Local and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Jess Walter had always dreamt of becoming a novelist, but journalism came to him first. He couldn’t have asked for a better detour, he said. “It was a great thing for me, to find that sense of curiosity and the deadline chops you get as a writer,” Walter said.

It’s a turbulent time, driven by a stark, ridged divide in wealth. Peaceful protests erupt in the street, disrupted by violent agitators and police brutality. Women struggle to be treated as equals. Those who feel oppressed by the selfishness of injustice want social change now.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Queen of memes. Giver of gifs. Inspirer of song. How did the gentlelady representing California, the most senior Black woman in the House, become a social media darling for millennials and beyond?

Spokane Community College’s Hagan Center for the Humanities will host a virtual visit with Washington State poet laureate Claudia Castro Luna on Wednesday. The visit is open to the public and will be livestreamed on SCC’s YouTube channel at 6:30 p.m. An additional session Wednesday morning will include only SCC students and faculty.

For Jess Walter, his native Spokane inspired his latest novel, "The Cold Millions." New York, Hollywood and Italy were the scenes of some of Walter's prior novels, but the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 2005 for "Citizen Vince" taps into his hometown for "The Cold Millions." The novel commences in 1909 in Peace Valley Park.

Writing novels is a lonely occupation. But Spokane, which lives up to its reputation as a literary hotbed, boasts a number of talented novelists. Some of the wordsmiths, such as Jess Walter and Chris Crutcher, are close friends. The latter, whose novels include "Loser's Bracket" and "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes," is a vocal fan of Walter.

When you’re the younger brother of a New York Times bestselling author, you tend to get peppered with a lot of questions:

Who says you can't stay home? It's a modification of the Bon Jovi hit, but the bottom line is that Jess Walter has enjoyed a great deal of success as a writer without leaving his hometown of Spokane. Here's a few fun facts about the East Valley High School alumnus.

Spokane native, journalist and award-winning novelist Jess Walter is publishing his seventh novel this month: “The Cold Millions.” This is in addition to a 2013 collection of short stories and his first book, a 1995 retelling of the Ruby Ridge incident, which Walter covered for The Spokesman-Review.

If you have children who love to celebrate Halloween but aren’t such big fans of being scared, here are some books they can read with silly and kid-friendly stories about Halloween festivities, flying brooms, magic scarecrows, spooky buses and scaredy cats.

Eighty years ago Wednesday, Ernest Hemingway’s novel, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” was published. This was a haunting and tragic tale of a young American man serving as a volunteer, fighting fascists in the Spanish Civil War. America’s entry into World War II was still more than a year away.

A dedicated scholar of medieval literature, Michael Herzog taught the works of Geoffrey Chaucer for nearly 30 of his 45 years at Gonzaga University. Today, he continues to dedicate himself to Chaucer's work in pursuits both scholarly and fictional.

When she learned that Ethan Hawke was working on an audio edition of her novel “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson’s response was to get a better idea of who he was. “I can’t say I was familiar with his voice,” Robinson said of the four-time Oscar nominee whose films include “Before Sunrise,” “Reality Bites,” “Gattaca” and “Training Day.”

Ninety years ago, mystery writer Agatha Christie published her first Miss Marple novel. Christie wrote 66 novels – plus a handful of others under another name – 14 collections of short stories and the world’s longest-running play, “Mousetrap.”

For author and journalist Anne Helen Petersen, writing was not a career she consciously pursued from childhood, but it nonetheless came to her. Petersen will discuss her book, “Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation,” in a virtual gathering of the Northwest Passages Book Club at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Twenty-one years ago, a group of 21 San Francisco Bay Area writers pledged that each would attempt to write a 50,000-word manuscript between Nov. 1 and 30. This year, nearly 1 million authors will observe National Novel Writing Month, including all 30 students in Spokane Public Montessori teacher Thomas Coghlan’s 2020 class.

Today, the Spokane Symphony celebrates its 75th anniversary. And, although this past year has been less than kind to the symphony, its members continue to draw hope from the countless other trials and tribulations over which they have triumphed during the previous 74.

From the time author and columnist Jim Kershner left high school, more than anything, he wanted to write in whatever style and on whatever subject he could. “It's a tough choice to make,” Kershner said, explaining the difficulty writers face in making a living by their work. But he was determined.

The end of September is the perfect week to celebrate the coming, chilly seasons of cozying up with a book while merrily exercising your First Amendment rights. Why? The last week of September is Banned Books Week, a national awareness campaign that celebrates the freedom to read.