two (!) Pushcarts this year.

Ken Nesbitt's My Hippo Has the Hiccups got glowing reviews from the Poetry for Children blog. The book will be out on April 1.

Brandon Schrand won the The Carter Prize for the Essay for "The Bone Road." The prize is awarded annually to the best essay published in a volume year of Shenandoah.

All of these authors are such an inspiration! Make sure you see them live at the festival.

Getting to Know Get Lit! Authors

Get Lit! is a opportunity for the community to enjoy authors from a wide range of genres, backgrounds, and cultures; and though these authors may share themselves with the audience through their literature, the audience may only capture a glimpse of the great 'inner anecdote' of these writers. So in the interest of understanding and sharing, several of the authors have submitted a questionnaire and these were the telling and rather humorous results:

Buddy Levy
Q: What would you like to be your epitaph?
A: Here Lies Buddy Levy—tell him to get up!

Q: Who are your favorite heroes/heroines of fiction and why?
A: Oh, perhaps the Old Man in Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, because of his dogged single-mindedness and perseverance. Writers can learn a lot from his attitude and approach to life.

Charles Baxter
Q: If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?
A: A hedgehog.

Q: Finish the sentence, “If I ruled the world ...“
A: I’d resign immediately.

Q: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
A: “He looked off into the distance.”

Glenda Burgess
Q: What turns you on creatively, spiritually, emotionally?
A: Insomnia. I learned quite some time ago to keep a pad and pen on the nightstand. Lying awake in the dark, a complete prisoner of circular thoughts, has led to some fascinating break-out attempts by my inner creative.

Q: What would you like to be your epitaph?
A: I am wrestling with two. Having just finished a long manuscript editing cycle, the simple and declarative "STET!" appeals. Then again, so does...."WAIT! Hold the elevator!"

Ken Letko
Q: Can you describe yourself in three words?
A: I love wood.

Q: Do you have a good scar story?
A: I don’t really have a scar story, but when I was about eight years old, my best friend shot out one of my front teeth during a BB gun fight. There was no anger, hatred, or malice in the incident. We were just having a BB gun fight, and I should’ve ducked.

Oliver de la Paz
Q: What is your greatest extravagance?
A: Definitely my music collection. According to iTunes, I have 170 days-worth of music.

Q: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
A: “Bird.” I have too many birds in my poems.

Laurie Notaro
Q: What is your motto?
A: "I can get it cheaper."

Q: Do you have a good scar story?
A: The scar on my pinky is from a fight I got into with my younger sister when I discovered she had eaten my piece of leftover pizza for lunch. We were in grade school, but her hands had the pinch of a lobster. Brutal. She's still mean to this day.

Martha Silano
Q: What turns you on creatively, spiritually, emotionally?
A:
a. kitschy old books like Chain Saw Savvy and How to Be fit and Healthy at 29
b. when one of my kids asks me a philosophical question ("Does the world end?"); my kids in general
c. the hodge podge of a second hand store
d. various theories/beliefs about the origin of the universe
e. most any nonfiction
f. poorly-translated-into-English restaurant menus
g. the button on my stove that reads, "Stop Time"
h. potentially anything except a beautiful sunset

Q: What natural gift would you like to possess?
A: I don't know if this is natural or not, but I would like to be able to run 8-minute miles without too much pain. It would also be nice to have a knack for learning languages, playing the guitar, and knowing how to sing.

Sherry Jones
Q: What would you like to be your epitaph?
A: "So many books, so little time."

Q: What is your favorite word, and why?
A: "Islamopanderer" is my favorite. Some conservative bloggers intended it as an insult against me for writing The Jewel of Medina, and I love it.

Q: Who are your favorite heroes/heroines in real life (dead or alive) and why?
A: Salman Rushdie, for living, and writing, courageously. Benazir Bhutto, for daring to dream a better world. Hillary Clinton. Oprah Winfrey. Gloria Steinem. A'isha, the protagonist of my first two novels, for defying the constraints of her culture to reach her highest potential.

