The Elliott Bay Book Company

ELLIOTT BAY BOOK GROUP
Tuesday, February 2 at 6:30 p.m.

Each month, the Elliott Bay Book Club reads and discusses the best in contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in for good measure. The classic The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder is this month's choice. "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world.
By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death—and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. At the time of its publication the New York Herald Tribune called it "A masterpiece." and Russell Banks says, "As close to perfect a moral fable as we are likely to get in American literature."

MARY JO BANG
Tuesday, February 2 at 7 p.m.

Noted poet Mary Jo Bang, whose 2007 collection, Elegy, received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book citation, makes this welcome first Elliott Bay visit to read from her newest book of poems, The Bride of E (Graywolf). "The alphabet, as an organizing principle, is arbitrary. But around each of its discrete, singular letters, like goldfinches to thistle heads, notions flit, cluster, and congregate. This is precisely what they do in The Bride of E, Mary Jo Bang's compendious new alphabet book, casting shadows, revealing flashes of light and color. These are poems of deft invention, explorations into a trove of ready happenstance. They are not all happy poems, but they are all avowals—like the letters of the alphabet, they are for things. This is a book of darks and delights. It is totally amazing." – Lyn Hejinian. "This book bridges a gap between an experimental tradition in American poetry and an older high lyric tradition. This is some of Bang's best writing, and one of the most exciting books of the year." – Publishers Weekly.

RICK SMITH & BRUCE LOURIE
Wednesday, February 3 at 7 p.m.

Phthalates, triclosan and bisphenol A (BPA) might sound exotic, but they're all potentially toxic substances found not only in many homes, but also in just about all of our bodies. Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie researched these substances and the industries that produced them. In doing so, they have also exposed themselves to products containing these substances to demonstrate how contact with them translated into measurable blood and urine levels of these dangerous chemicals. Their witty and informative book, Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things (Counterpoint), isn't all bad news. Many of these products can be replaced with cheaper, safer alternatives. "Smith and Lourie have crafted a true guide for the thinking consumer. If readers don't change their ways after reading this one, they never will." – Booklist.

BRENDA PETERSON
Thursday, February 4 at 7 p.m.

The author or editor of fifteen books—some fiction, some non-fiction—Seattle writer Brenda Peterson has in some of her work touched on her unusual family upbringing. Her childhood included time spent in the deep forest as the daughter of a forest ranger. Her childhood also included time with Southern Baptist relatives whose enthusiasm for what they believe to be the coming rapture gave them very little cause for attention to the beauties of the world around them. The complexities and contradictions are chronicles and contemplated more fully in her newest book, I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth (Merloyd Lawrence/DaCapo). "A mesmerizing treat, at turns inspiring and hilarious ... Keen-eyed descriptions of the natural world, and a delicious sense of fun, combine beautifully with [Peterson's] tales of protecting seals, whales, hope, and other wild things." – Diane Ackerman. "A loving, luminous portrait ... the story is told with such truth but such tenderness that you can't help loving the whole family." – Sy Montgomery.

AMALIO MADUEÑO & PAUL NELSON
Friday, February 5 at 7 p.m.
      POETRY

A month rich in poetry contains this reading by two poets with deep roots in their respective literary communities, from their years of teaching, curating and documenting fellow poets, and their own work as artists. Paul Nelson, well known to many hereabouts as founder of Global Voices Radio and a co-founder of the Northwest Spokenword LAB, reads from his much-awaited book-length poem on the history of Auburn, A Time Before Slaughter (Apprentice House). Joining him this evening is visiting poet Amalio Madueño, who lives and writes in the Rio Arriba area, near Taos, New Mexico. A past president of the Taos Poetry Circus and the author of several chapbooks and collections, he will read from recent work, some of which is included in Lost in the Chamiso (Wild Embers Press), while more will be in the forthcoming collection, Bosque Stream (coming in fall 2010).

JAMES B. SWAN
Saturday, February 6 at 2 p.m.

