Seattlest's Field Guide to Local Authors: Elliott Bay Hat Trick

Local literary enthusiasts should plan on staking out Elliott Bay Books for the next three nights. They're hosting readings by a debut novelist, a well-established novelist, and a local journalist/author visiting Italy (but not Rick Steves).

Tonight at 7:30, Olympia author Jim Lynch reads from his debut novel, The Higest Tide. It's a tale of a young man and the sea that comes complete with a giant squid and high praise from authors like Katherine Dunn and Robert Olen Butler. We haven't read it -- but it sounds so intriguing that we're willing to add a "yet" to the end of that phrase.

When we were in college, Seattlest knew a couple of Tom Robbins devotees, including one person who lived his life according to the precepts he found in Still Life with Woodpecker. We were more Jitterbug Perfume fans, ourselves. And while Robbins has dropped off of our radar, he's still so popular that if you want to see him read tomorrow night at 7:00, you'll get to Elliott Bay early enough to grab a couple of the free, first-come first-served tickets you'll need to get in. Robbins is reading from his new collection of essays, poems and stories, Wild Ducks Flying Backward.

On Thursday night at 7:30, it's Seattle Weekly contributer Eric Scigliano's turn at the mic. He'll be reading from his new non-fiction book Michelangelo’s Mountain: The Quest for Perfection in the Marble Quarries of Carrara. It's his account of the area of Italy that's his ancestral home as well as Michelangelo's stomping grounds. Scigliano traces the the social and geographical environments that shaped Michelangelo and that he reshaped in turn.

All of which leaves Seattlest with one question: what's the local version of a John Hancock?