Jane Smiley
Q: What would be your perfect day?
A: I have one at least three or four times a week. Writing, riding, reading, cooking, eating.

Q: What is your favorite word, and why?
A: My favorite word is "crisp." Don't know why. Because it's delicious, maybe.

Q: Choose three people, dead or alive, to invite to dinner. What would you talk about?
A: Harriet Beacher Stowe, Barack Obama, Oscar Wilde, Emile Zola--I have NO idea what we would talk about. That's why it would be interesting.

10 Best Books of 2008

And the winner is...

They do it in the movies all the time. They pick the best. Sometimes it's arbitrary. Sometimes it's much needed recognition. With the scent of the Oscars in the air this weekend, I thought noting the best books of 2008 would be in order.

Seattle Post Intelligencer beat me to it. John Marshall, their book critic, has named the following his favorite:

OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson

NORTHLINE by Willy Vlautin

APPLES & ORANGES by Marie Brenner

OLIVE KITTERIDGE by Elizabeth Strout

FINAL SALUTE by Jim Sheeler

KNOCKEMSTIFF by Donald Ray Pollock

TRAFFIC by Tom Vanderbilt

THEM by Nathan McCall

THE GEOGRAPHY OF LOVE by Glenda Burgess

THE ENGLISH MAJOR by Jim Harrison

Glenda Burgess...she's one of our 2009 Get Lit! Festival authors!

John had this to say about her latest book: "An unlikely love affair blossoms into an exemplary married and family life in this inspiring memoir by a Spokane writer who previously has written two novels. Even when her husband, Kenneth Grunzweig, develops cancer, they continue to act upon "the instinct to seize a sure and ebullient happiness, or go down trying." What might sound like a two-hankie Hallmark TV movie is elevated into affecting art through Burgess' superb handling of intimate material."

You can come to a reading with local authors Glenda Burgess and Sherry Jones on Saturday, April 18 at 10:30am in the South Hill Library.

Now, while John obviously has very good taste, we'd like to hear your favorites of 2008! Here's the kicker: you can only pick ten!

Getting to Know Two Local Graphic Novelists

We asked our authors to do a little 20 question quiz. No, not one of those you find in Elle magazine...much more literary then that! Local authors Manny Trembley and Eric Anderson work together so they decided to answer together as well. In fact, I am beginning to wonder if they aren't maybe the same person with a split personality. They seem inseparable. You'll get to hear about their work as graphic novelists during the festival. But here is just some fun insight into the psyche of the two(?) GNers.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Manny- White Chocolate Raspberry Mochas. I mean, the pursuit of creating content. It's always on my mind to tell stories. Spewing out narrative, in any form gets me excited.
Eric- Chocolate Cherry Mochas. And also telling those story things. And watching lots of movies. So we can steal their ideas for use in creating a comics empire.

What is your motto?

We don't have one but here you go:"Create the content you want to see in the market." Don't pander to the man or the woman or the child for that matter. Make "your" entertainment.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Manny- Short. Stocky. Balding.
Eric- Tall. Stocky. Hirsute.

What is your favorite (or least favorite) word and why?

Manny- Curmudgeon is a sweet word, so is austere and velour. I'm partial to quandary and meander too.
Eric- Ooh, good question. I'm going to have to go with "octagonal." It's got everything: tentacles, cage matches…you name it.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Eric- Manny says "rad-tacular" a lot. It's really annoying.

Who are your favorite heroes/heroines of fiction and why?

Manny- Don Quixote: The representation that chivalry is both alive and dead, all wrapped up in one character. Eric - Easy question, Kermit the Frog because he represents every man and yet he is green and not a man.

Who are your favorite heroes/heroines in real life (dead or alive) and why?

Manny- Dan Cragg, my High School art teacher. Cliché, I know. But there it is. He pushed me as much as he encouraged me. My aunt Jean bought me my first art table. That's got to count for something special in the worlds of artsy-ness.

Choose three people, dead or alive, to invite to dinner. What would you talk about?

