Carolyn Lamberson

Fans of great country songwriting should mark their calendars for Memorial Day weekend. That’s when a host of best-selling songwriters will gather at the Coeur d’Alene Resort for a weekend of stories and music. The Coeur d’Alene Songwriters Festival will feature Even Stevens (“I Love a Rainy Night” by Eddie Rabbitt), Grammy winner Paul Overstreet (“Some Beach” by Blake Shelton), Emmy winner Hugh Prestwood (“The Song Remembers When” by Trisha Yearwood), Kostas (“Ain’t That Lonely Yet” by Dwight Yoakam), Leslie Satcher (“Politically Uncorrect” by Merle Haggard and Gretchen Wilson) and Mike Loudermilk (“Midnight in the Desert” by Crystal Gayle).

Marjorie Agosin, author, activist, Chilean exile and professor at Wellesley College, will speak at Gonzaga University on Tuesday. Her talk, at 7 p.m. in the Globe Room of Cataldo Hall, is called “Acts of Resistance: Women and Social Justice in Pinochet’s Chile.”

The highlight of Monday’s Best of Broadway 2012-’13 season announcement event had to be seeing in person some of the actors from “Jersey Boys.” “Jersey Boys,” which tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is the much-lauded, much-beloved musical sensation coming to town for a three-week run in October. Flying in for the announcement at the INB Performing Arts Center were Colin Trahan, who understudies seven roles in the touring production, Alayna Gallo, one of three actresses sharing more than 50 female roles in the play – she has 17 costume changes – and John Michael Dias, who plays Valli.

Now, we know what will follow “Jersey Boys.” West Coast Entertainment on Monday announced the rest its lineup for the 2012-13 Best of Broadway series. A three week-run in October for the Tony-winning smash “Jersey Boys” was announced earlier this year. “Rock of Ages,” a 2009 Tony nominee built around ’80s rock songs by the likes of Journey, Night Ranger and Pat Benatar, will come to the INB Performing Arts Center Feb. 7-10.

As you may have heard by now, Jess Walter has a new book coming out in June. If you really can’t wait that long, the National Book Award finalist has a new tidbit available to whet your appetite. “Don’t Eat Cat” is a work of short fiction. Best part? It’ll set ya back a whopping 99 cents and is formatted for your e-reader of choice: iPad, Nook or Kindle. And if you’re not married to an e-reading device, you can get it through Indie Bound as a Google eBook.

The upcoming Spokane Symphony concert will feature an appearance by a percussionist who will perform his own marimba concerto. Nebojsa Zivkovic, a native of Serbia now based in Germany, will perform his Marimba Concerto No. 2 in concerts Saturday and next Sunday. To check out Zivkovic and hear some of his dozens of compositions, visit his website, www.zivkovic.de.

As we inch closer to the start of Get Lit!, new details emerge. Such as this one: The 14th annual festival will tip off April 9 with a basketball game.

If you’re itching to see Rick Bass and Stellarondo on stage at the same time, good news. Tickets are now on sale. Bass, the nationally acclaimed author, and Stellarondo, a Montana-based string band, will team up for a reading during Eastern Washington University’s Get Lit! festival in April. The event is billed as “the perfect marriage of literature and music.”

WestCoast Entertainment has announced that “Jersey Boys,” the lauded Broadway musical, will play a three-week engagement in Spokane this fall. The play, which tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, will take the stage at the INB Performing Arts Center Oct. 17 – Nov. 3. It has garnered several awards, including the 2006 Tony for best musical, and that year’s Grammy Award for best musical show album.

Ingrid Betancourt, author and activist, will deliver Gonzaga University’s Presidential Speaker Series lecture on March 28. Betancourt was a candidate for the presidency of Colombia when she was kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in February 2002. She spent 2,321 days in captivity in the jungle before being rescued by the Colombian army in 2008 along with 14 other prisoners. She wrote about the ordeal in the 2010 bestseller “Even Silence Has an End.”

The Experience Music Project’s Sound Off competition for young bands has a new champion, and that champion is from Spokane. Nude, a four-piece, was crowned March 7 after performing against The Deep Wake of Bainbridge Island, Wash., Feet of Seattle and Special Explosion from Bellevue, Wash. Those four bands survived preliminary rounds to advance to the March 7 finals.

When it comes to poets, Robert Pinsky might be the closest thing to a rock star. Three terms as U.S. poet laureate, from 1997-2000. Founder of the Favorite Poem Project, which allowed thousands of Americans from all walks of life to share their favorite works of poetry. Creator of a best-selling translation of Dante’s “Inferno.” Winner of multiple awards and a Pulitzer nominee. Poetry editor for the online magazine Slate.