Inquiring minds may want to know what happened to Richard Hugo House's Annual Inquiry. After much debate, the one-weekend program has been changed to a literary series that runs through March 2008.
"For the first eight or nine years of our existence, we did the annual inquiry as a weekend festival with many, many guests and panels, and workshops, and even an evening performance, all revolving around one theme. It was a lot of fun, a lot of work to put on, and, we were told, somewhat intimidating," said Alix Wilber, program director for Hugo House. "We didn't intend it to be intimidating, but many people told us that they felt they needed a Ph.D. just to come in the door."
Hugo House's new literary series picks up some of the ideas that worked well in the Annual Inquiry and remolds the experience into what the organizers hope will be seen as a more audience-friendly event.
"Also, the inquiry was focused on ideas but not on new works. We would invite writers but they wouldn't necessarily bring something new here. Rather they'd read an older work," said Wilber.
For Hugo House's last Annual Inquiry in 2006, Hugo House specifically commissioned some writers to create a new piece to fit the theme.
"And we were really impressed by how great the works were and even more impressed by how excited the writers were to debut works here," recalled Wilber. "And we thought this is really fun and why don't we do it more often. Rather than being 'annual' in the sense of being once a year, let's make it 'annual' as in happening all through the year."
So Hugo House executive director Lyall Bush, Wilber and other staff members decided to break the Annual Inquiry into a less intensive series of events rather than an overflowing weekend and commission all new works specifically for this series.
"It is in our mission statement that we are here to foster new works and new writers," said Bush. "And this program places the emphasis on new."
Besides asking the writers to create something for the Literary Series, Hugo House will hold a contest in the spring for new writers. The winner will participate in the final March program.
The new literary series also gives Hugo House something like a theatrical season, said Bush, and he hoped that the audience would build throughout the year, with a mix of "regulars" subscribing to everything in the Literary Series and other people dropping in for the writer who interested them the most and then coming back for later weekends.
The first weekend of the literary series, Oct. 12-13, brings together performer Mike Daisey, biblical biographer Lesley Hazleton and novelist Randall Kenan. Hugo House asked all three to write on the theme "Lost in Translation," a wording both broad enough and narrow enough to stimulate a lot of thought.
After all, Wilber pointed out, the American Heritage dictionary defines translation in eight different ways. And she suspects that Hugo House's guests will broaden that definition even more.
"We really wanted to invite people from different genres, different generations, different political and ethnic backgrounds, to appear together," said Wilber. "For the first year, we wanted to have somebody on each bill that would be well-known to some segment of Seattle. So there's a lot of people who won't know who Kenan is but will know Daisey, and vice versa. So we'll have a diverse audience meeting new writers and each other in this event."
A former cubicle dweller at Amazon.com, Daisey had one of the longest-running monologue shows in town, a theatrical success that he's parlayed into nation-wide appearances commenting on everything from a certain sock puppet spokesperson to the death of the Cold War. A gay, African-American writer, Kenan's recent anthology of short stories "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead" was nominated for a National Book Critic's award. British author Hazleton has explored the lives of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jezebel, the Bible's best-known harlot, in two biographies.
"I was looking at each of these people and thinking about how they could use our theme," said Wilber. "Kenan could go anywhere with this, there's a lot of translation that goes on between cultures, orientation and generations-there's a lot that he could say about this topic. Hazelton has been writing recently about the Virgin Mother, and she's reconstructing Mary's life, about which very little is known except a few passages in the Bible. Essentially translating this person, as all biographers must do. And Daisey translates his experience in the terms of whatever catches his interest. For this event, he's going to be talking about Los Alamos and nuclear testing and I can't wait to see where he goes with that!"
Later weekends in the literary series bring together equally diverse mixes of writers, but each weekend will revolve around a different theme. After "Lost in Translation" comes "We Could Be Heroes" in November with Jack Hitt, Ellen Forney and Brian Turner; "Love is the Drug" in February with David Wagoner, Rick Moody and Monica Drake; and "Answered Prayers and Other Tragedies" in March with Sherman Alexie, Michelle Tea and David Schmader.
After each Friday's reading of new works, the weekend continues with a class or workshop on Saturday led by the writers. "We asked each writer to propose a class or some type of open program. So, in October, Hazelton will be teaching about recreating legends, Kenan will discuss how to give your characters an individual personality, and Daisey-well I don't know what he's doing yet. He's promising a description any day now, any hour now, but it will be a panel," said Wilber.
Overall, "the Literary Series is going to be quite different" from other literary events currently happening in Seattle, said Wilber. "It's not bringing another author to the podium and having him or her read from their latest work. It's performing without a net. The e-mail correspondence that I've gotten from the writers indicates that they are very excited about this and are having fun. And it's going to be intimate. Our theater holds 240 people and there will be a party afterwards. You stand there and chat with Kenan while eating your canapé or drink your Singapore Sling and ask one of the writers whatever you want to ask."
Tickets for Hugo House's Literary Series are $15 (student/seniors) to $25 (general public) for individual events. Literary Series passes are available and more information can be found at www.hugohouse.org. Hugo House is located at 1634 11th Ave.
Rosemary Jones writes about the arts for the Capitol Hill Times. She can be reached at editor@capitol hilltimes.com.[[In-content Ad]]
