Literary Event of the Week: LOVEFEST at South Park Hall

WEATHER ALERT

Inclement weather has forced many bookstores and libraries to temporarily postpone their event programming; please call ahead or check the venue website before heading out.

Valentine's Day this year falls on a Thursday, which basically stretches the holiday out into a long weekend. Sorry, but if you were scrambling to score a Valentine's reservation at a fancy restaurant on the 2nd of January, you were kind of taken for a ride. Friday night is wide open at some of the nicest places in town, and Saturday night is even better. Why would you bother going out with your sweetie on a work night, anyway?

So since you'll be reveling in an all-weekend orgy of Valentine's celebrations, allow me to point you to an event that serves a double purpose: it features two of Seattle's finest readers and it's a fundraiser for an excellent cause.

Feminine hygiene products are a necessity, but too many Seattleites can't afford them. One Million Tampons is a nonprofit that last year donated over a hundred thousand tampons to women who were homeless or in serious financial distress.

One Million Tampons hosts an annual event called LOVEFEST, which both raises funds for the organization and helps raise awareness of its cause. This year's LOVEFEST, which happens on Saturday night is a pretty fantastic lineup: the readers are Seattle Civic Poet Anastacia-Reneé and Seattle writer David Schmader.

Anastacia-Reneé has never been anything less than a compelling reader of her own work. Her readings are so harrowing and so buttery and so honest that you'll feel bolted to your seat. And Schmader — who, full disclosure, I worked with at The Stranger and who I'm proud to call my friend — is an impossibly funny human being.

Together, the readers will share work that will make you laugh, make you think, and probably make you horny. It's the Valentine's Day trifecta, and it happens on a Saturday night so you don't have to worry about waking up early the next day. Go fall in love all over again.

South Park Hall, 1253 S Cloverdale St, https://www.facebook.com/southparkhall/, 8 pm, $7.