Showing posts with label Get Lit Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Get Lit Festival. Show all posts

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Get Lit!'s Poetry Salon

The Get Lit! Festival is having an informal poetry salon, modeled after the salons of early 20th century Paris. The event will consist of a reading and discussion by six poets hosted by Eastern Washington University's Creative Writing professor Jonathan Johnson. Each of the poets will discuss their craft and their writing life.

The poets include:
Elizabeth Austen, a Seattle poet, performer, and teacher will be reading from her book Every Dress a Decision. She has produced literary programming for one of Seattle's NPR affiliates, KUOW, which introduces recordings of the Pacific Northwest literary events and interviews local and national poets.
Click here to watch Elizabeth Austen read from her book, Every Dress a Decision.

Thomas Brush is an author of three poetry collections and his work has appeared in journals such as Poetry, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, and The North American Review. He established a literary magazine called Better Days, along with a reading series, while teaching English at Kent-Meridian High School. Brush’s forthcoming poetry collection Last Night, winner of the 2011 Blue Lynx Prize, includes poetry from the last twenty years about his childhood, his current reflections on the world, and the places he delights in and lives in.

Molly Tenenbaum has three full-length poetry collections: The Cupboard Artist (2012), Now (2007), and By a Thread (2000), as well as chapbooks Blue Willow, Old Voile, and Story, and single poems in many journals. She has held residencies at Hedgebrook and at the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center, participated in the Jack Straw Writers’ Program, and was awarded a 2009 Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship.

Kathryn Smith is an EWU MFA alum, a copy editor for the Spokesman-Review, a master gardener in training, and a community volunteer. According to Mary Oliver, Smith tries to "keep my mind on what matters, / which is my work, / which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished."

Kathleen Flenniken was recently named the Washington State Poetry Laureate and her second collection of poetry, Plume, was selected for the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series. Her first collection of poems, Famous, winner of the 2005 Prairie Schooner Prize, was named a 2007 Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award.

Russell Thorburn enjoys having a successful career as a poet, teacher, and radio hour writer. He writes poems about “fighting against the silence” based on his personal life journey. He repeatedly includes a character named Agent X who time travels to sorrowful and gratifying moments in Thorburn’s life. Thorburn has compared Agent X to Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim.   

What: Poetry Salon
Where: Rocket Bakery (1325 W. First Ave., Spokane)
When: Friday, April 13 2012 9:00 PM
Cost: FREE!
More Information:
Visit Get Lit!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Sarah Conover at Auntie's

Sarah Conover will be reading selections from Easy to Love But Hard to Raise at Auntie's Bookstore. The book is written by and for parents of children with special needs such as ADD, OCD and other diagnosed conditions.

Conover holds a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from the University of Colorado, a degree in education from Gonzaga University, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. Also, she is the founder and editor of the This Little Light of Mine series that was published by Eastern Washington University Press.

She also participates in the Get Lit! Writers in Residence program. It's a program that was started in 2004 and has helped students gain enthusiasm for learning and writing. Writers in this program visit classrooms weekly over the course of 10-24 weeks, helping students realize their potential by teaching them to write from their own experiences and experiment with style and form. After each lesson, the writers leave the lesson plan with the teacher so the teacher will be able to use that lesson in other classrooms to widen the impact of this program.

Sarah Conover is also a Get Lit! Festival author! She will be holding another reading at Auntie's on Saturday, April 14 at 10:00 AM. Don't miss out on either event!


What: Sarah Conover reading of Easy to Love But Hard to Raise
Where: Auntie's Bookstore (402 W. Main Ave., Spokane)
When: Thursday, March 22 2012 7:00 PM
Cost: FREE!
More Information:
Email lois@auntiesbooks.com
Call (509) 838-0206

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Rick Bass and Stellarondo Performance

Stellarondo will be performing while Rick Bass reads some of his work during the Get Lit! Festival at the Masonic Temple.

Rick Bass is a well known author of twenty one books of both fiction and nonfiction. His books include Where The Sea Used To Be, Winter: Notes on Montana, In The Loyal Mountains, and The Book of Yaak. Bass has lived in the Yaak Valley for over twenty years, serving both on the Yaak Valley Forest Council and the Round River Conservation Studies. 

Bass won the 1995 James Jones Literary Society First Novel Fellowship for his novel in progress, Where the Sea Used to Be. He was a finalist for the Story Prize in 2006 for his short story collection The Lives of Rocks. He was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award (autobiography) for Why I Came West (2009). He was also awarded the General Electric Younger Writers Award, a PEN/Nelson Algren Award Special Citation for fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. His latest novel, Nashville Chrome, is the fictional story of a family of country singers.  

Stellarondo is a folk/indie rock band from Missolua, Montana. Their name is taken from Eudora Welty's story "Why I Live at the P.O." After Rick Bass first encountered the band, he felt he had found a rejuvenating oasis and never wanted to leave. After a couple months of Bass sitting in on rehearsals, a collaboration was born.

