The Seattle Times ran an article online this morning about the new Writers-in-Conversation series I’ll be hosting at the Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds. Here’s the opening:
Next month, the Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds is partnering with Edmonds Bookshop to launch Writers-in-Conversation, a new monthly reading series that will explore the past and future of Northwest literature.
“There really is no other museum in our region that focuses on historical Northwest art and artists,” Sally Ralston, executive director at CAM said.
CAM already has a full slate of events, from lectures to curator Q&As to a monthly movie series. But when Seattle author Michael N. McGregor brought Ralston the idea of a monthly conversation series with Northwest authors, the concept felt like a natural fit.
CAM, Ralston said, “focuses on artists from between 1870 to about 1970.” Until recently, she added, “perhaps a Black artist or a woman artist [from that time] just wouldn’t be recognized for their abilities and their talents as much as a white male might.” That edict of highlighting the underserved voices in Cascadian art informs Writers-in-Conversation.
For the series’ first edition on Thursday, Aug. 8, CAM is welcoming Spokane novelist Sharma Shields, whose work explores under-examined aspects of Northwest history. Her debut novel, “The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac,” delved deep into the history and impact of local cryptid lore, and her follow-up, “The Cassandra,” is set in the early days of Washington’s Hanford Research Center, which secretly created nuclear materials essential for the World War II-era Manhattan Project.
You can read the whole article, written by Paul Constant, at this link.
Here’s the pertinent information from the end of the article:
Writers-in-Conversation | Sharma Shields and Michael N. McGregor
Thursday, Aug. 8 at 6 p.m. 190 Sunset Ave. S., #E, Edmonds; 425-336-4809; cascadiaartmuseum.org; $14/museum members, $20/nonmembers