It’s a tough life, here amid all this wheat

A reader just sent me a clipping from the Seattle Times. It’s a news brief by the newspaper’s book editor, Mary Ann Gwinn regarding Get Lit! , Eastern Washington University’s annual literary festival:

“Here’s a question – a really good question. How is it that Seattle’s literary festival Northwest Bookfest has expired when the Eastern Washington burg of Cheney is holding a spring literary festival with an author lineup that any major metropolitan area would envy?”

Gwinn, of course, is referring to the fact that Get Lit! 2005 (April 17-23), which actually will be held almost entirely in Spokane , is hosting the likes of Salman Rushdie, David Sedaris (for the second time), Rita Dove, Robert Bly and Bob Edwards. Yet as with most all comments that West Side media tend to make about anything that happens east of the Cascades , the remark drips with, mmmm, a sense of surprise mixed with horror. How dare a “burg” in Eastern Washington do something better than Seattle itself?

Just lucky is my guess.