Pictures from the Soul Food "Freaks and Geeks" Poet Laureate Event

Some events I do as Poet Laureate are effortlessly fun, and this LA Review reading was one of them. Soul Food was a great host, about sixty people showed up to the event, the readers were wonderful, and LA Review sold out of copies they were so popular among the crowd, which included Redmond folks, and people from Seattle and outlying areas as well!

Some pics from the event:

LA Review editor Kelly Davio reading from her new book:

Seattle-ite poet and LA Review contributor Michael Shmeltzer reading:

Kelly Davio and I with our new books! (She's holding up my new third book, Unexplained Fevers, and I'm holding her new first book, Burn This House.) And a statue of a bear!

Freaks and Geeks: Redmond Poetry Meets The Los Angeles Review

This Friday, March 15, come out to Soul Food Books at 8 PM and let in a little California Sunshine!

"Los Angeles is coming to the City of Redmond with the editor and writers of the Los Angeles Review joining Redmond Poet Laureate Jeannine Hall Gailey to celebrate poetry on the Eastside at 8 p.m. on Friday at Soul Food Books, 15748 Redmond Way.
LA Review editor Kelly Davio will be on hand to read selected works and introduce local writers who have contributed to the Review. Writers will include Janet Buttenweiser, Katherine Eulensen, Jeremiah O'Hagan and Michael Schmeltzer, who will read their work from recent issues. Complimentary refreshments will be served."

http://www.redmond-reporter.com/entertainment/196538461.html

Gala at VALA - reading and art show video

Last night, I got a chance to read a few poems on the theme of "heavy metal" - also the theme of VALA, Redmond's newest art community center's newest exhibit, with wonderful metal jewelry and screened metal paintings of eerie metallic woods. The opening gala had a wonderful crowd, including Redmond's mayor, who you can see a brief glimpse of in the video below, as well as the sketches in the background of the artist's work in progress:

A link here in case the above embed doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_j0jcL2UE

Redmond Reads Poetry - Becoming the Villainess Reading February 20th

The Redmond Reads Poetry Reading this month is tomorrow, February 20th at the Redmond Library at 7 PM. I'll be the featured reader this time around, reading mostly from my first book, Becoming the Villainess, an exploration of female comic book superheroes and supervillains! Refreshments will be provided. (I'll also be reading a few poems, as a "sneak peek," from my upcoming book, Unexplained Fevers!)

This will also be a forum for book discussions, if you have any questions or comments about the book! Use the comments!

Hope to see you at the library tomorrow night!

Follow the Poet Laureate in the New Year!

I'm keeping busy at the beginning of 2013! Check out these Poet Laureate Events During the First Few Weeks of January! Go go go!

At Bellevue Art Museum on January 4, a free "First Friday" at the Museum, I'll be helping celebrate Japanese traditions, and I feel greatly honored to be doing so! I'll be doing a short reading of poems inspired by Japanese folk tales from 4:30-5 PM with an accompanying slide show of custom art for the poems by Michaela Eaves, then doing an hour-long workshop on haiku and haibun. I hope to see you there! Bellevue Art Museum is a wonderful resource and I'm very happy to be working with them! I believe the gift shop there will also be carrying my books the day of the reading, and there will be recordings in the museum of me reading a few of my poems. Cool, right?

At the Redmond Library on January 5th at 3 PM, I'm happy to be hosting a panel on "Multicultural poetry and the language of science" with guest poets Natasha K. Moni and Raul Sanchez. Refreshments will be served and the conversation should be lively!

On January 11th, I'll be heading down to Tacoma to a reading at 7 PM at King's Books. It's a wonderful bookstore if you've never visited, and I always feel like I don't get to see my Tacoma friends often enough. (And the Glass Museum, and the Point Defiance Zoo, and...)

On January 20th, I'll be heading back to Bellevue Arts Museum to do a children's haiku workshop!

I hope you can make it out to at least one of these events. And I'll be reading at the Library on February 20th as part of the "Redmond Reads Poetry" series - I'll be reading all comic-book and fairy-tale poetry !

Reading with Hello, the Future at Soul Food and A week of crazy!

In case you're looking for something to do tomorrow night, you know, getting ready to celebrate the Mayan-end-of-the-world solstice and all that, I'm reading all apocalypse and futuristic poetry at 6 PM opening for a band called "Hello the Future" at Soul Food Books Friday.
http://www.songkick.com/concerts/14860894-hello-the-future-at-soulfood-books-and-café

I have had the nuttiest week - my little brother and his wife came in to visit from Thailand, so we took them on a tour of all the fun stuff you can do here in the cold rainy season - wine and beer tasting in Woodinville, sushi dinner and the Sorrento Hotel lounge for cocktails, a pilgrimage to Caffé Vita and helping them catch up on any American things they'd missed (Whole Foods! Book stores! Back episodes of Community and Family Guy! Ah, America...) I also had several poetry events and trying to get everything together for New Binary Press for my third book, "Unexplained Fevers" - copyediting, updating acknowledgements, getting an author photo (hopefully) and working with Michaela Eaves on the cover art. I think I've gotten about seven hours of sleep over the past seven days, which hopefully will be fixed over the weekend. (Along with working on a friend's manuscript, writing my Poet's Market articles, and getting Christmas shopping finished...and Christmas cards, um, started? And responding to all the e-mails I've been ignoring?)

Reading with Hello, the Future at Soul Food Books Dec 14

http://www.songkick.com/concerts/14860894-hello-the-future-at-soulfood-books-and-café

I know I said that my last Poet Laureate thing of the year was over, but I was wrong - I'm reading with an indie rock show at Soul Food Books this Friday at 6 PM.

"Redmond Poet Laureate Jeannine Hall Gailey reads poetry and musicians Hello, the Future, Larry Murante, and Michael Clune play."

I'll be reading all futuristic/apocalypse poetry in honor of the upcoming Mayan-predicted-solstice-apocalypse AND the fact that I'm opening for a band called "Hello, The Future." I might break out some poems I haven't read in public before since I've been working on some new work all about the end of the world (or how we imagine it.)