Manny- Chuck Jones, Mr. T., and Will Ferrell. I wouldn't direct the conversation, I'd simply watch Mr. T's gold chains sway to the wild riffing of Will and Chuck. It'd be hypnotic. Eric- Jim Henson, Hayao Miyazaki, and George Lucas. After dinner, Jim, Hayao, and I would berate George for making the last 3 Star Wars flicks.

What are your favorite names and/or how do you name your characters?

Weatherby Ian Poppington III and Wikkity Jones. Manny came up with Wikkity and Eric birthed Weatherby. They were both created to represent the absurdity of both characters. I think we succeeded.

What is the first job (or the best job) you ever had?

Manny- McDonalds. Half priced food was a HUGE reward.
Eric- I worked in a little antique shop and repaired lamps. I never managed to electrocute myself even once. Shame, really.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?

Manny- Juggling cats. I can kind of juggle, but if I could juggle cats, the world would be my oyster cracker.
Eric- Laser vision. That's "natural," right?

What has been your favorite journey?

Manny- My marriage to my wife. Not to get all sentimental on you. But being married rocks the box.
Eric- Sorry, I can't answer this because I'm still too misty-eyed from Manny's answer.

What would be your perfect day?

Manny- Waking as I see fit to slither over to the creative weigh station to write, draw, or drink delicious beverages of choice; a simple day indeed.
Eric- Same thing Manny said… only less meaningless weigh station references. It'd be nice to make a living just telling stories and making content—maybe someday.

What makes you laugh out loud?

Manny- Bad puns.
Eric- Jokes about pirates.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Manny- Beef jerky.
Eric- Expensive electronics.

What item are you never caught without or what item is your most treasured possession?

Manny- Treasured possession is my stacks and stacks of art that I completely mistreat. I love it, but I keep it on my floor. My wife had a special cabinet made to store it, but up until recently, I stored it in disorganized stacks. I took pride in those piles of landfill.
Eric- My turn to be sentimental. I'm going to say "my wife," although I guess counting her as a possession means that I might like… end up selling her or something or like losing her at cards. That didn't end up as sentimental as I intended.

What is the oldest item of clothing you still wear…what's the story?

Manny- I still have my baseball glove I had when I was kid and I still use it. It's a Cooper.
Eric- I still wear an old pair of antique eyeglasses I picked up like 15 years ago. They are oh-so-comfortable. And un-trendy!

Do you have a good scar story?

Manny- My sister chipped her tooth on my head. Does that count?
Eric- No, only the emotional kind.

If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?

Manny- I have no interest in coming back.
Eric- I'd come back as me, only hopefully less stupid next time.

What would you like to be your epitaph?

Manny- The date I was born and the day I died. Those would be good things to have. Beneficial for all those grave robbers to identify how decayed I am. Oh, and I'd like my name—for clarity.
Eric- I'd try and break into Manny's graveyard and change his epitaph to "Free Headstone."

Bonus: Finish the sentence, "If I ruled the world ..."

Manny- "If I ruled the world ...I'd rule the world."
Eric- No bonus homework for me. It's the weekend.

Graphic Novels, from Post-it Notes to Publisher
Saturday, April 18 at the Spokane Club (1:00)
Two Spokane comics creators discuss the ups and downs of creating graphic novel content for both the web and print. Eric Anderson and Manny Trembley have created two original graphic novels as well as two mini-series published through Image Comics. They will share their experiences breaking in to the comics industry and be happy to answer questions as well.

Ellen Wittlinger Tells it Like it Is

One of the most featured authors of teen book sites and MySpace discussions is joining us for our Young Adult event on Sunday, April 19.

Ellen Wittlinger is a former children’s librarian, Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate, and Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellow (twice!) who writes YA books that realistically portrays the issues of today's teenagers. She doesn’t shy away from controversial topics such as oral sex and gay teens coming out, which caused residents in Alabama to try to censor her novel Sandpiper, while high schoolers all over the country devour her books.

