Wednesday November 2: Short Run International Comix Night

In just a few years, Seattle’s own Short Run Comix & Arts Festival has gone from a zine show packed into the Vera Project to an international affair. Tonight, Short Run brings four worldly cartoonists — from Lebanon, Greece, Belgium, Mexico, and Croatia — to the downtown library to discuss the universal language of comics. Seattle Public Library, 1000 4th Ave., 386-4636, http://spl.org. Free. All ages. 7 p.m.

Thursday November 3rd: Poets! A Dynamic Group Reading

What a stellar lineup of poets: Amaranth Borsuk, Don Mee Choi, Jennifer Kronovet, Sarah Mangold, Sarah Rosenthal, and Jane Wong. All these authors have published new work recently, and Choi is also hard at work translating Korean poets into English. If you haven’t fallen in love with a new poet this year, this reading will do the trick. Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, http://elliottbaybook.com . Free. All ages. 7 p.m.

Friday November 4th: Hugo Literary Series: Animals

With its big bar and swanky chandelier, Fred Wildlife Refuge is a terrific temporary home for Hugo House’s Literary Series. Tonight’s readers include short story author Kirstin Valdez Quade, novelist Alexander Chee, and Seattle’s own Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, along with The Royal Oui, all producing new work around the theme of “animals.” Fred Wildlife Refuge, 128 Belmont Ave. E., 322-7030. http://www.hugohouse.org. $10-25. All ages. 7:30 p.m

Saturday November 5th: Short Run Comix & Arts Festival

See our Literary Event of the Week column for more details. Fisher Pavillion, Seattle Center. http://shortrun.org. Free. All ages. 11 a.m.

Sunday November 6th: The Cascadia Poetry Festival

It’s a big weekend for Seattle festivals. Yesterday saw the Short Run Comix & Arts Festival, and the Cascadia Poetry Festival has been happening all weekend long at the Spring Street Center. This off-campus reading features three titans of Cascadian poetry: Sam Hamill, Brenda Hillman, and Colleen McElroy. Open Books, 2414 N. 45th St., 633-0811, openpoetrybooks.com. Free. All ages. 4 p.m.

Monday November 7th: Hood: Trailblazer of the Genomics Age Reading

The next few years are likely going to do for biology what the late 1990s did for the internet. And we owe it all to Lee Hood, the biologist who led the charge to sequence the genome. Journalist Luke Timmerman reads from his new biography of Hood, which includes never-before-seen files and memories of the man. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, http://www2.bookstore.washington.edu/. Free. All ages. 7 p.m.

Tuesday November 8th: Ghost Talkers Reading

You don’t get to do anything tonight unless you’ve already voted. Sorry, it’s the rules. But if you’ve voted and you want to do something besides be anxious while waiting for returns, why not attend a reading by sci-fi author Mary Robinette Kowal, who’ll read from her new novel about a ghost army in World War I? University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, http://www2.bookstore.washington.edu/. Free. All ages. 7 p.m.