THE WRITER'S LIFE

Amy Gerstler's message: Be not afraid

(from the LA times)

*

Rescued Eagle Scout Billed $25,000

A controversial New Hampshire law that charges those who get lost for the cost of their rescue is facing renewed scrutiny.

Some Eagle Scout? I'm sorry but I think ALL of these dopey people who get lost hiking in the woods or climbing mountains should be billed for their rescues. Why should we all have to foot the bill for their thrill seeking or poor planning?

*

Values Voters, or Dogma Voters?

I totally agree with this comment about the recent conservative "Values Summit."

“Dogma voters” is the more fitting label. “Values voters” is a label invented by people who like to think of themselves as championing good human values. What many of them are pushing actually is dogma. “Values” are “the principles that help you to decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in various situations.” Cambridge Dictionary of American English. “Dogma” is “a fixed, esp. religious, belief or set of beliefs that people are expected to accept without any doubts.” Id. The two, we can only hope, overlap to some extent, but they are hardly the same. Some of what religious fundamentalists hold up as values others find plainly wrongheaded and even immoral. Labels count. Those pushing the “values voters” label hope it will help them pass off their dogma as values. If they want to push their dogma, that’s their right. But “dogma voters” they are, and that’s what I’ll call them.

- Posted by Doug Indeap

Bookfest is Back: In Columbia City!

Columbia City is a great, old, new-again, hip neighborhood. And you can take light rail to get there!

Announcing
Columbia City's
2009 Seattle Bookfest

Remember the old Northwest Bookfestival on the waterfront?
How much fun it was? Well, it's about to happen again!

Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood is bringing it back October 24-25 at the Columbia City Event Center, a former school that's one block from the new Columbia City light rail station.

The resurrected fair will feature more than 70 local authors, including poets and writers of fiction, nonfiction, mystery, romance, fantasy, and children's books. In addition, the fair will showcase over 50 area bookstores, nonprofits, and small but influential publishers as exhibitors. There is also a long list of panels, workshops and special events including a spelling bee, SCRABBLE contests, bookbinding demo, and a How-to-Write-a-Novel-in-a-Month workshop.

The event is produced by Columbia City Cinema and co-sponsored by the Columbia City Business Association and the Rainier Chamber of Commerce. Lacking corporate sponsorship, the event has become a grassroots effort, with funding and volunteer support coming from the community, the Seattle School District, the Seattle Public Library

I am definitely going to check out the readings and panels, the Scrabble tournament, and the "How to Write a Novel in a Month" workshop. What fun!

*

Jean Valentine and Harryette Mullen Receive Major Poetry Awards from the Academy of American Poets

New York, September 15—Jean Valentine has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. The $100,000 prize recognizes outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. Harryette Mullen has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Academy Fellowship. The Fellowship is awarded to a poet for distinguished poetic achievement and provides a stipend of $25,000. The Academy’s Board of Chancellors, a body of sixteen eminent poets, selects the Wallace Stevens Award and Academy Fellowship recipients.

I was invited a while back to write some poems in response to the Imogen Cunningham photography up at SAM. I'll be presenting that, and also reading from other recent work this Thursday at the Seattle Art Museum, along with poet Nicole Hardy (who sounds like she is a real hoot)-- see below for more details. And come on down if you are free.

SAM Word
September 17, 2009
7:30–8:30 pm
South Hall
Seattle Art Museum

Poets Nicole Hardy, author of "Mud Flap Girl's XX Guide to Facial Profiling," and Peter Pereira, author of "What's Written on the Body," a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, read new work in response to the SAM exhibition Everything Under the Sun: Photographs by Imogen Cunningham. Curated by Richard Hugo House.

Free with museum admission.

*

In other news, I was reading today in the new issue of Out Magazine, about transsexual surgeon Marci Bowers, who does some really incredible and important work in small town Trinidad, Colorado, otherwise known as the "transsexual surgery capital of the world." As I read more about her, I discovered she used to be Mark Bowers, a Seattle OBGYN. And then I realized, OMG, this was a guy I did residency at UW with 20+ years ago, who was an OBGYN Resident while I was a Family Medicine Resident. I would never have guessed he was transsexual. Maybe he was just closed in and defended? Regardless, it's amazing how people can change, isn't it?

Check out some cool you tube videos about Dr. Marci Bowers here.





*