This e-mail from Artist Trust is great news:

Artist Trust is pleased to announce that Brian McGuigan has been hired as its Program Director. McGuigan has worked in programs and marketing for over a decade at Hugo House and ArtsWest. He is the co-founder and curator of the popular reading series, Cheap Wine & Poetry and Cheap Beer & Prose; the director of Lit Crawl Seattle; and an ambassador for On the Boards. In 2010, The Stranger shortlisted him for their Genius Award in Literature, and in 2011, City Arts named him one of Seattle’s ‘Power 50 Culture Makers.’ When he's not working in the arts, Brian's a writer himself. His essays have appeared in Gawker, Salon, The Stranger, The Rumpus, ParentMap, and elsewhere, and he has received support from 4Culture, Artist Trust, and the Office of Arts & Culture.

Artist Trust helps all kinds of Seattle artists in every discipline with financial support and increased visibility. But speaking selfishly, SRoB is thrilled that such a dedicated book guy is taking over the programming. McGuigan knows every writer in town, and he's a passionate advocate for talent, both as a programmer and as a reader.

What's more, he's a spectacular programmer; anyone who's attended the packed-to-the-gills Cheap Wine & Poetry and Cheap Beer and Prose readings series at the Hugo House knows McGuigan's a great events curator, and he brought energy, spontaneity, and passion back to the Hugo House's stage after a few rough years of misdirection. He knows how to throw a party, is what we're trying to say, and we can't wait to see what he does with this new role.