Ellen started out as a poet and published Breakers in 1979. It wasn’t until she had two kids of her own and was working as a children’s librarian that she thought of writing for the YA market. She found her true calling; after two other successful novels, Hard Love was published in 1999 and became an American Library Association Michael L. Printz Honor Book, a Lambda Literary Award winner, and a Booklist Editors' Choice. She wrote nine more great books for the YA audience. Her most recent, Love & Lies, is a companion book to the award-winning Hard Love. In it, Marisol returns to accomplish two things: write a novel and to fall in love. “Marisol remains the character we came to know and love in Hard Love: unflinching, unsentimental, and wickedly funny. She is one of the most realistic lesbian characters ever to appear in a young adult novel. " -- K. T. Horning, Worth the Trip

But you don't have to be a teenager to enjoy Ellen’s books! Check out to these interviews conducted by the various audiences who love Ellen Wittlinger’s prose: Author profile on teenreads.com, Teacher Trenches: An Interview with Ellen Wittlinger, and Ravenstone Press’ Authors Among Us - Children's Writers Who Are or Who Have Been Librarians. See you all on the 19!

Welcome Literary Librarians!

Get Lit! is super excited to be partnering with WLA to bring Jane Smiley to our 2009 festival. We can't wait to meet meet the WLAers at Jane's reading on Thursday, April 16th. But why spend only one evening with us? Library professionals are some of our favorite people and we'd love to get to know you better.

If you are one of the WLA conference attendees in April, why not extend your stay through the weekend? We have a fantastic line-up of author readings, workshops, and community panels for you to enjoy.

On Saturday April 18, if you are interested in writing, you can participate in our workshops ($25 each) on playwriting, screenwriting, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or editing. Or you can check out our FREE community panels on topics such as: battling censorship, writing for children, online storytelling, the art of graphic novels, and Jane Austen. We also invite you to enjoy our KPBX Kids Concert "Songs and Stories from Around the World" with storyteller Margaret Lippert and the Spokane Area Children's Chorus at the Bing Theater. Or visit a local library to listen to other festival authors reading around town: Sherry Jones and Glenda Burgess at the South Hill Library, Samuel Green and Oliver de la Paz at the Downtown Library, or Kathryn Trueblood and Martha Silano at the North Spokane Library.

After enjoying dinner in one of Spokane's many great restaurants, why not spend the evening listening to environmental writer and activist David Suzuki ($20) speak and read from his book The Big Picture along with Pulitzer-prize winning author William Dietrich?

On Sunday April 19, join us for coffee, tea, and poetry with leading British poet, Simon Armitage ($10). He's short listed to be the new UK Poet Laureate! At 1pm. the Young Adult author Ellen Wittlinger will read from her latest, Love and Lies and talk about the award-winning Hard Love.

For more information visit our new festival website, or contact Dani Ringwald at 509 368-6590.

We look forward to seeing you in April! The conference planners have been working hard, so I know you're in for a treat.

Curiousity May Kill Cats...But Never Readers

If you are looking for the most up to date information on the 2009 Get Lit! Festival, look no further! We are currently hammering and nailing away on our website renovation. I anticipate it will be up and running starting the first of the year. But for those of you who are wanting to get a jump on the festival in order to plan for your bookgroup, read up on the authors who will be in attendance, or just start the Get Lit! gossip going, we update this blog each week with useful information for readers and writers and festival fans.

Over on the side you'll see a basic outline of the festival schedule as it stands now, plus a listing of authors who will be attending the festival. Watch that one grow from three to twenty over the next few months!

And if you are interested in joining our e-newsletter list, we are sending out monthly updates about the festival. Just go to: http://www.ewu.edu/getlit/mailings.htm

Speak Your Word!

In 1986, Marc Kelly Smith hosted the first poetry slam at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago. He shared the stage with Mike Barrett, Rob Van Tyle, Jean Howard, Anna Brown, Karen Nystrom, Dave Cooper, and John Sheehan, all fellow members of the Chicago Ensemble of Poetry, and the event soon migrated to the Green Mill, a tavern and jazz lounge in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood.

