We received this e-mail from Arundel Books employee Chris Dusterhoff yesterday:

It is with a heavy heart that I let everyone know that the Arundel First Thursday
Reading Series has been canceled. It is not expected to start up again in the
near future.

Please know that this is an unfortunate development that is beyond my control.

Thank you for all your support.

This is a shame. I wrote about the last author to read at Arundel, Nicole Sarrocco, a couple weeks ago. If you've never been, Arundel is a tiny little bookshop, but it's two levels, and so at readings, the author would stand on the balcony overlooking the shop and read their work down to the small-but-enthusiastic crowd below. It was kind of a romantic little setup.

Having a readings series on First Thursday is one of those things that seems like a good cross-promotional idea in theory, but is maybe difficult to pull off in reality. People like to mill about on the Pioneer Square Artwalk, and so they're not as willing to devote attention to a longish reading. Something like a very short poetry reading in a public space would possibly work, but poetry that you can digest in two minutes is almost always bad, and so we're back at square one.

In any case, farewell, Arundel's First Thursday Readings. You had some great authors—Stacey Levine, Kim-an Lieberman, Nicole Sarrocco—and a charming space, and it's a shame that that's not always enough.