Many thanks to Samudre Media for documenting Pay Dirt, the event culminating a year + of work on my novel PARALEGAL, thanks to an Art Project grant from 4Culture and a Jack Straw Fellowship. The Samudres do beautiful work in the Seattle arts community.
On December 3 at 7 pm, I'm reading from my novel PARALEGAL at the Jewelbox Theater in Belltown. This performance culminates a year+ of work on a project whirred forward by support from 4Culture and Jack Straw Cultural Center, for which I am very grateful. I'll be joined by four fantastic Jack Straw Fellows whose work intersects with mine, on the topics of art, money, and desire: Bernard Grant, Emily Bedard, Matthew Schnirman, and Martha Kreiner. Please come!
Autumn, that busy literary season, starts a bit early for me, with three readings coming up this month, and more to follow September through December. As I promised on King 5's New Day Northwest (!!!), I will channel a young Jack Nicholson in at least one reading this year. 
AUGUST
- Wednesday August 19, 7:30 pm: Family Affair is a family-themed cabaret at the Rendezvous in Belltown. Jack Straw fellows Clare Johnson, Matthew Schnirman, Bernard Grant, Ross McMeekin, Jeanine Walker, and I will regale you with all things family.
- Thursday, August 27, 7 pm: Dock Street Salon at Phinney Books in Phinney Ridge/Greenwood. I'm reading alongside Angela Fountas. Prepare for a dark fairy tale.
- Friday, August 28, 7 pm: Jack Straw at the University Bookstore. Ross, Matthew, and I take on the U-District. After party on frat house row not included.
SEPTEMBER
- Thursday, September 10, 6 pm: An extra special Jack Straw event at the It's About Time Reading Series in Ballard, themed around Jack Straw, a leader of the English Peasant Revolt of 1381. These insurgent peasants traveled throughout southern England, gathering followers, opening prisons, killing lawyers and telling stories. As I'll be reading an excerpt from my novel-in-progress Paralegal, I've been tasked with covering the "killing lawyers" portion of the evening. Martha Kreiner will give a craft talk on opening prisons. L.J. Morin and Clare Johnson will gather all the followers and tell all the stories.
OCTOBER
- Thursday, October 22: Lit Crawl Seattle. Bazillions of writers take over the city. I'm excited to read at Alice Blue Books' Shotgun Wedding event. Details TBA.
NOVEMBER
- Saturday, November 2, 2 pm: Jack Straw at the Central Library downtown. All 12 Jack Straw Super Stars read poetry and fiction nuggets of gold.
DECEMBER
- Thursday, December 3, 7 pm: Pay Dirt at the Rendezvous in Belltown. To celebrate my 4Culture grant, I'll be reading from my novel Paralegal alongside fellow Jack Straws Emily Bedard, Matthew Schnirman, Bernard Grant, and Martha Kreiner. We'll dig up the dirt on art, money, desire, and making a living.
(No, I didn't shamelessly tag a zillion things in this post...Okay, yes I did.)
Friday's reading at Jack Straw was utterly lovely. Matthew Schnirman read poems brimming with desire and loss, such as "American Shot" :"When I remove my clothes, I want the wood floor to blush." L.J. Morin read from her fascinating series about the lost language of the Atures, discovered by Alexander von Humboldt on his journey to Venezuela in 1800, his desire to catalogue and measure characterized as "a mine shaft down the middle of him, an inexhaustible need." Linda Andrews, who won the Washington State Book Award for Escape of the Bird Women, read a fabulous story about a strutting hen: "Any female with that authority would feel ready for the world. Go on. Fold your wings back and see if the body doesn't tell you something. CUTO an old friend called it. C-U-T-O. Chin up, tits out." And I read an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Paralegal, introducing the protagonist Binnie Greenson's parents, Albert and Arlene, in their Ocean Parkway co-op in Kensington, Brooklyn. I took particular pleasure enunciating the phrase "glops of rummy yam" and the word "trapezoidal." We, along with the rest of the Jack Straw fellows, all have work in the 2015 anthology, available at our readings all year, which will be at Folk Life on May 24, and at the the University Bookstore, the Seattle Public Library, and elsewhere in the fall. Kevin Craft, the 2015 curator, did such a fantastic job grouping each of the readings and introducing each of the readers.I was really happy with how my reading and its recording turned out. The voice coaching from Christine Brown and performance coaching from Elizabeth Austen were both excellent and super helpful. I've uploaded my reading to soundcloud. Podcasts from everyone's author interviews (conducted by Kevin Craft) with excerpts from our readings will be released in the fall here.Without further ado, an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Paralegal:[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/205960491" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]
The Jack Straw May Reading Series kicks off on May 1! I'm so excited to see my fellow fellows sharing new work and putting our voice and performance coaching into action. Each Friday evening at 7 pm, four writers (one prose writer and three poets) will perform their work. A suggested donation of $5 gets you a copy of the 2015 Jack Straw Anthology; a light reception will follow.