Get Lit! offers events for the younger set
Doesn’t seem as if it’s been a full year, but Get Lit!, Eastern Washington University Press’ annual literary festival, is here again.
And amid all the activities offered for adults by the 2006 edition of the event, there’s always time for teens – and those even younger.
On Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore will house two different age-group poetry slams, youth and teen. Youth poets are classified as anyone age 11 and younger, while the teen group ranges from ages 12 to 19.
The youth group begins at 4:30 p.m., with registration set for 3:45. The teens begin at 6:30 p.m., with registration at 5:45.
Entrance fees for each participant are $2 plus a can of food for the Spokane Food Bank.
Set up as a team competition, the slams will consist of three rounds of poetry to be judged by five audience members. Each age group will be limited to 20 teams total (so show up early to avoid getting eliminated before you even begin).
Prizes for the winning youth team include a chance to perform at Saturday’s KPBX Kids’ Concert (1 p.m. at The Met), Get Lit! T-shirts and $50. Second place gets $25 cash and T-shirts, while third place receives T-shirts only.
Teen winners will perform during Friday’s main poetry event, which begins at 7 p.m. at The Met, and get $50 and T-shirts. Second- and third-place teams will receive the same as the respective youth teams.
Auntie’s Bookstore is at the corner of Main and Washington. For further Get Lit! information, call 623-4262 or go online at www.ewu.edu/getlit.
Not for adults only
Get Lit! officially kicks off on Monday with a free 7 p.m. reading at the Empyrean coffee shop, 154 S. Madison St., by graduate students in EWU’s creative writing department.
On Tuesday, what’s being billed as a free “Family Read Workshop” will be held at 4 p.m. at the downtown branch of the Spokane Public Library, 906 W. Main Ave.
Wednesday is a busy day. Author and retired librarian Nancy Pearl (“Book Lust”) will speak at 11:30 a.m. on “World War I and the Literature of War” at Spokane Community College’s Hagan Center. Following the youth and teen poetry slams mentioned above, author/essayist bell hooks (the lower-case spelling is intentional) will speak at 7 p.m. at The Met, 901 W. Sprague Ave.
Pearl will speak again at Thursday’s sole event, which begins at 7 at The Met (and will make a third appearance at 8 a.m. Friday at SCC), preceded by poet Julie Gamberg, who will be presented with EWU Press’ Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry for 2005.
Poet Yusef Komunyakaa will speak at 7 p.m. Friday at Showalter Hall Auditorium on EWU’s Cheney campus, novelist Marilynne Robinson (“Gilead”) at 7 p.m. Saturday at The Met, and mystery writer Alexander McCall Smith (“No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”) at 3 p.m. Sunday at The Met. A series of workshops, panels and readings will run throughout Friday and Saturday.
Tickets for hooks’ appearance are $15 reserved, $10 general admission, $8 students. Pearl’s Thursday night talk runs $12 reserved ($10, $8). On Friday, tickets to Komunyakaa are $20 general admission, $10 student.
Robinson’s Saturday reading costs $25 reserved ($18, $10), and tickets to Smith’s Sunday talk are $35 ($25, $10).
For a full lineup and to order tickets, call (800) 325-SEAT or go online at www.ticketswest.com.
Calling writers, again
A daylong conference for aspiring writers will be held on Saturday in St. Maries. The conference is a fundraising event for the Plummer (Idaho) Public Library and begins at 8:30 a.m. at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 10th and College. It will feature workshops in poetry, manuscript submission, common writing mistakes and more. Cost is $40. Call Patrice Lee at (208) 686-0627.
No Tinman
Because of Get Lit!, the regular meeting of the Tinman Artworks Book Club, which was to have been held Wednesday, has been postponed until next month.
According to an e-mail from Tinman owner Sue Bradley, “Tinman will also be the bookseller at Saturday night’s presentation by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson. Robinson won the Pulitzer for fiction for her best-selling novel ‘Gilead.’ She formerly lived in the Sandpoint area and returns for this great annual literary festival …” (325-1500).
Book talk
“Dark City Mystery Book Group (“Darkly Dreaming Dexter,” by Jeff Lindsay), 7 p.m. Monday, Auntie’s Bookstore (838-0206).
The reader board
“Slide-show presentation by Sierra Club member Rich Leon, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore. Copies of both editions of “Spokane Trail Guides” will be available for purchase.