We have an open mic, a book about a painter, and a thriller about fighting terrorists today, as well as a few other readings of interest.

There are two readings at Elliott Bay Book Company: Jenny Block, who the press notes describes as a “a suburban wife and mother,” reads from her new book Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. We might be running a review of this one in upcoming weeks. Here’s a question: Do people still have key parties? I never found one in two and a half years of Party Crashing, so perhaps the time has come and gone.

Seth Kantner reads later that evening at Elliott Bay. Kantner wrote a novel called Ordinary Wolves that was really very popular in the Northwest. I didn’t read it, because I have a job and can’t read everything. But Kantner is back with Shopping for Porcupine, which is a collection of essays and photographs. The buzz for this one was pretty high at Book Expo America; people were excited to read it, and I am, too.

Also, at Neumo’s from 9 am to 5 pm, Wizards of the Coast will be celebrating Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day, marking the release of the new fourth edition with sample D&D games. I’m going to go at some point today (most definitely not in the morning), and if you’re not going, I’ll let you know how it went. I wrote about the new edition of D&D in this week’s Constant Reader:

…this month, D&D is releasing a brand-new fourth edition intended to fight the online competitors by cleaning up a lot of the rules—it now takes a matter of minutes to create a new character, rather than a few hours—and D&D itself now has an online component.

Lastly, up at 826 Seattle, a class on comics by young people is having a release party for their book, titled Happiness? I know that David Lasky, who was on The Stranger’s Genius shortlist last year, is a teacher of the class, and I know that comics by young people are almost always fascinating. The art above is from one of the stories from the book. The publicist at 826 also says that there will be cupcakes, and “milk in fancy glasses.” You won’t be getting that at the open marriage reading.

Check the full readings calendar for more information.