Lit Walk features 15 local writers at 5 Everett venues

Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 5, 2018

It will be like bar-hopping, except with poetry and prose instead of booze.

Fifteen writers will be featured at five locations on or near Hewitt Avenue in Everett during Quake: An Everett Lit Walk at 1 p.m. July 8. Venues for the event are Black Lab Gallery, The Irishmen, Sol Food Bar & Grill and The Independent Beer Bar.

The performers will have about 10 to 15 minutes each on stage to share their diverse works of writing, poetry and spoken word, said C.C. Hannett, a local poet hosting the event with David Callaway and Emma Bianchi.

“You can expect to hear a lot of experimental work, surrealism, social justice issues and you might also have satire,” Hannett said. “It’s going to have a little bit of everything.”

Lit walks, like art walks, are meant to be an easy way to enjoy the arts, connect the community and support artists and local businesses, he said.

Venues, all within walking distance of each other, will showcase multiple performers, which gives audience members enough time to settle in and eat food, drink beer or have coffee.

“We’re not trying to rush it,” Hannett said. “It’s going to be an all-day event. We want to give the poets time to have fun in the city and give people a chance to enjoy the work.”

It may be the first lit walk ever organized in the city, Hannett said.

The majority of writers live in Everett, while the rest are coming from Bellingham, Spokane, Seattle and Olympia.

Everett resident Carolyn Agee is a published author, actress and spoken-word poet who will perform at The Irishmen.

Agee, who identifies as genderqueer, will use surrealism to cover topics important to her, such as being assigned female at birth.

“I’ve never been part of one before, so it’s really exciting,” Agee said. “I think it’s really important — especially right now with the cultural and political climate —that people have a voice. There are a lot of people who are LGBTQ in the scene, and a lot of people of color who express themselves in ways that are direct and to the point.”

Hannett hopes to make the lit walk an annual event to expand Everett’s literature scene, which has been aided by regular poetry readings at Black Lab Gallery, Cafe Zippy and Hibulb Cultural Center.

“I think the lit walk is definitely going to help put us on the map as far as the Pacific Northwest is concerned,” Hannett said.

If you go

Quake: An Everett Lit Walk begins at 1 p.m. July 8. C.C. Hannett will make introductions from 1 to 1:30 p.m. at a mini amphitheater on the corner of Rockefeller Avenue and Wall Street.

Each performer will have about 10 to 15 minutes on stage before it’s time to move to the next venue.

Matthew Parsons Memorial Park (Rockefeller Avenue and Wall Street): Fitz Fitzpatrick, David B. Clark, Jennifer Faylor

The Independent Beer Bar (1801 Hewitt Ave.): Sarah Galvin, Matthew Spencer, Robert Lashley

The Irishmen (2923 Colby Ave.): Carolyn Agee, Annette Kluth

Sol Food Bar & Grill (1405 Hewitt Ave.): Ru Otto, Laurie Langston

Black Lab Gallery (1618 Hewitt Ave.): Never Angel, Elizabeth Vignali, Anastacia Tolbert, David Johnson