Events

Chase away the winter blues with this annual, fun-hearted festival on the Fairhaven Village Green.  Often billed as one of the shortest festivals in the world, the event includes arrival of the Reigning Queen and her court, the Fairhaven Ladies of the Evening Society and Fairhaven's Founder, Dirty Dan, followed by a Rain Poetry contest and rain gear contests for kids, grown-ups and dogs with prizes from Fairhaven merchants. Take part in this brief, fun, usually goofy, mid-winter happening in the heart of Fairhaven, at the Fairhaven Village Green!  This is an EVERYONE participatory event, and a good antidote for the winter blahs. The crowd will gaze into the mist and cloudy sky for a sighting of the noon sun. Mattie, the prognosticating Pug will be hoisted skyward by the Ladies of the Evening and then her head petted for dampness. If she is wet, there will be 8 more weeks of rain. If the outline of the sun is seen, there are only 7 more weeks of solid rain, (but only if the Pug is dry). If it is sunny, the cancellation ceremonies take as long as the festival. When all is done, the Reigning Queen closes the festival and all retire to the nearest pub (or cafe, or park if you have little ones in tow). For more information, contact Diane Phillips, the Reigning Queen at The Barbershop in Fairhaven, 360 738-8081. Visit www.Fairhaven.com for more info.

In Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems, Tess Gallagher collects her indispensable work from years of writing poetry, along with an ample new section written in the west of Ireland. Included in this generous book are Gallagher’s signature nocturnes—for the changing Pacific Northwest, for her hardscrabble childhood, and for her late husband, Raymond Carver, and others. Her challenging new work confronts a tumultuous century’s worth of art, warfare, and illness, while certifying the stubborn resilience of poetry and love. Astonishing, insightful, mischievous, an inimitable "seeing-into experience," Midnight Lantern is the essential book by a poet in the prime of her power. Tess Gallagher is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Dear Ghosts, Moon Crossing Bridge, and My Black Horse. Graywolf published her collection of new and selected poems entitled Midnight Lantern in September 2011. She is a co-translator of Romanian poet Liliana Ursu's A Path To The Sea, published in September 2011 by Pleasure Boat Studio. Gallagher is also the author of Amplitude, Soul Barnacles: Ten More Years with Ray, A Concert of Tenses: Essays on Poetry, and three collections of short fiction: At the Owl Woman Saloon, The Lover of Horses and Other Stories, and The Man from Kinvara: Selected Stories. She also spearheaded the publication of Raymond Carvers Beginners in Library of Americas complete collection of his stories released in fall 2009. She spends time in a cottage on Lough Arrow in Co. Sligo in the West of Ireland and also lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington. This event is part of Village Books' Hedgebrook North: Women Authoring Change Series. Located on beautiful Whidbey Island near Seattle, Hedgebrook offers one of the few residency programs in the world exclusively dedicated to supporting the creative process of women writers, and bringing their work to the world through innovative public programs. For more information visit hedgebrook.org. About Caleb Barber: Bellingham poet, Caleb Barber, earned an English/Creative Writing BA from WWU, and an MFA in poetry from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. He currently works days at an aerospace machine shop. He has been widely published in literary magazines, most notably with a feature in Poet Lore. He also has a poem in Best American Poetry 2009.