The 90th Illinois Volunteers, an Irish Catholic regiment formed by the Vicar General of the Chicago Diocese, and drawn from all parts of Illinois, participated in the U.S. Civil War's siege of Atlanta, the battle of Fort McAllister, and the capture of three Confederate state capitols. This afternoon, historian and retired agronomy professor James B. Swan, grandson of the 90th's Simon Swan, discusses the history of this storied regiment, the subject of his book, Chicago's Irish Legion: The 90th Illinois Volunteers in the Civil War (Southern Illinois University Press). "Through meticulous scholarship and rare personal letters, photos, and documents, James B. Swan brings to life one of the Civil War's little known Irish legions. Swan's roster of the 90th Illinois and his annotated notes make Chicago's Irish Legion an invaluable resource." – Ellen Skerrett.

MICHELINE AHARONIAN MARCOM
Saturday, February 6 at 7 p.m.

One of the most accomplished and committed writers at work in this country today, Micheline Aharonian Marcom makes this welcome return to Elliott Bay to read from her extraordinary recent novel, The Mirror in the Well (Dalkey Archive). Recipient of a Lannan Foundation fellowship and the Whiting Award and author of a searing, much-praised trilogy—the novels Three Apples Fell from Heaven, The Daydreaming Boy, and Draining the Sea—that trace the effects of the Armenian genocide and its subsequent diaspora over the twentieth-century, she this is no less searing in this newer book even as its subject matter is far more intimate. The Mirror in the Well is the psychologically and physically explicit account of a woman's sexual awakening—with a man who isn't her husband, and who himself is also married. "Through [its] vivid imagery, Marcom gives voice to the essence of obsession and sexuality, while tracing the deterioration of relationships. This novel is a cultural, feminist, and human statement, but at its core, it is an unrestrained exploration of the intersection of emotion and physical desires." – Publishers Weekly. "The fierce beauty of her prose both confronts readers with many breathtaking cruelties and carries us past them." – Margot Livesey, The New York Times Book Review.

ANN B. IRISH
Monday, February 8 at 7 p.m.

Travelers and others interested in the history and culture of Japan's northern island, Hokkaido, have had few accessible, English-language resources available to them. Ann B. Irish's Hokkaido: A History of Ethnic Transition and Development on Japan's Northern Island (McFarland), provides a much-needed sourcebook on Hokkaido's history and culture, including information about the native Ainu people, ethnic Japanese exploration and settlement, the founding of its cities, related World War II and Cold War history, and more. Ann B. Irish, a retired teacher, and former Hokkaido resident now living on Vashon Island, share stories and highlights from her book here tonight.

ELLIOTT BAY GLOBAL ISSUES & ETHICS BOOK GROUP
Tuesday, February 9 at 6:30 p.m.

Our Global Issues & Ethics Book Group is devoted to discussing books that cover the most relevant topics of our everyday lives. The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power by Tariq Ali is this month book selection. Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world. It is the only Islamic state to have nuclear weapons. Its border with Afghanistan extends over one thousand miles and is the most likely hideout of Osama bin Laden. It was under military dictatorship for thirty-three of its sixty-two-year existence. Yet it is the linchpin in the United States' war on terror. These days, relations between the two countries are never less than tense, and with increasingly bold attacks by Taliban supporters threatening to split the Pakistan army, and the country's new leaders as corrupt as the regime they replaced the chances of sustained stability in Pakistan look slim. Tariq Ali has long been acknowledged as a leading commentator on Pakistan. In these pages he combines deep understanding of the country's history with extensive firsthand research and unsparing political judgment to weigh the prospects of those contending for power today. The labyrinthine path between a secure world and global conflagration runs right through Pakistan. No one is better placed to trace its contours. Mohammed Hanif wrote in The Guardian, "The Duel offers a detailed and impassioned history."

