posts about books, literature, storytelling, stories, story slams, poetry slams, word performances, readings, etc.
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS Once a month, the lights at Traditions Café dim and the noise of a room packed with poets and novelists dies down to a hushed whisper. The crowd anxiously awaits one of Thurston County’s highest-regarded and longest-standing literary events: the Olympia Poetry Network’s monthly reading and open-mic session. This …
by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota…” With those familiar words, listeners to A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio have delighted for decades to the small-town shenanigans related by master writer and storyteller Garrison Keillor. Keillor hosted the show from 1974, when it was …
by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS What happens in the library after the lights go out? Friday night at Tumwater Timberland Library, the answer sounds like something out of a fantasy novel: The library will become a battlefield, with intrepid teens forming teams to play capture the flag—or in this case, capture the glow wand—and …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS Olympia’s first poet laureate, Amy Solomon-Minarchi, is already hard at work promoting poetry within the community with her call for Writing in the Rain poems. Solomon-Minarchi is accepting short-poetry submissions until April 10, when she’ll select short poems of three to six lines to be “painted” onto city sidewalks …
by Nora Kovacs for OLY ARTS Northwest favorite Tom Rawson is part folksinger, part storyteller and all about bringing people together. Rawson got his start as a peace activist, and that positivity still shines through in his work. Whether he’s singing a classic folk tune, recounting an old story or simply cracking a joke, Rawson …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS Few authors can boast having worked as a porter, jujitsu fighter, lawyer and translator in their short lifetime, nor can most say they’ve lived in such diverse places as Indonesia, Japan, Nepal or the Czech Republic. Throw in having written a bestselling fiction novel and you’ve narrowed it down …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS Each month, Olympia poets, authors and literary enthusiasts gather for an evening of poetry and camaraderie. It’s a chance to let their guard down and simply enjoy the spoken word. Seldom do featured readers have much in common with each other in the way of theme, style or poetic …
by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS To read Sarah Vowell’s bestselling nonfiction works or hear her frequent appearances on public radio is to experience our history through the eyes of, in her own words, a “partly cloudy patriot.” Her most recent book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, is a quirky biography of a French …
Olympia bookseller Andrea Y. Griffith of Browsers Bookshop provided readers of OLY ARTS with her book recommendations for Pacific Northwest authors for our winter 2017 edition. THE HIDDEN LIVES OF OWLS Leigh Calvez Bird books are huge in Olympia, and Seattle-area author Calvez recently held a jam-packed reading at the Olympia Library. A beautiful book …
by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS In “Playback Theatre,” the action on stage comes, not from books or scripts, but from the minds of audience members who are invited to tell their stories and see them come to life on stage. But at a Playback performance Feb. 10, books and personal stories will share the …