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Saturday April 28 is Independent Bookstore Day
Cascadia is renowned for its great bookstores, and with that in mind (and the weather forecast calling for rain) you should show your love for bookstores on Independent Bookstore Day. Find a map of participating stores across North America here.
The Seattle Review of Books has a great guide to the event in Seattle. If you’re up to the challenge, 19 bookstores are participating and if you get your “passport” stamped at each of them, prizes and good karma will be showered upon you. The Northwest Booklovers blog has a rundown of indie bookstore events around the region. KNKX reminds us of some out-of-the-box bookshops, including Fantagraphics Books in Seattle. And Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane has a full plate of events, from pun competitions to author readings and book signings.
Seattle will work to vacate pot convictions
Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan and city attorney Pete Holmes announced today they are asking municipal courts to vacate all misdemeanor pot convictions in the city prior to legalization. Blacks were convicted at a rate 3.73 times whites, and the convictions can prevent people from getting jobs, housing benefits, and business loans. Cascadia Magazine’s feature on racial equity in the legal pot business pointed to vacating convictions as one positive step forward.
BC asks courts for authority to block pipeline expansion
According to The Tyee, the British Columbia government has asked federal courts to grant the province authority to block the proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Citing risks of a spill of diluted bitumen in the Salish Sea, premier John Horgan said “we believe the province has every right to protect its citizens, to protect its environment and protect its economy.” The Tyee also wrote about a new documentary on the pipeline and Canada’s addiction to fossil fuels.
Scathing report may stop work on Hanford cleanup
KUOW talks with reporter Anna King about a damning report from the Government Accountability Office that found the cleanup of 56 million gallons of highly radioactive sludge at Washington Hanford nuclear site is not going well and could be halted.
How observing death in nature changes a writer
Emily Strelow, a University of Washington MFA in creative writing and a working field biologist, has a new novel out called The Wild Birds. In an an essay for The Millions she writes about how encounters with the death of animals in the wild re-shaped how she approaches fiction. “When a nest fails, birds waste no time. They pick the pieces up and move on. A nest is repaired, a new clutch is laid, and they are on to the next plot point of their narrative.”
In search of the rare bees of Cascadia
Paige Embry, author of Our Native Bees, writes an essay for Powell’s Books, in which she talks about trying to spot the endangered Franklin’s bumble bee — a species found only in a narrow band of land about 200 miles long near the border of Oregon and California. She notes it’s likely the first (and probably not last) species of North American bee to go extinct.
Talking with a Black Panthers founder
Marcus Green, writing for the South Seattle Emerald, talks about the day he spent with Aaron Dixon, founder of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panthers. They set up free breakfast centers, called out police brutality, and got the University of Washington to add a black history curriculum, among other accomplishments. “[Dixon] looked at me and talked about the need to continuously reiterate that “another world is possible.”” KUOW reported on a reunion of Seattle Black Panthers, and an exhibit in honor of the 50th anniversary of Seattle’s Black Panther chapter opens today at the Northwest African American Museum.
That’s all the news & culture from across Cascadia today. Enjoy the rainy weekend! ?️ –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: Aaron Dixon by Joe Mabel CC BY-SA 2.0