Cascadia Daily, Oct. 24, 2019

by Andrew Engelson

Get booked at Vancouver Writers Festival & Seattle Lit Crawl

This is a big week for literary events in Cascadia: the Vancouver Writers Festival runs through this Sunday, and Seattle’s 8th annual Lit Crawl runs from 6-midnight, Thursday Oct 24.

Navigating Seattle’s Lit Crawl

Looking for some guidance to Seattle’s boozy literary scavenger hunt on Thursday, Oct. 24? Paul Constant at the Seattle Review of Books has put together three helpful itineraries for the Lit Crawl. Or craft your own. Some highlights include The Coast 2 Coast issue launch, a reading about Women and Labor, a reading of work inspired by Gil Scott-Heron, a reading by Hedgebrook alums (including Ellen Forney & Kathleen Alcala) and the LIT Lit reading featuring Quenton Baker, Jane Wong, Santi Holley, and Shayla Lawson.

Find all the events at Lit Crawl’s Facebook page.

Vancouver’s week of writers

The Vancouver Writers Festival has attracted an impressive roster of big-name authors: Naomi Kline, Adam Gopnik, and Lawrence Weschler talking about his biography of Oliver Sacks.

But there’s a host of programming with BC authors, too.

“Big Stories, Small Packages,” features BC authors Philip Huyhn and Anosh Irani talking about brevity in fiction.

“The Poetry Bash” includes readings by Griffin Prize-winner Eve Joseph and Victoria-based poet Kayla Czaga.

And you won’t want to miss a reading by finalists for Canada’s Giller Prize, including BC writers Alix Olin, Steven Price, and Ian Williams.

Find the full schedule of events at the Vancouver Writers Festival website.

Vancouver Manuscript Intensive

One other literary bit of news: The Vancouver Manuscript Intensive (open to writers anywhere in the world) is designed to help writers critique and finalize their book manuscript, whether it be poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. Some instructors in next year’s session include Rachel Rose, Evelyn Lau, Jónína Kirton, and Shazia Hafiz Ramji. Applications are due November 11, 2019 for the 2020 session. More info here.

Is Amazon’s attempt to buy Seattle council elections backfiring?

Danny Westneat, at the Seattle Times, notes that Amazon spending a record $1.45 million on a slate of candidates for Seattle city council may be backfiring, as national US candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren chimed in on the showdown. Democratic socialist candidate Kshama Sawant writes in Teen Vogue about her David versus Goliath campaign. In related news, Cascadia Weekly reports that oil companies have quietly dumped $70,000 into the Whatcom County, WA campaigns in north Puget Sound, backing a candidate who supports fast-tracking a new coal export terminal near Bellingham. And in Nanaimo, BC, Green MP Paul Manly said he’ll fight any attempt to fund expansion of the TransMountain pipeline in Canada’s federal budget– while the Globe and Mail looks at a shift in seats in BC away from the Liberals, and the possibility of leverage against Trudeau’s goal to expand the pipeline.

Teens sue Canada over lack of climate action

A group of teens who say Canada hasn’t made good on its promises to reduce its climate impact will be filing a lawsuit in a Vancouver court tomorrow, The Tyee reports. As Swedish climate activist arrives in Vancouver tomorrow for a rally, the teens include Madeline Laurendeau whose asthma has been made worse by intense wildfire smoke in the summers.

OR & WA hospitals on coast will not fare well in quake

OPB covers a new report that finds that all the hospitals on the Washington and Oregon coast will be severely affected by a megaquake and tsunami–so officials are looking at new buildings, specially protected generators and other efforts in order to better prepare. In related news, Portland Mercury reports that the Portland city council is ready to overturn a controversial rule that requires posting notices in buildings deemed unsafe in earthquakes–mostly because the law puts an unfair burden on minority-owned businesses.

Studying orca hunting behavior to help save them

Hannah Weinberger at Crosscut profiles biologists gathering data about orca feeding patterns to better understand ways to ensure their survival. Turns out one of the tools the scientists invented was a special Fitbit-like tracking device attached to orcas with a suction cup.

Artists create a variety show with OR prison inmates

Oregon Arts Watch has a fantastic feature about The Inside Show, a variety comedy show filmed in collaboration between artists at Portland State University and prison inmates at the Columbia River Correctional Institution in northeast Portland. The skits, music, and comedy reflect on life in prison, and provide creative expression for people in incarceration.

Juan Alonso-Rodriguez’ long creative journey

Real Change profiles Havana-born artist Juan Alonso-Rodriguez, a self-taught painter, sculptor, and photographer who resides in Seattle and will be presented with a  2019 Governor’s Arts & Heritage Award in November. His abstract work is passionate and vibrant: “I don’t have to be precise about it. It’s more emotional. It’s more about, like, the energy and not trying to be. I’m not trying to do anything that looks realistic.”

That’s today’s assortment of news, arts, and culture from across the Pacific Northwest. If you appreciate it and the original journalism, fiction, essays, and poetry we publish at Cascadia Magazine, please help us continue into 2020 by giving a contribution to our Fall Fund Drive. Thanks! –Andrew Engelson

Photo credit: orca by Minette Layne via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0