Keep Sending In Entries For Limerick Contest
The first few entries in our third-annual St. Patrick’s Day Limerick Contest are in, and all I can say is … folks, I believe you can do better.
Here’s the trick: Blend rhythm with imagination and mix well with effort. This year’s theme, the Inland Northwest in the new millennium, is open-ended enough to cover just about any topic except young lads from Nantucket (which is the reason we require a new theme every year in the first place).
Just remember: Lines one, two and five rhyme, lines three and four rhyme, and there’s a definite meter you need to catch.
Let me provide an example:
“Our Councilman Eugster’s a writer
whose words fuel his role as a fighter.
But some think him obscene
and his fellow pol Greene
may be sorry he sat down beside her.”
OK, “obscene” is a little strong (sorry, Steve). But it does rhyme. And the meter speaks for itself.
See if you can do better.
Another Finley book
The prolific Mitch Finley has another book out. Spokane’s own purveyor of Catholic faith and tradition is the author of “The Joy of Being a Lector” (Resurrection Press, 96 pages, $5.95 paper), a how-to book that, as the foreword says, is both “rich in theology, history and liturgy” and “practical, full of useful suggestions on how to be a better lector.”
By the way, for those of us who exist outside the church, a lector, according to Finley, is “one who reads aloud from the Scriptures in the context of that part of the Mass called the Liturgy of the Word.”
Finley is known to many people as the literary reading coordinator for Auntie’s Bookstore.
A lost lead
I seldom need help looking like an idiot. My friends and other critics tell me that all the time.
So it was particularly painful when a computer glitch deleted the lead graph of a movie review that I wrote for Friday’s Weekend section. Because I liked that lead, and because without it the review’s beginning makes no sense whatsoever, I reproduce it and the next three graphs here:
“If familiarity does breed contempt, then it follows that estrangement fosters mystery.
“And where does mystery lead?
“If you’re a Gypsy, the answer is likely to be fear, hatred and the constant threat of reprisal.
“That, at least, is what filmmaker Jasmine Dellal says in her documentary film `American Gypsy: A Stranger in Everybody’s Land,’ which plays tonight (last Friday) at The Met as the premiere of the second Spokane Northwest Film Festival.”
It may not be great, but at least it’s all mine.
Lit events
The eighth-graders of Trinity Catholic School will show off their creative writing skills by reading from their own works, and then from a favorite author, beginning at 7 p.m. Wednesday night at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Preceding the readers, the school’s seventhgraders will play musical chimes. For further information, call 838-0206.
Book clubs
“Soft Focus,” the new novel by Seattle writer Jayne Ann Krentz, is the February selection of the Barnes & Noble Romance Club book-discussion group. Barnes & Noble is located just east of the Spokane Valley Mall. For further information, call 922-4104.
What’s your signing?
Chuck Burbank, author of “Welfare and the Ideology of Power,” will sign copies of his book beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Lincoln Heights Hastings, 2805 E. 29th. For further information, call 535-4029.
Robin Valaitis Heflin, author of “The Messenger,” will sign copies of her novel beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Valley Hastings, 15312 E. Sprague. For further information, call 924-0720.
Luella Dow, author of “Fire in Her Soul,” will sign copies of her book beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Shadle Hastings, 1704 W. Wellesley. For further information, call 327-6008.
The poet’s corner
John Whalen and Chris Christenson will be the featured readers at Mootsy’s poetry series, which begins at 6 tonight at Mootsy’s Tavern, 406 W. Sprague. For further information, call 326-4169.
The reader board
Amber G. Christensen, winner of The Inlander’s 1999 fiction contest, will read her story at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Auntie’s Bookstore.
Jerry Gold, author of the Vietnam novel “Sergeant Dickinson,” will read from his novel at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Auntie’s Bookstore.
Nicole Montgomery, whose sci-fi short story “The Unbound” was included in the “Writers of the Future” collection, will read from her work at 7 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble. Montgomery will sign copies of the collection beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday at the North Side Hastings, 7706 N. Division. For further information, call 483-2154.