The movement grew to a worldwide phenomena and today, the National Poetry Slam features approximately 80 certified teams each year, culminating in five days of competition. This competition--described by Marc Smith as "part Super Bowl, part poetry summer camp, and part traveling exhibition"--is the slam's highest-profile showcase. As for the participants, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry has this to say about the early slam poets:

"The experimenters in this new style of poetry presentation gyrated, rotated, spewed, and stepped their words along the bar top, dancing between the bottles, bellowing out the backdoor, standing on the street or on their stools, turning the west side of Chicago into a rain forest of dripping whispers or a blast furnace of fiery elongated syllables, phrases, snatches of scripts, and verse that electrified the night."

Our own city has a vibrant Slam Poetry scene. The Empyrean coffeehouse (154 S. Madison) hosts Spokane Poetry Slam tournaments the second Thursday of every month at 7 pm. Poets perform their work in front of judges selected from the general audience. Before the competition there is an open mic session and world class slam poets are regularly featured during intermissions.

In addition, Get Lit! Programs and Writers in the Community work with students in our community to hone their Slam Poetry skills and ultimately compete in one of tournaments that takes place during the Get Lit! Festival. For next year's festival, we've added a college night in addition to our regularly featured youth and teen events. Here are the dates:


Monday, 13th April, 5.30 pm - Youth Slam Poetry (ages 5-12) at the Kress Gallery in the RiverPark Square mall.

Tuesday, 14th April, 6.30 pm - Teen Slam Poetry (ages 13-18) at the Empyrean coffeehouse.

Wednesday, 15th, 7.30 pm - College Slam Poetry at the Empyrean coffeehouse.


If you are interested in perfecting your Slam Poetry prose by inviting someone to your school/college or if you want to find out more about participating in the Get Lit! Festival tournaments, please contact Ross Carver (354 7437, witc@ewu.edu) for the youth and teen events, and Daniel Harrington (218 8426, lotuscreations4U@gmail.com) for the college event.

We're looking forward to seeing you on stages around town.

Just remember: "The point is not the points. The point is the poetry!"

No More Food, No More Black Gold

You might expect the author of The End of Oil and The End of Food to be gloomy and dry, but at a recent appearance in San Francisco , Paul Roberts was described as "candid and engaging." Thanks to the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities and the President's Speakers Series at Spokane Community College we'll be able to see this charismatic speaker at next year's festival on Wednesday the 15th of April at 7.30 pm in the Lair Auditorium at SCC.

A journalist since 1983, Paul Roberts has written for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The (UK) Guardian and has freelanced for Slate, USA Today, The New Republic, Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, Rolling Stone, and Outside magazine. He was a finalist for the National Magazine Award (1999) and for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2005.

The topics of The End of Oil, the decline of global petroleum production, the social and political costs of a post-oil shock and the possibilities for moving beyond oil, are hotter now than they were when the book came out. That explains why a 2004 Mother Jone's interview with Paul Roberts reads like it is about our upcoming election, if you just blank out the candidates' names. In his June 2008 National Geographic article, "Tapped Out," Paul describes how oil companies are predicting when supplies will level off, but explains why that won't change how much money we're spending at the pump. "Whatever the ceiling turns out to be, one prediction seems secure: The era of cheap oil is behind us. "

As if not being able to drive your SUV for much longer isn't bad enough, Paul's latest book, The End of Food, discusses the factors involved in third world food crises and how western nations will soon feel the effects of them, because of how dependent we are on our large-scale, hyper-efficient industrialized food production, which generates food more cheaply than at any time in history, but has reached a point of dangerously diminishing returns.

Read Bee Wilson's May 19, 2008 Critic at Large article, "The Last Bite: Is the world’s food system collapsing?," in The New Yorker for an in dept review of the book. Then listen to Paul Roberts discussing these issues with Tom Ashbrook on NPR's On Point show from May 28 of this year. That should prepare you enough to be able to participate in what is sure to be a lively discussion on the 15th. You could of course also buy Paul's books and read them before next April.

See you then!