Speaking Tour: 12/13 - 12/19

Wednesday, December 13
>>>Hugo House, 7:30pm. Screenwriters Salon: Geoff Miller and Mark Handley invite you to bring your questions about format, technique, structure, dialogue, writing characters, and how to use your catering gig to hand your script to celebs. $5 general/$2 students. Free to members.

>>>Seattle Public Central Library, 5:30-7:00pm. Mayor Greg Nickels and City Council President Nick Licata rochambeau to see who gets to salute Seattle author Tim Egan. His book, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl won the 2006 National Book Award in Nonfiction. Free, with corn husk tea and locust cakes. Microsoft Auditorium.

Thursday, December 14
>>>Maple Leaf Wine Cellar, 6:30-9:00pm. Demystify Italy's "B" wines from Piedmont: Barbera, Barbaresco, Barolo, Brachetto. Chris Zimmerman, regional manager of Vias Imports, leads the tasting. $50. No Sideways jokes, please, they're over it. Call 206-523-1333 to RSVP.

>>>Town Hall, 6:00pm. Seattle Parks Board of Commissioners is holding a hearing on the Citywide Skatepark Plan. We don't know about you, but we think turning the city into a skate park could finally put all these hills to exciting use. Free. Downstairs auditorium.

Elliott Bay at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, 7:30pm. Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar, most known for his novel The Centaur in the Garden, and Ilan Stavans, a Mexican scholar and fiction writer, discuss South American literature and Jewish culture. Tickets $8, at NEXTBOOK.

Friday, December 15
>>>Elliott Bay, 7:30pm. Seattle artist Gregory L. Blackstock discusses his book Blackstock's Collections: The Drawings of an Artistic Savant. Where's that article on him. Oh, here. Free. Your questions about Rain Man's realism will be met with a chilly silence.

Saturday, December 16
>>>Hugo House, 5:30pm. Rinjing Dorie, Tibeten storyteller, author, bartender, and former yak herder reads from his new novel The Renegade Monk of Tibet. Free. Tibet.

>>>Fantagraphics, 6:00pm. Peter (Hate) Bagge and Ellen (I Love Led Zeppelin) Forney talk about their work, some of which is included in the ongoing exhibit, "30 Years of Misfit Lit." Free with lack of health insurance and proof of dead-end day job. Georgetown, 1201 S. Vale Street.

Sunday, December 17
>>>Complete silence.

Monday, December 18
>>>Silence endures.

Tuesday, December 19
>>>ToST, 8:00-11:00pm. It's the International World Poetry Slam's Qualifier Finals, with a showcase from the Bent Writing Institute. A dream evening for anyone who writes like Allen Ginsburg, or just sounds like him. $5 cover, 21 and over. An age group we hear Allen frowns at.