GU professor reading in Globe Room
Dan Butterworth may be the last writer in Gonzaga University’s 2007-08 visiting writers series, but he’s hardly the least.
In addition to his teaching duties as an English professor at Gonzaga University (where he also serves as department chair), Butterworth – who will read at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at GU’s Cataldo Globe Room – has published both nonfiction and poetry.
His 1992 nonfiction book “Waiting for Rain” is a study of a North Carolina farmer named Archie Clare that the literary journal Kirkus Reviews called “a moving work.” His poetry collection, which was released in January by Sandpoint-based Lost Horse Press, attracted a glowing blurb by Spokane writer Jess Walter (“The Zero”).
” ‘The Radium Watch Dial Painters’ is a book of sheer power and range, poems that burn in brilliant flashes and with searing luminescence,” Walter wrote. “There are great stories in here, flurries of fresh images and graceful turns of music and wit. Above all, you find Dan Butterworth’s pitch-perfect gift for language, his acrobatic intelligence, his fierce decency.”
Butterworth was among the lineup for 2005’s Get Lit! event, Eastern Washington University’s annual literary festival. His Wednesday-night reading is free and open to the public.
•Speaking of Gonzaga’s visiting writers series, coordinator Tod Marshall has revealed that the school’s 2008-09 series has already attracted the acclaimed poet Carolyn Forché, author of such collections as “Blue Hour” and “The Angel of History.” Forché teaches in the MFA writing program at George Mason University.
•And speaking of Get Lit!, the 2008 event – which will be held April 16 through 20 in Spokane and Cheney – has added Tobias Wolff to its already notable lineup. Perhaps best known for his 1988 memoir “This Boy’s Life,” which involved mostly his teenage experiences in Concrete, Wash., Wolff is the author of a new collection of fiction, “Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories.”
Wolff will be joined by such other headliners as Diane Abu-Jaber, David James Duncan, Dorianne Laux, Thomas Lynch, Carole Lexa Schaefer, David Wojahn and Naomi Wolf.
For more information about Get Lit!, go online at www.ewu.edu/getlit/index.html.
Awards galore
Aaron Fink’s film “The Maltese Frankfurter” ended up winning the Young Adult Film Noir Festival, which was part of the Big Read literary event. Fink is a senior in Eastern Washington University’s Electronic Media, Theatre and Film Department; his film was screened March 14 at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.
The Big Read involved a variety of activities based on Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel “The Maltese Falcon.”
•Spokane Valley author C.K. Crigger’s novel “Black Crossing” won the 2008 Eppie Award in the Historical and Western Category.
The Eppies, which have been awarded since 1999 by the Electronically Published Internet Connection, “recognize outstanding achievement in e-publishing.” The 2008 awards honor 23 categories in all. For more information, go online at www.epicauthors.com.
Book talk
•Friends of the Cheney Community Library Book Discussion Group (“The Highest Tide,” by Jim Lynch), 7 p.m. Tuesday, Cheney Community Library, 610 First St., Cheney. Discussion leader: Jean Bruntlett. Call (509) 893-8280.
•Spokane Valley Library Book Group (“Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation,” by Joseph J. Ellis), 2-4 p.m. Wednesday, Spokane Valley Library, 12004 E. Main Ave. Call (509) 893-8400.
•Moran Prairie Library Book Group (“The Chosen,” by Chaim Potok), 2-4 p.m. Thursday, Moran Prairie Library, 6004 S. Regal St. Call (509) 893-8340.
•”What Can We Learn from Lincoln?” lecture, 7 p.m. Thursday, Gonzaga University’s Jepson Center. Presenters: Profs. Michael Leiserson and Matthew Rafferty. Call (509) 323-6133.
•Spokane Fiction Writers Group, noon Saturday, Argonne Branch, Spokane County Library, 4322 N. Argonne Road. Open to writers who are truly serious about writing and getting published. Call Steve Hughes at (509) 891-1695.
The reader board
•Ann Pancake (“Strange As This Weather Has Been”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, University of Idaho Administration Building, Moscow, Iadho. Call (208) 885-7407.
•Mike Barenti (“Kayaking Alone: Nine Hundred Miles from Idaho’s Mountains to the Pacific Ocean”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Call (509) 838-0206.
•Pat Cary Peek (“Silver Threads: War in the Coeur d’Alenes, 1891-1892”), signing, 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Staff House Mining Museum, 820 McKinley Ave., Kellogg. Call (208) 682-3718.
•Nancy Owens Barnes (“South to Alaska”), slide-show/signing, 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front St., Coeur d’Alene. Call (208) 769-2315.