30th Anniversary! Seattle’s African-American Writers Alliance Annual Anniversary Group Reading

We still remember where we were in Elliott Bay’s Pioneer Square location late in 1991, when Seattle poet Randee Eddins came in with word of a new writing group forming, and her hopes that we could host a reading for them in February. It was one of those meetings that happens on the fly, wherever one happens to be standing. We said yes, certainly: February 1992 saw us host a first group reading by what was then, and still is, known as the African-American Writers Alliance. Then, as now, there have been a great array of writers, voices, ages, genres holding forth, sharing, hearing and being heard, at other venues around the city, and here at Elliott Bay on the last Saturday (usually) of February. Randee Eddins’ then young son, Rajni (thirty years later an established poet in Vermont), read in that first reading, embodying young voices to come, as there have also always been senior voices as well, including now-senior voices still active and with us that were younger back when. While there is the past, there is also the vibrant present, which this evening should be a testament to, even in virtual form. Dr. Georgia S. McDade, who has been here for most, if not all the thirty years, will be on hand, helping see everyone through. This should be a delight. Please join us.