JEDEDIAH BERRY
Wednesday, February 10 at 7 p.m.
--PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE FOR THIS EVENT!--

A writer who, like Kevin Sampsell earlier in the month, works in small press publishing (here, Small Beer Press), Jedediah Berry visits with the paperback of last year's well-received debut, the literary mystery The Manual of Detection (Penguin). "An unlikely sleuth anchors an unlikely investigation in Berry's fantastical melding of Kafka, Hitchcock, and The Man Who Was Thursday. For 20 years Charles Unwin has toiled as a clerk to Detective Travis T. Sivart. Now he's been plucked from his assignment shadowing a mysterious young woman in a plaid skirt and catapulted to the rank of detective himself ... Berry's debut is a coldly inventive deconstruction of Cartesian metaphysics, the criminal-justice system, and the well-oiled detective story." – Kirkus Reviews. "Berry's ... smooth and sympathetic narration make the bizarre twists perfectly logical and sensible. He also provides homage to the hard-boiled staples ... The strength of the story and the talent of the writer mesh beautifully." – Publishers Weekly.

MARIA FINN
Thursday, February 11 at 7 p.m.

The end of Bay Area writer Maria Finn's marriage was also the starting point of new adventures in the world of Argentinean tango, a story told in her autobiographical book, Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home (Algonquin). After making friends at New York City tango milongas, or social dances, she studied the history and culture of tango, visiting Buenos Aires, and finding ... new love. "A lively debut memoir, brimming with tango history and lore." – Booklist. Tonight's program includes a tango demonstration by instructors from the Century Ballroom (soon to be our next-door neighbors on Capitol Hill). The Century Ballroom hosts a monthly Milonga—held this month on February 12—and an ongoing series of tango classes. For more information about both, please see www.centuryballroom.com. Maria Finn is also the author of the newly arriving A Little Piece of Earth: How to Grow Your Own Food in Small Spaces (Rizzoli).

KEVIN SAMPSELL
Friday, February 12 at 7 p.m.

He is a publisher—his own independent press, Future Tense Books. He is a bookseller—Small Press Champion (yes) at Powell's in Portland. And he is a fiction writer (Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets). Kennewick native son Kevin Sampsell is now author of a rollicking, coming-of-age memoir, A Common Pornography. "Memory and truth are jagged things, and Kevin Sampsell's memoir-in-vignettes expresses this forcefully. With grit and candor, he marches us through the heartbreak, horniness, and confusion of a west coast boy becoming a man." – Robin Romm. "Embarrassing and honest, heartbreaking and hilarious, A Common Pornography is a great memoir from one of the Northwest's best writers." – Willy Valutin.

R. GREGORY NOKES
Saturday, February 13 at 2 p.m.

The murders of nearly three dozen Chinese gold miners in a massacre in Wallowa County, Oregon in 1887 was a long-buried story, a (now-retired) reporter for The Oregonian, began writing about it in 1995. "In lives lost, the Hells Canyon massacre was the worst crime committed by whites against the approximately 300,000 Chinese who immigrated to the United States in the second half of the 19th century," he writes, adding that despite apparent knowledge of the perpetrators, only a few were ever brought to trial. All of those were acquitted, and the trial paperwork "mislaid" for decades. His book, Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon (Oregon State University Press), is the product of many years of research. The Oregonian cited Massacred for Gold as one of the top ten books by Northwest authors in 2009.

ED SKOOG
Saturday, February 13 at 7 p.m.
      POETRY

Co-presented with COPPER CANYON PRESS. A poet who got to Seattle by way of a Kansas upbringing, and then years in southern California and New Orleans, Ed Skoog is both here and still on the move. He is currently based in Seattle and Washington, D.C., where he is a writer-in-residence at George Washington University. Wherever he has been, or is, Ed Skoog is the author of Mister Skylight (Copper Canyon Press), a lovely debut book-length collection of poems. "Ed Skoog's poetry is so ambitious it takes my breath away. In it, he creates dense narratives, sees patterns, sees dissimilitudes, knows how to fishtail with images and turn with ease, knows how to braid pop culture into small personal melancholies and into larger generosities." – The Stranger.

