There is a whole lot going on today, including a tour of a hydroelectric power plant that started about fifteen minutes ago.

All day at Seattle University, there's a forum called "Search for Meaning." The highlight of the forum is a discussion between Sherman Alexie and James Wellman on faith and America. This oughta be good. More information is here.

Seattle Mystery Book Shop is hosting Ann Rule and Leslie Rule. The Stranger Beside Me is Rule's greatest book, and maybe the best true crime book since In Cold Blood, but in a totally different way. I wrote an adoring piece about her here. Her daughter writes books about ghosts. At the same time across town, there is a lecture on how to make your own biodiesel.

Up at Greenlake Public Library, there's a public forum on poetry with Richard Gold, David Horowitz and David Rizzi, followed by an open mic. At Third Place Books, Nancy Atherton reads from Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon, in which a woman finds excitement and romance at a renaissance fair. Maybe in the next book, she'll discover Star Trek slash fiction. And at the Northgate Barnes & Noble, Lacy Danes will sign her erotic fiction and hopefully also talk about how "Lacy Danes" is a great name for a writer of erotic fiction.

Finally, at Elliott Bay Book Company, Kitty Burns Florey reads from and signs Script & Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting. I'm always vaguely surprised that my awful handwriting hasn't actually kept me from doing anything in "the real world," like all my teachers told me. I'm also shocked that I spent as much time learning cursive as I did, and for absolutely nothing. Cursive, it turns out, was more useless than even Algebra. I'm sure Ms. Florey will discuss all this in detail.