Three readings tonight, including a couple of doozies.

Ted Pederson is at the University Bookstore, reading from Seattle’s Greenwood-Phinney Neighborhood. Did you know that the Greenwood-Phinney neighborhood was founded by pirates who were later laid low by sexually-transmitted diseases? It’s true!*

Richard Price, author of Clockers, reads at Elliott Bay Book Company from his newest book, Lush Life. Price is one of the best writers of crime/thriller/mystery/whatever-you-want-to-call-it novels today.

And Samantha Powers, the former Obama aide now famous for likening Hillary Clinton to a monster, reads at Town Hall tonight. She’s reading from her new book Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, which sounds interesting, but you really have to wonder if she’s going to field questions about the monstrous elephant in the room.

Also going on today is Norwescon, the annual SeaTac-based science fiction convention, and I’ll be providing live updates all day long. Festivities go from 9 to 2 am, and tonight is the big Philip K. Dick Awards presentation. Should be fun.

Full readings calendar, including the next week or so, here .

*Actually not true.