E B C welcomes FABIO ZARDETTO
Tuesday, February 16 at 5:30 p.m.
      ADMISSION CHARGE
--LATE BREAKING ADDITION!

Presented by ELLIOTT BAY CAFÉ. Come meet "The Prosecco Specialist." As one of the first companies to introduce and distribute Prosecco in Italy, Zardetto is conquering the global market, and is having great success thanks to the high quality of its products. Owner Fabio Zardetto, always attentive to his customers’ needs, has invested countless resources in search of quality, resulting in consistent technological improvements that have strengthened the company’s business and consolidated its market position. Zardetto now delivers a complete and versatile Prosecco to the educated consumer, the discerning journalist, or the curious visitor, thanks to the powerful combination of land and climate, state-of-the-art technology, hard work, and most importantly, excellent wine. Zardetto, located in the heart of the famous Prosecco vineyards in the beautiful Conegliano hills, 40 miles from Venice, has been a leader in sparkling wine production for more than 30 years. Fabio Zardetto joined his father’s company in 1982 as chief winemaker and has been the sole owner since 1998. He lives in his home town of Conegliano, the center of production of the renowned Prosecco di Conegliano and Valdobbiadene DOC. Today, 36 years after the company’s foundation, Zardetto Prosecco, which was known first in Milano, Bologna and Roma, can be found from New York to Santa Monica, and from Tokyo to Hong Kong. Zardetto controls the entire production process, starting from vineyard management and continuing until the Prosecco reaches the consumer. In 2002, Fabio turned his efforts to the construction of a new winery. Today Zardetto owns a large and modern winery, that houses a tasting room with picturesque vineyard views and a Prosecco wine shop. The winery incorporates the most sophisticated technologies, a team of skilled and talented experts, and a strong partnership with grape growers. Thanks to accolades from domestic and foreign press, Zardetto Prosecco is easily capturing the attention of the most discerning consumer in Europe, North and South America, and most recently, Asia. Fabio Zardetto tirelessly travels to promote Prosecco and interact more closely with his customers. Chat with ‘Mr Bubbly’ himself and enjoy bites prepared by cafe chef Zephyr Paquette as well as a glass of this delicious Prosecco. Admission is $20. Zardetto Prosecco will also be available for purchase by the bottle!

SPECULATIONS - ELLIOTT BAY SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY BOOK GROUP
Tuesday, February 16 at 6:30 p.m.

As the literature of ideas and imagination, Science Fiction and Fantasy simply demands discussion. Our selection for February is Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. David Selig graduated from Columbia but has never done much with his life despite his possession of a unique advantage, the power to read minds. Still, he has come to take it for granted, to use it thoughtlessly in matters great and trivial, and it has shaped his personality. Now, as he enters early middle age, something happens that David never anticipated: the power starts to fade. This brilliant novel follows the progression of that loss—an inexorable decline to the power's extinction—and how this untimely mental autumn affects him. It is a story as powerful as it is simple in outline; the result is literature's premier portrait of the telepathic mind, a character study unmatched in science fiction.

THOMAS MULLEN
Wednesday, February 17 at 12:30 p.m.

Special midday at Elliott Bay reading. Joining us for this welcome Elliott Bay return for this special, lunch hour reading and signing is novelist Thomas Mullen. His Northwest-set debut novel, The Last Town on Earth, received several best 'first book' citations, and has continued to go into new readers' hands here as a strong word-of-mouth favorite. He returns with an awaited new novel, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (Random House). "At the start of Mullen's compelling second novel, set during the heyday of J. Edgar Hoover's war on crime in the 1930s, violent bank robbers Jason and Whit Fireson (aka the Firefly Brothers) wake up in an Indiana morgue, having miraculously survived bullet wounds that led the authorities to triumphantly announce their deaths. The pair escape ... This is but the first of a number of fantastic episodes in which the criminals cheat death ... Mullen makes the despair of the Great Depression palpable, as his antiheroes become folk icons to the downtrodden people of the Midwest resentful of a government that can't help them." – Publishers Weekly. Please check with the Elliott Bay Café at (206) 682-6664, www.elliottbaycafe.com by Tuesday, February 16 for special box-lunch options available as part of this program.

