Walter Mosley added to Git Lit! lineup
We may never again see the day when Get Lit! – Eastern Washington University’s annual celebration of all things literary – boasts an all-star lineup similar to that of 2004, when Kurt Vonnegut, Garrison Keillor, Dave Barry and Sarah Vowell read to audiences either in Cheney or Spokane.
Literary celebs existing in that rarified air don’t come cheap.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Get Lit! is in immediate danger of returning to what it was at its 1998 beginning: a daylong poetry reading at what was then called The Met (now the Bing Crosby Theater).
Take the upcoming festival, for example, which will be held April 18 through 21 at various sites in Spokane and Cheney. The festival’s sponsoring entity, EWU Press, just announced the addition of Walter Mosley to this year’s schedule.
Mosley, the author of such contemporary mysteries as “Devil in a Blue Dress” and, most recently, the controversial “Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel,” will read at 7:30 p.m. April 20 in Showalter Hall on EWU’s Cheney campus.
He will give a special talk titled “The Year You Write Your Novel” at 9:30 a.m. April 21 at the Spokane Club.
Mosley is the second writer to join the 2007 event. The addition of Donald Worster, esteemed author of the environmental history “A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell,” had been previously announced.
Worster is set to give a talk titled “On John Muir’s Trail: Nature in an Age of Liberal Principles” at 7:30 p.m. April 18 at Spokane Community College.
Tickets are $20 and $16 to the April 20 event, $10 for the April 21 talk. For further information about Get Lit! in general, go to www.ewu.edu/getlit or call EWU Press at (509) 623-4262.
Limerick lesson
Someone who has entered several, if not all, of the past nine Spokesman-Review Limerick Contests left me an e-mail the other day, asking whether we were having one this year. Seems he hadn’t read anything.
Funny. I’ve had an item in each of these last four Sunday columns. Here’s the news yet again:
This year’s theme is “Spokane – near nature, near perfect: missing the mark – or not! Legends, lunacies and luminaries,” which is broad enough to include almost topic. Just make sure it has some regional reference.
Special note: I’ve received not a single entry from students. Don’t area teachers show kids how to write verse anymore? Some of the most entertaining entries I’ve read over the years came from elementary- and middle-school age children.
For education’s sake, here is what a limerick looks like (this one was written by the great Ogden Nash):
There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes,
She drawled, “When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez!”
Deadline is March 5. Remember to adhere to limerick form. E-mail entries to limerick@spokesman.com. Or send them by post to S-R Limerick Contest, The Spokesman-Review, 999 W. Riverside Ave., Spokane, WA 99201.
Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and open to the public.
Book talk
“Dark City Mystery Book Group (“Officer Down,” by Theresa Schwegel), 7 p.m. Monday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Call (509) 838-0206.
“Hastings Inspirational Readers Group (“Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear,” by Max Lucado), 7:30 p.m. Monday, Valley Hastings, 15312 E. Sprague Ave. Call (509) 924-0667.
“Who Reads What? Book Discussion Series (“Of Human Bondage,” by W. Somerset Maugham), 7 p.m. Thursday, Colfax Library, 102 S. Main St. Call (509) 397-4366.
“Let’s Talk About It Book Discussion Series (“Walden,” by Henry David Thoreau), 7 p.m. Thursday, Sandpoint Library, 1407 Cedar St.. Call (208) 263-6930.
The reader board
“Jess Walter (“The Zero”), reading/lecture titled “Fiction Writing and Other Personality Disorders,” 7 p.m. Tuesday, Weyerhaeuser Hall, Whitworth College. Call (509) 777-3275.
“Buddy Levy (“American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Teaching and Learning Center, University of Idaho, Moscow. Call (208) 885-7251.
“Aimee Phan (“We Should Never Meet”), lecture titled “Writing Your First Book of Fiction,” 12:10 p.m. Thursday, Avery Hall, Washington State University, Pullman. Call (509) 335-2313.
“Oliver de la Paz (“Furious Lullaby”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Weyerhaeuser Hall, Whitworth College. Call (509) 777-3253.