This Friday, I'm going to be hosting an event called The Importance of Being Genius at the Hugo House. The premise is pretty simple: This year's Genius shortlist for literature—Ellen Forney, Ed Skoog, and Kary Wayson—will perform short works and then take part in a joint Q&A session where they'll take questions from you and from me about poetry, comics, autobiography, and everything else you'd want to ask three of Seattle's liveliest non-prose authors.

This is a very special event for me. Forney has been one of my favorite cartoonists since I was a bratty kid buying my minicomics at the Million Year Picnic in Harvard Yard. Skoog's poetry has defined Northwest literature for me—his otherness, coming from Kansas and New Orleans, only intensifies his Seattle-ness, since so few of us are natives—and Wayson is one of the first poets whose work I fell in love with in my job here as books editor. I'm excited to see what a conversation between these three great brains with their two very different disciplines will be like. It's not very often you get to talk to poets and cartoonists at the same time; I expect they'll have a lot more in common than you'd initially think. The fact that the Hugo House has a well-stocked bar will probably just make the evening that much more enjoyable.

You can buy tickets for the event right here. And since you're a Slog reader, I'll make you a deal: If you use the code "Earnest," your tickets will only be $5 each. You should join us. It'll be a grand time.