LAURA McKEE
Wednesday, February 17 at 7 p.m.
      POETRY
--PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE FOR THIS EVENT!--

Seattle poet Laura McKee, a University of Washington MFA graduate, a recipient of awards from the Seattle Arts Commission and the Jackstraw Foundation along the way, reads tonight from her recently published debut collection, Uttermost Paradise Place (The American Poetry Review). This book is itself a prize—chosen for the prestigious APR/Honickman First Book Prize. "... the poems in Uttermost Paradise Place achieve transparency. While many of them are perceived via a persona, it is ultimately the personae of perception itself that proscribes the pure pleasure of reading ... Charting a humor of consequence—hell is perpetually in this book and it is the Greek hell, where re-birth occurs—Laura McKee creates a poetics of call and response, but not in the traditional sense, as in poet to reader, chorus leader to singers, etc. These poems call to each other, syllable by syllable, and they are so pleased with the circuitry of sound and sense that readers—if they just give themselves away to the pleasure of being exactly nowhere but in the unscripted place all authentic poetry provides—will experience the paradise the book proposes." – Claudia Keelan, from the Introduction.

HEIDI W. DURROW
Thursday, February 18 at 7 p.m.

Co-presented with HEDGEBROOK. Among the new year's most keenly anticipated fiction debuts is that of Heidi Durrow with The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (Algonquin), a book that powerfully invokes notions of gender, class, race (mixed race), identity, and more. "One of those rare novels that reflects urban life in multicultural America, the way we live now ... Heidi Durrow is a wonderfully gifted writer who can summon a voice, a memorable character, with bold, swift strokes. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is a gem, and it shimmers..." – Jay Parini. "Out of the clear blue, here is a breathless telling of a tale we've never heard before. Haunting and lovely, pitch-perfect, this book could not be more timely." – Barbara Kingsolver.

KARYNA McGLYNN & BRANDON SHIMODA
Friday, February 19 at 7 p.m.
      POETRY

The featured authors on tonight's double bill are both storytellers specializing in stark, surreal, almost cinematic imagery. Austin poet Karyna McGlynn reads from her debut collection of poems, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Sarabande), selected by Lynn Emanuel as the 2008 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry. "To be a reader of I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl is to be a time traveler. Yet, no matter which life, body, or landscape one lands in, all exist on a shared bedrock of violence and suffering, albeit one presided over by a glittering imagination." – Lynn Emanuel, from the Foreword. We're also pleased that Brandon Shimoda, marketing director of the Seattle poetry press Wave Books, will be a part of this, reading from his own work. He is the author of The Inland Sea (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and contributed to two other recent book projects, Lake M (Corollary Press) and The Alps (Film Forum Press).

ERIC PENZ
Saturday, February 20 at 2 p.m.
--PLEASE NOTE CORRECTION OF EVENT DATE!--

Co-presented with the NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION. Seattle author Eric Penz draws upon legend, history, and the landscape of Olympic National Park's stunning Hoh Valley in his novel, Cryptid: The Last Legacy of Lewis and Clark (Star Books). Cryptid follows the adventures of a cryptozoologist, a paleontologist, and a descendent of Thomas Jefferson, as they uncover evidence of sasquatch findings in Lewis and Clark's journals. An ongoing conspiracy to suppress the information complicates everything, but the truth eventually has to come out. Eric Penz's presentation will include his photography of the wild places in which his novel is set, and new information that he promises will demonstrate that the line between fiction and fact can be very thin.

ELIZABETH ESLAMI
Saturday, February 20 at 7 p.m.

Up from Eugene is Iranian American writer Elizabeth Eslami with Bone Worship (Pegasus), a engaging debut novel of a young woman caught between cultures, and a bumpy patch of life. "Lyrical ... Eslami deftly navigates the waters of a cross-cultural father-daughter relationship. From the streets of Tehran to the back roads of Georgia, Bone Worship gnaws and sings." – Meagan Brothers. "Wildly original, Bone Worship is a real find. At once comic and serious, unpredictable at every turn, with a cross-cultural family drama that cracks through old notions." – Joan Silber.

