Get Lit! is on the way

Not that I’m trying to drum up some early interest or anything, but …Get Lit! is coming. The eighth annual literary festival, sponsored by the Eastern Washington University Press, is scheduled to run April 20 through 23 at various sites in Cheney and Spokane. To get prepared, you might consider attending the Doug Peacock reading on Thursday at 7 p.m. at The Met. It’ll cost you $10, but the event is a Get Lit! fund-raiser, so you can feel good about doing two things at once: exposing yourself to, and helping sponsor, art.

Peacock, who lives in Livingston, Mont., is the author of “Walking It Off: A Veteran’s Chronicle of War and Wilderness” (EWU Press, 208 pages, $19.95). The book has been called “a paean to Edward Abbey,” the late writer, cranky champion of the environment and author of “The Monkey Wrench Gang.”

“The world needs an Ed Abbey now, too,” Peacock said in the July 22 issue of the online magazine New West. “When he died, I’d have figured that there would be a hundred Abbeys out there by now, but there’s not.”

And that fact disturbs Peacock, whose previous works include “Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness.”

“I have to say, if he (Abbey) saw the current state of the environmental movement today, he’d roll over in his grave,” Peacock said.

“The movement is totally wimped out. It’s emasculated. Afraid of the administration, of corporate donors. They want a cordial relationship with agencies. There’s never been a more anti-life time in our history than now with the Bush administration. Anti-wildlife, anti-human-life.

“Ed cared about freedom and liberty. They weren’t just empty words to him. He was coming more and more to the conclusion that wilderness was the only thing worth saving. There’s no one around now that has that same kind of moral and physical presence.”

Peacock will be answer questions and be available to sign books after the reading. Tickets are available at Auntie’s Bookstore, the EWU campus bookstore, Mountain Gear, The Lands Council, Vanderford’s Bookstore in Sandpoint, Vertical Earth in Coeur d’Alene and at the door. For more information call 359-4868.

Quote of the day

Tod Marshall, an English professor at Gonzaga University, is a literate guy. And, in a certain sense, he epitomizes the eclectic.

Take, for example, the following description of the forthcoming book of poems for which Marshall won a $6,000 Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship.

As Marshall told GU Associate News Director Pete Tormey, the book is “a strange work, frequently yoking together very different subjects – Martin Luther King Jr., Evel Knievel, Thomas Aquinas and Kentucky Fried Chicken, to name a few; the only constant seems to be my revisioning of the myth of Daedelus and Icarus.”

Book talk

“Poetry reading group (747-3454), 3 p.m. today, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington (838-0206).

“Auntie’s Book Group (“Pride and Prejudice,” Jane Austen), 7 p.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.

“Coeur d’Alene Borders Books Discussion Group (“The Winds of Sonoma,” by Nikki Arana), 7 p.m. Tuesday, 450 Wilbur Ave., Coeur d’Alene (208-762-4497).

“Seekers Book Group (“The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom,” by Don Miguel Ruiz), 10 a.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.

“Literary Freedom Book Group (“The Emperor of Ocean Park,” by Stephen L. Carter), 1 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.

“International Reading Association children’s storytime, 1 p.m. Saturday, Children’s Corner Bookshop, skywalk level at 714 W. Main Ave. (624-4820).

The reader board

“Jack Nisbet (“The Mapmaker’s Eye: David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau”), reading, 6:30 p.m. Monday, Lakeside Community Library, 6176 Highway 291, Nine Mile Falls; 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Kettle Falls (Wash.) Public Library (233-9621).

“Kelly Jones (“The Seventh Unicorn”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore.

“Doug Peacock (“Walking It Off: A Veteran’s Chronicle of War and Wilderness”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, The Met, 901 W. Sprague Ave. (359-4868).

“Jess Walter (“Citizen Vince”), readings, 1 p.m. Thursday, Neill Public Library, Pullman (509-338-3251); 3 p.m. Thursday, Holland Library, Washington State University, Pullman (509-335-9605); 11 a.m. Saturday, Lewiston Public Library, Lewiston (208-743-6519); 2-3:30 p.m. Saturday, Kling’s, Lewiston (208-743-8501); 7 p.m. Thursday, Clarkston High School, Clarkston (509-758-5591).

“Deby Fredericks (“The Magister’s Mask”), signing, 2-4 p.m. Saturday, Coeur d’Alene Hastings, 101 Best Ave. (208-664-0464).