Happy Birthday to Emily...

If you're in the Seattle area, come on out Saturday to bid Emily Dickinson happy birthday.

The quick details:

An Early Birthday Celebration in Honor of Emily Dickinson Saturday, December 5 at 2 p.m. at the Elliott Bay Book Company (free/no tickets needed)

From the official PR:

This may be jumping the gun just a bit, as Emily Dickinson's 179th birthday is not until December 10th, but it¹s nevertheless time for some observing of the beloved poet¹s life and work with a discussion of some recent Dickinson scholarship, and a reading of some of her poems and letters.

Traveling here today for the festivities are Dickinson scholar Ellen Louise Hart, a contributor to Reading Emily Dickinson¹s Letters: Critical Essays (University of Massachusetts Press, edited by Jane Donahue Eberwein and Cindy MacKenzie), and Holly Springfield, founder of the Portland chapter of the Emily Dickinson International Society.

Ellen Louise Hart is also co-editor, with Martha Nell Smith, of Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson¹s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Paris Press). The Elliott Bay Book Company is located at 101 S. Main Street (at the corner of 1st Avenue S. and S. Main St. in Seattle's Pioneer Square).

All are invited to read a favorite poem or letter of Dickinson's, a poem or letter of someone else's or their own in honor of her birthday!

This is extra-exciting for me, because Ellen is a longtime friend of mine from the '80s.

I have my poem picked out. Do you?