on feb. 12 i will not read a story about meth labs

If you’re a regular but reluctant KROQ listener like myself, you know that Kevin and Bean have nothing good to say about the 909 (or gay folks or uppity people of color or women who have the audacity not to be hot, but that’s another blog post). The 909 (a.k.a. the Inland Empire, a.k.a. Inlandia, a.k.a. Riverside and San Bernardino Counties) has an unfortunate reputation for being home to meth labs and dirt and not much else.

For 30 years now, the good folks in the creative writing department of UC Riverside have been making the 909 an increasingly important cultural region with a fabulous little event called Writers Week. This year’s lineup includes California Poet Laureate Al Young, performance artist Tim Miller (one of the NEA Four!) and, um, up-and-coming LA writer Cheryl Klein, among others.

I hope you’ll make the trek on the 10 East (but if you can’t, or if you, like my dad, are all about Cheryl and not so much about the NEA Four, I’ll be reading in LA in May). Details about my reading are below, and you can get the full schedule at http://www.creativewriting.ucr.edu/writersweek/schedule.html.

Writers Week XXX
Monday, Feb. 12, 2007
1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Short Stories & Poets
Humanities and Social Sciences Building, Room 1500
UCR, 900 University Ave., Riverside, CA, 92521
Cheryl Klein — Short Stories
Joseph Millar — Poet
Dorianne Laux — Poet