Carolyn Lamberson

Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown will be in Spokane next month to give a master class in conjunction with a local production of his musical, “Songs for a New World.” The class, sponsored by Spokane Civic Theatre, will be open to 300 people and will cost $20. It will be from 1 to 4 p.m. on Oct. 27.

We have some more details on Sherman Alexie’s upcoming reading in Spokane to mark the release of “Blasphemy,” a collection of new and previously published works due out Oct. 2. Alexie will read from the book at 7 p.m. Oct. 5 at the North Central High School auditorium, 1600 N. Howard St. This will be a ticketed event, sponsored by Auntie’s Bookstore. Buy one Alexie book at Auntie’s and you’ll receive one ticket to the event.

Yo-dee-leh-hee-hoo! Master yodeler Kerry Christensen will perform in Spokane on Tuesday in a concert to benefit the upcoming Trophée Mondial international accordion competition.

“Rattlebone,” a 128-page full color hardbound book collecting some 80 works by Spokane artist Ric Gendron, will be celebrated with a release party on Oct. 19 at The Tinman Gallery. The book is being published by the University of Washington Press in conjunction with a traveling exhibit of Gendron’s work that will debut at the Missoula Art Museum on Nov. 2.

Spokane physician Bassem Bejjani has been appointed to the Washington State Arts Commission. He joins two other Eastern Washington appointees on the 23-member panel – Mark Anderson of Walla Walla Foundry and Amanda Jackson of the Methow Arts Alliance in Twisp – named by Gov. Chris Gregoire last week. Commissioners who are appointed by the governor help advise the governor and legislators on arts issues in Washington. By law 19 members are appointed by the governor; four are members of the Legislature.

Lake City Playhouse is getting traditional this week, opening its 2012-’13 season on Friday with the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma!” Artistic Director George Green said Lake City’s small venue – it seats 170 – allows the theater’s creative team to take big, sprawling productions such as “Oklahoma!” and concentrate on the story.

Paul Lindholdt has done what relatively few East Side writers have done. He’s won a Washington State Book Award. Lindholdt, an English professor at Eastern Washington University, won in the Biography/Memoir category for his 2011 book “In Earshot of Water: Notes from The Columbia Plateau” (University of Iowa Press). It’s a book his publisher characterizes this way: “Exploring both the literal and literary sense of place, with particular emphasis on environmental issues and politics in the far Northwest, Lindholdt weds passages from the journals of Lewis and Clark, the log of Captain James Cook, the novelized memoir of Theodore Winthrop, and Bureau of Reclamation records growing from the paintings that the agency commissioned to publicize its dams in the 1960s and 1970s, to tell ecological and personal histories of the region he knows and loves.”

There’s a transition coming to the Northwest Bach Festival, as Artistic Director Gunther Schuller has announced his 20th season will be his last. Schuller, now 87, will retire after the 2013 festival’s final concert on March 24.

Want to hear some Bedtime Stories? Individual tickets are now on sale. Bedtime Stories is a long-running Seattle gala event to benefit Humanities Washington. This year, for the first time, Bedtime Stories is coming to the East Side.

The Advocates for the Bing Crosby Theater is getting into the spirit of the season with is fall film series. “Best of Politicial Movie Classics” kicks off Sept. 19 with “State of the Union.” The 1948 Frank Capra movie stars Spencer Tracy as an industrialist urged to run for the presidency, and Katharine Hepburn as his estranged wife.

I have to admit, whenever I read an Ivan Doig novel, I get an itch to move to Montana. Now that his latest, “The Bartender’s Tale,” is sitting on my bedside table, I expect I’ll be scrolling through online real estate listings, dreaming of place along the eastern front of the Rockies, or maybe one of those big houses on Flathead Lake. In the meantime, Spokane fans of the Montanan-turned- Seattleite can look forward to a Doig visit. The bestselling author will be at Auntie’s Bookstore at 7 p.m. Sept. 18, reading from “The Bartender’s Tale.”

There’s a new theater company in the Idaho Panhandle. The JACC Theater Troupe was formed this spring by the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center in Post Falls and will be presenting its first play next month: Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

We have a couple late additions to the list of local author events and news of appearances by well-known authors to tell you about. So grab your coffee, sit back and let’s get reading. First up: Peter S. Beagle, whose books have won Hugo and Nebula awards, will appear at Auntie’s Bookstore from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday. He will be on hand to sign his works, including 1968’s “The Last Unicorn.”

Maybe the Glen Campbell show at Northern Quest Casino in March sparked an interest in some of the man’s early works. If so, there’s a movie coming to town that’s just for you. “The Wrecking Crew” is a documentary about the band of Los Angeles studio musicians behind the scenes of some of the biggest hits of the 1960s and ’70s. Tickets are on sale now for a screening at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox. (A Saturday screening has been canceled.)