Category — events

One final reminder… the Spelling Bee is happening at AS220 tonight!  Compete for fabulous prizes (including a membership to the Providence Athenaeum) or watch as thirty-six spellers try their best to win the Spelling Bee crown.

The action starts at 9pm, and spellers are encouraged to show up a little early, since we had to turn some latecomers away last year…

I’m a little behind getting these made, but hopefully you’ll start seeing these appearing around town in the next couple of days…

Not About The Buildings’ Third Annual Spelling Bee is coming!

Competition will be fierce as some of the city’s biggest spartypantses compete for the Spelling Bee crown. There will be fame, honor and glory for the winner, and sorrow, infamy and more sorrow for everyone else. Benefits Not About The Buildings, an organization committed to supporting readers and writers.

$5 to compete, free to watch
AS220
115 Empire St, Providence
9 pm; be PROMPT if you want to spell.

Two notable events this week:

Celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich, of Lidia’s Italy fame, is going to be at Farmstead in Wayland Square signing books from 3-6.

Tomorrow, Kevin Roose, Noam Dorr, Sandra Allen, Rachel Arndt, and Emily Silverman will be reading at 4 pm at the Brown Bookstore.  They’re the undergraduate recipients of Brown’s Nonfiction Writing Program Awards.

This happened a full month ago now, and I can’t believe I’m only just getting to the recap…  But the Dead-In was fabulous!  Fifteen readers celebrated the end of winter (and St. Patrick’s Day) by reading Joyce aloud to a packed crowd at Ada Books.  The fifty-four page story took almost two hours to read, with nearly everyone on the edge of their closely-spaced seats the whole time.  Readers included Ada owner Brent Legault, last year’s Spelling Bee champion Maureen Reddy, and a number of readers from last year’s Frome-In.

There was also a really nice profile of Not About The Buildings in the Brown Daily Herald to coincide with the event.

More pictures after the jump:

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The winner of the Margaret Stilwell Prize, given each year to one of Providence’s young book collectors, is being announced right now at the Athenaeum.  I’m reeeeeeeally sorry I’m so far behind with the posting. (There’s also an organizational meeting for a new Friends of Washington Park Library that started fifteen minutes ago.  Which, again, sorry.)

There’s been a lot of action going on with the library; it seems as though the PPL may be ready to cede the city’s nine branches to the non-profit Providence Community Library, though the city’s not saying for sure yet which one it’s going to give the money to.  There have been lots of press releases floating around, but still no decision from the city.

In branch news, the brand-new Friends of the South Providence Library have a new blog, with a list of stuff they’d like donated.

And in other local book news:

The New Plays Festival started at Brown last night and runs through Sunday.

There’s a Publicly Complex reading at Ada this Saturday: Deborah Poe, Jon Woodward and Dobby Gibson.

There Will Still Be Light: A Freedom To Write Literary Festival hits Brown next week, with the literature of Burma being celebrated.  There’s a Burmese film festival happening (although it’s at four in the afternoon, for some reason.)  Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt, and Amitow Ghosh will all be reading during the week, too.  The whole schedule’s here.

And a week from Saturday there’s a book/bake sale to benefit the Friends of the Smith Hill Library.

This sounds like…something.  Maybe not something worth traveling all the way to Wisconsin for, but if you’re in the area anyway it might be worth a visit.

Call For Participants!
The 3rd Annual Edible Book Show!
Sunday, April 5, 1-4pm

What is an edible book show you might ask! An edible book show is designed to encourage new ways of thinking about literature by creating a space in which individuals or businesses can display books made out of food. Last years books were made out of ingredients such as gravy, twinkies, cheese, spinach, cake, cookies, tofu, and even play-doh!

Books are judged upon Delectability, Creativity and Difficulty

Entrance Categories
Children (Ages 5 - 17)
Individual (Ages 18 and up)
Business (Restaurant, Bakery, Caterer, Grocery Store, etc.)

The unique scrumptious art show is like no other, and is quickly approaching. Please call Woodland Pattern at 414.263.5001 to sign-up now and become a participant!

http://www.woodlandpattern.org/

Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 E. Locust Street
Milwaukee, WI 53212
phone 414.263.5001

Last weekend the snow pre-empted the first-ever Rhode Island Self-Published Author Fair at the Providence Public Library.  Good news, though; the event has been re-scheduled for this Sunday, and will feature works by fifteen local authors who have forsaken traditional publishing routes in order to get their books out to the public.

The Keynote Address will be given at 2pm by Christie O’Neil Harrison, and the fair itself will continue until 4pm.  Authors will be present for signings and discussions, and books will be for sale.

For more info, check out the library’s website.

There’s an exhibit of chapbooks right now in the windows of the URI library on Washington Street.  Organized by Kate Schapira in tandem with an exhibit at Pace University, the exhibit features work by author’artists including Jennifer Borges Foster, Anne Gorrick, Kate & Max Greenstreet, Jen Hofer, Brenda Iijima, Dorothea Lasky, Matthew Klane, Jill Magi, Lori Anderson Moseman, Kate Schapira, Jessica Smith, and Janaka Stucky.

On Wednesday, four of the artists will be reading at the URI Gallery, which is technically on Washington but more realistically on Union St.  That starts at 6pm.  Reader bios after the jump:

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This isn’t for a week-and-a-half yet, but I know how busy you all are, particularly on Mondays in the middle of March.  But prepare to take off your winter hat and put on your tam o’shanter because winter is (at least technically) ending soon and Saint Patrick’s Day is fast approaching.

On March 16th (St. Patrick’s Eve), I’ll be hosting The Dead-In at Ada Books, wherein I’ll mumble a few words about James Joyce before everybody launches into an out-loud reading of Joyce’s long short story/short novella.  It’ll be  a festive, though moody, way to say goodbye to winter and celebrate possibly the greatest short story to ever come out of Ireland.

(Last year’s Frome-In was lots of fun, and by several accounts the best thing that Not About The Buildings has organized so far.  I can only imagine that this one will be better, especially since most people don’t generally have a deeply-rooted dread of “The Dead” the way they do with Ethan Frome.)

Ada Books
717 Westminster St
7 pm
free.