Two Big Readings!

We are very excited to announce a date for the annual Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award Reading. Please join us at the Richard Hugo House on Wednesday, October 5 at 7:00 pm to hear Casey Fuller read from his prize-winning collection, Fort Made of Doors. A book signing will follow. Finalist Meghan McClure of Auburn will also read. We are sorry finalist Ann Gerike will not be able to join us as she has moved to Maryland.

We hope you will join us and help us inaugurate this wonderful book. It is youthful and wise, funny and moving. Here is a sample poem by Casey Fuller:

Blue Hoodie

You have made it through many things I did not want to do
and many things that have made me very happy, and as a thanks

I keep wearing and washing you, putting you over wools and cottons,
and I am finally content to let you unravel at your sleeves

so you can keep revising where you end. I have wiped my nose on you
and you have spent much time in a canvas bag folded up with fruit

and you have brushed forklifts and bicycles and almost everything
I have written over the last seven years. I have lost you and found you

and used you for a pillow and when the police pepper-sprayed
the kids protesting on the corner you were the first thing I reached for

to cover my face. Strangers have worn you and my mother has sewn you
and I have scissored holes into your seams so you could be gloves.

I have gone to sleep in you and used you for a blanket and I have
woken up to find the person I most love wearing only you

while they made scrambled eggs for breakfast. You have touched me
more than anyone and known my habits as well as anything

and you have hovered around me like a blue kind of halo as I walk through
each of the buildings and out onto the thin decks that always have the best views of the city.



We are also excited to announce a joint reading with Casey Fuller of Portland and our 2010 chapbook winner, Laura Read of Spokane at Open Books on Tuesday, November 1 at 7:30 pm. Both of our readers are coming from out of town and this is a terrific opportunity to hear two emerging poets that you will be hearing more about in the months ahead. Mark your calendar!