This has been the flavor of my month thus far: a rich and delicious black and white cookie… half dark, half light, but all tasty.
DARK
Crypticon
There’s some pretty skillful cosplay going on here, lots of creepy fun art and merchandise, and the panel discussions are great. Also great? Their annual film festival.
I’ve written about it already earlier this month: check it out!
Spring Scares
(May 11)—A week following Crypticon, I got another dose of Halloween in May while visiting this gathering of PNW horror authors at Barnes & Noble in Kirkland. Organized by the HWA Seattle, it featured four hours of talks with a nice cross section of authors. Along with folks I know—JP Barnett, Jennifer Brozek, Brianna Malotke, Clay Vermulm, and Josef Wilke—I had the pleasure of meeting Jaq Evans, Victor Rodriguez, Conor Metz, and Evan J. Peterson.
Discussions ranged from favorite horror monsters to earliest inspirations for writing horror, future trends in horror storytelling, what scares horror writers, and the concept of literary dread.
LIGHT
Unexpected Productions Improv Theater
(May 10)—I had the pleasure of doing a long list of fun things over the past weekend aside from the most obvious “light” adventure (the aurora borealis).
On this same night, my daughter and I visited the heart of Seattle’s improv community at the Unexpected Productions Theater in Post Alley (next to the infamous Gum Wall). There, we watched a troupe of five actor-comedians flesh out a theater-of-the-mind spontaneous play improvised using about a dozen cues from the audience.
Mad respect to these talented people for being able to construct a one-of-a-kind two-act play with zero script and zero preparation.
They have classes and, when I can clear my calendar a little later this year, I’m really thinking about signing up! For
me, the Light here is the lightbulb that formed over my head as I brewed new ideas inspired by the production.
A Whistling Kettle: Introducing Haiku Comics
Following Spring Scares, I popped in at the Push/Pull Gallery in Ballard where Seattle’s favorite comic artist David Lasky hosted an opening of panels created by comic artists that centered around the form and messaging found in haiku.
I was intrigued by so many aspects of this exhibit: the poems themselves, the myriad ways the artists approached the text (including decisions about how many panels to use to correspond with the “beats” in the poems), the media they chose.
It was lovely to see David Lasky, who I met a lonnnnnnng time ago at an intro to comic making for the Write-O-Rama at the Richard Hugo House.
I also ran into the lovely and super busy Wendy Call and literary arts fixture Vladimir Verano.
Definitely more lightbulbs going off after visiting this show, and there are also classes I can take to do the same with my own haiku, so… maybe I’ll try that, too?
THE WHOLE COOKIE
(May 12)—How about a little bit of both dark and light? I spent my Mother’s Day in Capitol Hill with my girls—LIGHT—which included bites from the Sunday Farmers Market, ice cream from Molly Moon, and—DARK—axe throwing at Blade & Timber. One of the best Mother’s Days ever!
Finally, one of many shots I took on May 10 to capture the aurora borealis. Now I’ll have to find a different excuse to travel to Iceland!
It’s only May 17… I can’t wait to find out the flavor profile for the rest of this month!