radiant fracture

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/book-news-roundup-third-place-books-will-donate-20-percent-of-sales-on-saturday-to-puerto-rico-relief/

• Got a press release from Third Place Books yesterday that deserves a signal boost. Here are the opening paragraphs:

This Saturday (10/21/17), Third Place Books will donate 20 percent of sales at all three of its store locations (Laker Forest Park, Ravenna, and Seward Park) to relief efforts in Puerto Rico, which has been devastated by Hurricane Maria.

Proceeds will go to Unidos Disaster Relief Fund, sponsored by the Hispanic Federation, an organization that Consumer Reports says “has been reviewed and received high ratings from two of the watchdogs, Charity Navigator and BBB Wise Giving Alliance.”

• Related to bookstores providing relief in natural disasters: bookstores in California are providing shelter to wildfire refugees.

• Of all the reasons to pull a book from a school, "It makes people uncomfortable" is maybe the worst. The book? To Kill a Mockingbird. The school? It's in Biloxi, Mississippi.

• This Wall Street Journal story about the decline of e-book sales and the smartening-up of physical book publishers is a feel-good story for people who love physical books. But it's important to remember that everything is not hunky-dory in booksville. Chain retailers are disappearing. Publishers are merging and re-merging and swallowing each other up to the point where we might have a corporate publishing monopoly in the next decade or so. I hate to rain on the parade, but now is not the time for a victory lap. Now is the time to be vigilant.

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/book-news-roundup-third-place-books-will-donate-20-percent-of-sales-on-saturday-to-puerto-rico-relief/

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/lit-crawl-itinerary-3-all-poetry-all-the-time/

Tomorrow night is Lit Crawl, a bacchanalia of literary events spread over four courses across Capitol Hill, First Hill, and downtown. You can find the full schedule here, but we wanted to provide a few possible itineraries for people who have a hard time making up their minds. Come back tomorrow for the next itnerary. Here's yesterday's itinerary.

Phase 1: Your night begins at the new Ollie Quinn eyewear shop on Capitol Hill with the best possible way to start a poetic journey through Lit Crawl: a reading from Poetry Northwest, the longest-running poetry publication in the region. Readers including Sarah María Medina, JM Miller, and Ellen Welcker will share their work and celebrate the continuation of the tradition of poetry in the Northwest.

Phase 2: Weirdly, there's no poetry-only reading in the second phase of the evening. But that's okay. If you go to Barca, you'll find a celebration of graduates of the Hugo House's Made at Hugo program, which provides resources and networking for young Seattle writers. Former made at Hugo fellows Anca Szilagyi and Ross McMeekin, will be joined by two of Seattle's very best poets: Laura Da' and Quenton Baker.

Phase 3: At Still Liquor, Seattle-based poetry collective Margin Shift will present a lineup of poets including Adriana Nodal-Tarafa, Anne Tardos, Jennifer Firestone, and the fabulous Jamaica Baldwin

Phase 4: Your poetry Lit Crawl will come to an end at Vermillion, where former Civic Poet Claudia Castro Luna will present a reading celebration of her Seattle Poetry Grid. Readers who have contributed to the online poetry map of the city including Lynn Miller, Brian Roth, and Shin Yu Pai will share their geographically oriented poems.

Come back tomorrow for the final path through the giddy bookish Choose-Your-Own-Adventure that is Lit Crawl.

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/lit-crawl-itinerary-3-all-poetry-all-the-time/

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/literary-event-of-the-week-lit-crawl/

Sometimes you just need to throw a goddamned party, you know? Sometimes you need to show off, and invite everyone over, and throw the fuck down. In the Seattle literary scene, Lit Crawl has become that party, the one-night shindig that lays everything out in one glorious buffet. Spreading across Capitol Hill, First Hill, and downtown, Lit Crawl takes place in bars and bookstores and event spaces in five different “phases” on Thursday, October 19th. Readings begin at 6 pm, 7 pm, 8, pm, and 9 pm, with an afterparty running from 10 pm to midnight at Zoë Events on E Union Street.

This is quite possibly the most diverse Lit Crawl since the San Francisco operation opened up a Seattle franchise back in 2012. It includes readings from sci-fi authors, mystery authors, kid’s books, poetry, cookbooks, and podcasts. There are readings highlighting African-American authors and Asian-American authors. Maori author Nic Low is in town from New Zealand as part of a cultural exchange. The amazing Anastacia Reneé, Seattle’s newest Civic Poet, is featured in a showcase. The Civic Poet who came before Anastacia Reneé, Claudia Castro Luna, will be presenting her final thesis — an online map of Seattle, told in site-specific poems.

I want to spotlight what must be the centerpiece of the night: Eileen Myles’s reading at Elliott Bay Book Company at 7 pm. If Myles isn’t the smartest, funniest, most important poet in America right now, she’s got to be right up near the top of the list.

Myles has written about sex, gender politics, LGBTQ issues, Iceland, and the seeming inability of poetry to communicate anything at all. Her latest book is titled Afterglow (a dog memoir), and it’s Myles’s attempt to write an autobiography for her late, beloved dog Rosie. Unsurprisingly, the book is getting hammered by Amazon reviewers who expected the next Marley & Me and came away confused. One reviewer calls the book “Too much hard work” and whines “I found Myles' style to be the antithesis of poet Mary Oliver.” (Uh, thank God?)

So obviously you know what you’re doing on October 19th. But I have a question for you: what reading are you attending on October 20th? What bookstore are you visiting on October 21st? It’s easy to show up for the big, flashy parties, but we can’t have a community unless you show up for it on days when there’s not a giant festival going on. Fewer and fewer media outlets in Seattle are providing comprehensive and consistent arts coverage—which I define as reviews, news, and interviews—and the arts in Seattle is taking a noticeable hit for it. If the media continues to abdicate their responsibility as chroniclers of the entire scene—and not just the attention-grabbing parties—this city will suffer, venues will close, and artists will move away.

Simply: if you love books, and reading, and the fantastic literary community we have here in Seattle, you have to show up for stuff. Yes, come to Lit Crawl. Obviously, come to Lit Crawl. But be here all the time. If you’re not there for the community, you’ll one day turn around to discover that the community’s not there for you.

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/literary-event-of-the-week-lit-crawl/

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/mail-call-for-october-17-2017/

http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/10/18/mail-call-for-october-17-2017/