Experimental prose writer, poet, visual artist, and teacher Renee Gladman has built her long and celebrated literary career at the edges of genre. Calamities, the last book she wrote for Seattle/NYC outfit Wave Books, was a critically acclaimed long essay about the connection between writing and natural disasters that moved like a poem. For this Bagley Wright Lecture, Gladman will apply her formal innovations to the normally humdrum genre of academic public speech. Press materials say she will talk about the four books that compose her Ravicka series, and "conclude with the premiere of a sound piece, specifically commissioned for this project, composed and performed by Mauricio Pauly." I'm normally suspicious of any sort of "sound piece," but if Gladman is involved, and if it's happening at the Olympic Sculpture Park, then there's no way it'll end up being some kind of endurance test. by Rich Smith