Brian Schott, the founding editor of the Whitefish Review noted that, "Rick Bass and Stellarondo mesmerized the audience from the first note to the last vibrations of the weeping saw. Start with the haunting voice and lyrics of Caroline Keys, throw in an astonishingly versatile and talented band, and then mix that up with the poetic story-telling of Rick Bass, and I can confidently say that I've never tasted such a beautiful ensemble of art. It's a magic recipe."
 
What: Rick Bass reading and Stellarondo concert
Where: Masonic Temple, Blue Room (1108 W. Riverside Ave., Spokane)
When: Saturday, April 14 2012 7:00 PM
Cost:
Adults - $15
Students and Kids - FREE!
More Information:
Visit Get Lit!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Keith Boykin at SCC for Get Lit!

Keith Boykin will be at Spokane Community College for two days during the Get Lit! Festival for a reading and a discussion followed by a Q&A session.

Boykin is a well known editor of The Daily Voice online news site, a CNBC contributor, a BET TV host, and a New York Times best-selling author of three books, One More River to Cross, Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies, and Denial in Black America, and Respecting the Soul. His his fourth book For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Still Not Enough, a collection of stories published by authors, public figures, and anyone else who has faced adversity, will be released March 13th 2012.

The reading and discussion should be very inspirational! Don't miss out!

What: Keith Boykin reading, discussion and Q&A
Where:
Reading - Lair Auditorium @ Spokane Community College (1810 N. Greene St., Spokane)
Discussion and Q&A - Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities @ Spokane Community College (1810 N. Greene St., Spokane)
When:
Reading - Wednesday, April 11 2012 7:00 PM
Discussion and Q&A - Thursday, April 12 2012 9:30 AM
Cost: FREE!
More Information:
Visit Get Lit!

Monday, March 5, 2012

Poem of the Week by Molly Tenenbaum

For practice, let something stay broken,

the faucet's drip keep you waking.

Keep on paying insurance though the car won't go,
don't fix it,
dead on the street, gray and flaking.

Let it keep, unmended, something small-
the cat's arthritic knee-
she's getting used to it after all.

The bird bath frost cracked left blue shards in the garden-
Well, they were pretty, weren't they?
Cutting in summer
fingers at work in the larkspur.

Even the path
to Piper's Creek, all fall a shower of gold,
and in the old orchard, the copper-brown, penny-sized pears.

Today, an orange barrier-strip, and the sign says
Path Closed, the storm, a raw sewage flow.

Let them never clear it. Let last week's
have been the last walk there, back on that day

so windy, so bright-edged
and beam-struck, it was impossible
to sit down or stop or look up.

Molly Tenenbaum is one of the poets participating in the 2012 Get Lit! Festival. The above poem comes from her recently released collection, The Cupboard Artist. She will be part of the Friday morning panel "From Vinegar Bottles to Verse: Discovering Poetry in Overlooked Objects" at SFCC and will be reading her work at the Poetry Salon later that night. Click here for more information about Molly.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Introducing Our 2012 Festival Headliners

Eastern Washington University's Get Lit! Programs is excited to announce the headliners for our 2012 Get Lit! Festival, which will take place April 10-15.

Lois Lowry
Why you know her: You've probably read at least one of her novels in school, since she's written over 30 children's and young adult books, including the Newbery Award winners Number the Stars and The Giver.
Why we're excited: She'll be reading from the latest installment of The Giver series, and The American Place Theatre's Literature to Life® Stage Presentation of The Giver promises to be a must-see event.

Jess Walter
Why you know him: He's the author of The Financial Lives of the Poets and The Zero, and if you live in the Pacific Northwest, he's one of our favorite celebrities.
Why we're excited: This EWU alum continues to outdo himself. We just heard that The Financial Lives of the Poets, TIME Magazine's #2 novel of the year in 2009, is being made into a movie. Plus, he's got a new book coming out in June of 2012, The Beautiful Ruins.

Colson Whitehead
Why you know him: He's written works of fiction such as The Institutionist and Sag Harbor, and The New York Times Book Review says he writes with "economy, texture, and punch."
Why we're excited: He's known for his mix of humor and intellect in his approach to social commentary, and Zone One, his latest novel which he'll be reading from, is no exception.

Ted Kooser
Why you know him: He's a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate, he's written over ten poetry collections, and he runs the weekly American Life in Poetry column.
Why we're excited: This down-to-earth insurance agent turned poet is all about making poetry accessible and enjoyable for everyone, and we're sure his event will be just that.

Susan Orlean
Why you know her: She's the author of creative non-fiction works such as The Orchid Thief (on which the movie Adaptation was based) and My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere.
Why we're excited: She'll be reading from her new book of non-fiction, Rin Tin Tin: Life and Legend, which chronicles the real life story of the celebrity dog. And everyone loves dogs.

Steve Almond
Why you know him: He's written non-fiction works like Candyfreak and Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, and his newest collection of short stories, God Bless America, was released a week ago.
Why we're excited: He's hilarious, honest, and edgy, and you never know what might come out of his mouth.

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