posts about books, literature, storytelling, stories, story slams, poetry slams, word performances, readings, etc.
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 …
by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS Lacey Loves to Read aims to get kids fired up about literature. This Thursday, the program will introduce them to theater, too, with a free performance by Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre. The acclaimed theater will bring its adaptation of Seattle author Matt de la Peña’s Newbery-winning Last Stop on …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS In mid-January 2017, Olympia Little Theatre will produce a staged reading of A Lollard in the Wind: Chaucer’s Dilemma by local actor-turned-playwright John Pratt. Pratt was most recently seen in the leading role, Arthur Putnam, in OLT’s An Act of the Imagination. Based in part on Chaucer’s stories from …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS What would the holiday season be if it didn’t include a bit of winter poetry, read under the warm glow of a lamp in a cozy room? The Olympia Poetry Network (OPN), a nonprofit organization with 25 years of history in the South Sound, invites community members to join …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS Local letterpress artists and authors Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring have taken an active role in keeping feminism strong in their new book, Dead Feminists: Historic Heroines in Living Color. O’Leary and Spring will be celebrating their book at “Pressing Matters: Lacey,” an upcoming artist talk, pop-up show and …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS Pacific-Northwest author Josh Kilen will be reading from his newest book, Around the Sound: Amusing Thoughts and Tales from Washington’s Puget Sound at Browsers Bookshop. Published in April, the book includes humorous short stories and essays about the Puget Sound and its rich history. “The book was born out …