A round-up of reading, writing and poetic events happening throughout the county.

Sometimes we get a surplus of events in one genre or medium – film screenings, art openings, theater shows – that take on the dimensions of a festival. One such uncoordinated cluster seems to be taking shape this week in those normally reclusive pastimes of reading and writing.

The Prunedale Library is having its Giant Book Sale 10am-5pm this Thursday-Saturday, April 29-28. Investigative journalists and authors Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are at the Monterey Conference Center at 7pm Monday, April 30, as part of the Panetta Institute series. Western Stage is kicking off the adapted musical of Jane Austen’s Emma 7:30pm this Friday and Saturday, April 27-28. See the A&E Calendar, p. 28, for more details. But that’s not all.

Night at the museum

Patrick Whitehurst has put together an Images of America book about the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. It starts in the late 1800s in a chapter titled “A City is Born,” and is filled with antiquated black-and-white photos of women in big hats, Chinese fishing village residents, early buildings, landscapes (even an aerial) and artifacts from the museum’s collection, including a Humboldt squid that was donated by Ed Ricketts and is still on display.

The photo journey ends in the 1990s because, according to Whitehurst, “Arcadia Publishing, with their Images of America series, likes their books to end at the threshold of our own memories.”

Whitehurst used to attend the museun as a kid, and from 2014-17 was its communications and marketing coordinator. The book was released April 23; the book release party is 5:30-7pm Thursday, April 26, at the museum. 648-5716.

Long live River House Books

In the weeks after the announcement that the Crossroads bookstore was changing ownership from Diane and Gordon Simonds to Scott and Jennifer Lund of Lula’s Chocolates, Gordon was reflective.

“Anybody who’s been a regular in the bookstore knows [Diane] is a driving force there,” Gordon says. “I think she was well equipped to do that.”

That included a stellar education, deep recollection, genuine curiosity (especially in humanities and the sciences), and a voracious appetite for reading. They opened a bookstore in Santa Lina in 2005, but after May Waldroup closed the iconic Thunderbird Bookshop, they decided to move the operation to Carmel.

“Our experience at the Crossroads has been terrific,” Gordon says. “We’re amazed at how much we’ve learned from our customers.”

A retirement and transfer party is 5pm Saturday, April 28, at River House Books. riverhousebookscarmel.com.

Notes from the underground

Never Bored is a new, grimy, slim, black-and-white arts and culture zine/magazine born from the collaboration of friends Quinton McKee, a graphic designer, and musician, photographer and designer Alex Ramirez. McKee, who graduated from CSU Monterey Bay three years ago, says the purpose was to collect and showcase raw art, poetry, photos, etc., from “a lot of younger generation” kindred spirits from the underground scene.

Their first issue, Volume 0, came out in January. April’s issue is crammed with organically curated and crudely DIY skate photos, weird art, and jokey band interviews. There is enough advertising (Vinyl Revolution, Central Coast Carnage Skate Jam) to pay for printing, and they’ve distributed to Krown Skate Shop and Somos Gallery in Salinas, and put them in the hands of artist friends. If you find it hard getting your hands on a copy, check their Instagram, @neverboredmag.

Poetry for poetry’s sake

In a salute to April’s National Poetry Month and a celebration of the P.G. Public Library’s 110th year (dubbed “Built for Books”), poet, author and teacher Patrice Vecchione is leading the Poem in Your Pocket event 5:30-7pm Friday, April 27, at the library.

It’ll be comprised of her reading poetry from around the world, talking about the role of poetry in our lives (which may have lost traction with the cancellation of public radio’s The Writer’s Almanac), culminating with her orchestrating a group poem in honor of the library.

Participants can draw inspiration from the gallery in the library, which is showing a crowd-sourced juried art show that references libraries, books and reading.

Vecchione states she may start with Egyptian poet Ali Darwish: “He went out of the room… or out of the center of the sun… or out of the core of mercy… ”

At the end she’ll send participants home with a pocket-sized poem “to keep them company when the night’s darkness gets too far in.”

Your play’s the thing

Paper Wing Theatre Company’s 5th Annual Play Reading Series is going to be held in September. And whose play will they be reading? Yours, if you “play” your cards right (and if their committee likes it). They’re accepting submissions through June 15 of original, full-length, unpublished and unproduced plays, all subjects and genres, by playwrights and aspiring playwrights living in California.

Those submissions are then curated down to a handful which will receive a single rehearsal with a director and actors, then a sit-down reading in front of an audience, with feedback and discussion at the end.

So there is another requirement – authors must attend the readings. And you’ll want to be there, because one play will be chosen based on audience vote to be fully produced in 2019. Email your best work to pwt.fifth@gmail.com.