DEBORAH BLUM
Monday, February 22 at 7 p.m.

Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum makes this welcome Elliott Bay return visit this evening. Once a working newspaper journalist, now teaching science journalism at the University of Wisconsin, she is here with The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Penguin Press). The intrigue hinted at in the title is borne out in this fascinating work of historic sleuthing. "Blum makes chemistry come alive in her enthralling account of two forensic pioneers in early 20th-century New York. Blum follows the often unglamorous but monumentally important careers of Dr. Charles Norris, Manhattan's first trained chief medical examiner, and Alexander Gettler, its first toxicologist ... Blum cleverly divides her narrative by poison, providing not only a puzzling case for each noxious substance but the ingenious methods devised by the medical examiner's office to detect them ... With the pacing and rich characterization of a first-rate suspense novelist, Blum makes science accessible and fascinating." – Publishers Weekly.

STAGES - ELLIOTT BAY DRAMA BOOK GROUP
Tuesday, February 23 at 6:30 p.m.

Elliott Bay's Drama Book Group, Stages, meets once a month to read, enjoy and discuss great plays and dramatic works, contemporary and classic, from the U.S. and around the world. In this mock-documentary play, Yellow Face, David Henry Hwang puts himself center stage, as he uses the controversy over color-blind casting for Miss Saigon and the racially motivated federal investigation of his own father to explore ethnic identity and the ever-changing definition of what it is to be an American. Please join us for a thoughtful discussion of this OBIE Award winning new play, and Pulitzer Prize finalist.

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL & Friends
Tuesday, February 23 at 7 p.m.

February being a month when eros is on the calendar, if not in the air (Valentine's Day, Carnival, and more), editor Rachel Kramer Bussel being here to read from and discuss the anthology, Best Sex Writing 2010 (Cleis) is particularly apt. She is senior editor at Penthouse Variations, is the former "Lusty Lady" columnist for The Village Voice, and runs a New York City erotica reading series, "In the Flesh." She also did the hard work of putting together an anthology that embraces many different takes on sex and sensuality—which adds to the pleasures of this book. Reading with Rachel Kramer Bussel tonight are two local contributors to the anthology, MICHELLE PERROT and JANET HARDY.

NASEEM RAKHA
Wednesday, February 24 at 12 noon

A special, midday at Elliott Bay reading. Oregon radio journalist Naseem Rakha, whose award-wining pieces air on NPR, has written one of those rare novels that is praised for its nuance and artfulness and, at the same time, has helped shape and affect social and political discussion. Her debut novel, The Crying Tree (Broadway), has at its heart a tragedy—and then, in ways moving, eventual, and surprising, a transcendence through that tragedy. "This complex, layered story of a family's journey toward justice and forgiveness comes together through spellbinding storytelling." – Publishers Weekly. "For anyone who has ever wondered how forgiveness is possible, even then the pain is overwhelming. The Crying Tree takes you on a journey you won't soon forget." – Sister Helen Prejean. Please check with the Elliott Bay Café at (206) 682-6664, or www.elliottbaycafe.com by Tuesday, February 23 for special box-lunch options available as part of this program.

PETER HESSLER
Wednesday, February 1 at 7:30 p.m.

New Yorker staff writer Peter Hessler makes this welcome return to read from his third and newest account of travels through China, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (HarperCollins). "On the road in China with Hessler as he explores the remnants of its dying rural past and its booming, uncertain urban future. The author received his Chinese driver's license in 2001 and set off on a 7,000-mile journey following the twists and turns of the Great Wall...he explored the great expanses of China's north and northwest, areas largely left behind in the country's surge of economic development ... The result is a remarkably detailed, engrossing account of China today. The human side of China's great transformation, told with humor, affection, and great insight." – Kirkus Reviews. Peter Hessler's earlier books are River Town and Oracle Bones.

