Your Week in Readings: The Best Literary Events from September 21 - 27

MONDAY Your week begins at University Book Store, where Fran Wilde reads from her new fantasy novel Updraft. It’s set in a world “built in towers of living bone” and stars a main character who has the “ability to control the invisible predators that roam the skies with her voice.” That sounds entirely bonkers, and is therefore worthy of our respect.

TUESDAY Elliott Bay Book Company brings Joy Williams to town for what they acknowledge is a “rare” visit. Williams is largely regarded as a master of American fiction, and her name is often dropped in the same sentence as writers like Flannery O’Connor. If you like short stories, I’d recommend her collection Honored Guest. She debuts a new story collection, The Visiting Privilege, here tonight.

WEDNESDAY The reading series Lit Fix pops up in Belltown tonight with a great lineup: Kevin Maloney, Jeanine Walker, and short-story author (and Instant Future publisher) Matthew Simmons, as well as musician Steven Curtis. But tonight’s Lit Fix is also a big deal because it’s the last local public appearance of local writer Kelly Davio before she moves to London. Davio gave a great interview to the Seattle Review of Books about why she’s leaving town and what she’ll most miss about Seattle a week or so ago. Here’s your chance to go show your support for her.

THURSDAY You’ll want to visit Hugo House for the latest installment of Cheap Beer & Prose, where the beer is cheap ($1 per can of PBR) and the readers are guaranteed to be good. Tonight’s readers include Jean Burnet, Kevin Emerson, Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, and Jay McAleer.

FRIDAY Philip Howard, a professor at the University of Washington reads at Town Hall from his book Pax Technica, which reimagines the internet as something simultaneously open and secure, neither of which is strictly true today.

SATURDAY Head to Neighbours Nighclub for Banned! Books in Drag, in which David Schmader hosts a bunch of drag queens who will “give performances inspired by their favorite works of literature” to raise awareness for banned literature. This is the only literary event this week where you’ll find performer names like Sparkle Leigh, Isabella St. Extynn St. James, LaSaveona Hunt, Atasha Manila, Aleksa Manila, Charlie Menace, DonaTella Howe, Sylvia O'Stayformore and Kitty Kitty Bang Bang.

SUNDAY Hugo House hosts a passel of poets in a baseball-themed World Series of Poetry. Two teams composed from the poets Ed Skoog, Kary Wayson, Oliver de la Paz, Arlene Kim, Dean Rader, and Sarah Galvin will “take turns batting at topics pitched to them by the audience.” Sounds like a lot of fun! This event is hosted by John Roderick, a musician who tried to be a politician a few months ago. He's a good host of literary events.