SHARI STORM & KAREN BURNS
Thursday, February 25 at 5:30 p.m.

Please join us for this early evening of networking, reading, socializing, and celebrating, as two local business writers whose recent books have offered sage advice and encouragement to working and job-seeking women nationwide are here. Shari Storm, one of the pioneers of corporate blogging and social networking, speaks from experience about how parenting has translated into better management skills, the subject of her book, Motherhood is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to Be a Better Boss (Thomas Dunne Books). Karen Burns, survivor of 59 jobs(!), also drew from her experience in writing The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use (Running Press). Her practical, down-to-earth advice for working women is both witty and useful. Please join us.

SEATTLE OPERA presents ASPECTS OF FALSTAFF
Friday, February 26 at 7:30 p.m.

Presented by SEATTLE OPERA. The night before the curtain goes up on Seattle Opera's third production of the 2009-10 season, Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff, is discussed in various contexts and ways by Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins and a special, invited guest. These evenings are always engaging and enjoyable. Falstaff is scheduled for eight performances, February 27 – March 13, at McCaw Hall. $5 entry at the door (no advanced tickets), handled by Seattle Opera. For more information, please see www.seattleopera.org or call (206) 389-7676.

GINA OCHSNER
Saturday, February 27 at 2 p.m.

Co-presented with IMAGE Magazine. Already published to high praise in the U.K., Keizer, Oregon author Gina Ochsner's debut novel, The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is the occasion for this welcome return visit. Gina Ochsner's previous books, the story collections People I Wanted to Be and The Necessary Grace to Fall have been part of a body of work that has seen her receive the Flannery O'Connor Award, the Ruth Hindman Foundation Prize, the Guggenheim, the Raymond Carver Prize, and more. Set in post-Soviet Union Russia, this book carries love and loss and the clatter of contemporary life quite marvelously. "The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight joins a vibrant history of magical realist literature in which readers and the book's characters must accept that some things are unknowable ... Ochsner's characters have an Atlas-like ability to hold up their own blackened piece of sky. And it's the unremarkable tremors of daily life that gradually shake off the mud to reveal something infinite and hopeful ... Ochsner is a true artist." – Times (UK).

AFRICAN AMERICAN WRITERS ALLIANCE Group Reading
Saturday, February 27 at 7 p.m.

As has happened here for going on twenty years now, this last Saturday of African American History Month features this group reading by Seattle's African American Writers Alliance. This ever-changing, -shifting, -growing group writes from different levels of experience, in several different forms. These gatherings have always been engaging, expressive, and enlightening. For more information about the African American Writers Alliance, please call Georgia McDade at (206) 722-0964. Please join us.

REACT THEATRE Presents EASTERN STANDARD
Sunday, February 28 at 2 p.m.

Co-presented with ReAct Theatre. Elliott Bay's Eleventh Annual Staged Play Reading Series kicks off a new season with a fully staged reading of the celebrated modern American play, Eastern Standard by Richard Greenberg. How do you tell the man you love that you have the AIDS virus? How does your sister react to the news of your illness when she's trying to start a relationship of her own? How does an architect make amends to society for years of creating skyline monstrosities? And can all these questions really be answered by playing Pygmalion with a elderly bag lady? "For anyone who has been waiting for a play that tells what it is like to be more or less middle-class, more or less young and more or less well-intentioned in a frightening city at this moment in this time zone, Eastern Standard at long last is it." - The New York Times. Please join us for this unique blend of theatrical staging and the spoken word. Suggested donation ($5) at the door. Reservations encouraged. For more information visit www.reacttheatre.org.

ALSO TO NOTE:

• Seattle Arts & Lectures. A particular high note in Seattle Arts & Lectures' 2009-10 Literary Lecture Series is the Seattle return of ABRAHAM VERGHESE, Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Benaroya Hall. SAL in February also presents MARK DOTY in its Poetry Series on Feb. 26. Also to keep on eye on is SAL's annual "Words Matter" Benefit Dinner on March 24, featuring TIMOTHY EGAN. Please see www.lectures.org or call (206) 621-2230 for more information and/or tickets.
• Richard Hugo House. In addition to the Hugo Literary Series evening with LINDA BIERDS, TERRANCE HAYES, GARTH STEIN, and BLOODHAG on Feb. 19, Hugo House plays host to numerous workshops, gatherings, and readings, a Castalia group reading, Feb. 5; Red Sky Poetry Theater Reunion, Feb. 25; and "Cheap Beer and Prose," Feb. 28. For information on these and other Hugo House offerings, please see www.hugohouse.org.
• Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas. On the February calendar are a KEXP Benefit Concert on Feb. 6 at The Sunset (in Ballard), and the much-anticipated performance of Rigidigidim De Bamba De: Ruptured Calypso with CYNTHIA OLIVER on Feb. 19 – 20 at the Erickson Theatre Off Broadway. Also on the horizon: the hot ticket that is the CD Forum's "Food As Art" gala, featuring offerings from African American chefs in Seattle, on Apr. 10. Please see www.cdforum.org for more information/tickets.
• Gardner Center for Asian Art & Ideas. The Gardner Center resumes its "Saturday University" series after a successful fall "quarter," with a series of lectures and presentations on "Health, Sex and Women's Rights in Asia," Jan. 30 – Feb. 20 (four Saturdays, starting at 9:30 a.m., preceded, optionally, with yoga for those so inclined. This is at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, in Volunteer Park. Please see www.seattleartmuseum.org for information (registration) on this and other wonderful programs and exhibits at SAM Downtown and the Olympic Sculpture Park, as well as SAAM.
• Town Hall, Talk of the Town. Our friends at Town Hall Seattle host all kinds of varied programs in a year and, now, over the years. On Friday evening, March 5, they host a evening of dinner—not at Town Hall—but in various homes, with featured special guests and chefs. See www.townhallseattle.org for information on this—and what Town Hall does all the other days and nights of the month.
• Hedgebrook. In February and March, Hedgebrook offers special intensive workshop sessions for women writers, first with THERESA REBECK (Feb. 2 – 9), then with CAROLYN FORCHÉ (March 7 – March 14). Please see www.hedgebrook.org for more information.

MARCHING

Marching. Kind of literally. It is going to happen. Thirty-six going on thirty-seven years at 101 South Main (with addresses in the same building of 109 South Main and 103 South Main along the way), we are moving to a new 'old' home: 1521 -10th Avenue, between Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill – a distance of about a mile and a half away. More on this elsewhere and otherwise.
Meanwhile, until mid-March we are here. And so, the schedule says, will be: MOLLY FISK, March 1; GABRIEL THOMPSON, March 3; ELIF SHAFAK, March 8; ZACHARY MASON, March 10; CHANG-RAE LEE, March 15 at Seattle Public Central Library; TED CONOVER, March 16 ... from here on through the end of the month, the following are scheduled to read, but the venue may be somewhere else accommodating: DANIELLE TRUSSONI, March 17; JEFF GARLIN, March 17; PETER NATHANIEL MALAE, March 18; JODI PICOULT, March 20 at Seattle Public Central Library; JO NESBØ, March 22; MARK SPRAGG & LAURA BELL, March 26.
More than any other month we can think of, the above are all somewhat subject to change. Other authors will be added ... and it's expected that a mid-March (ballpark) closing of the store in Pioneer Square should result in a very-end-of-March re-opening on 10th between Pike and Pine (X marking the spot, in more ways than one). (By some point in February, the timing of all should be much clearer.) Things look to be full-bore with varied and interesting authors are we enter April ... and spring. Please check back on our website at the end of February and/or see our March newsletter for more current and detailed information forthcoming on these and related happenings. Our sincere thanks to all for your understanding and support.

UTTERMOST PARADISE PLACE is the title of Seattle poet LAURA McKEE's debut collection of poems (see February 17).