How's this for a superbowl of an author reading: Paolo Bacigalupi, Tobias Buckell, Charles Coleman Finlay, Sandra McDonald, Paul Melko and Sarah Prineas will do a joint reading in Columbus, Ohio, on June 7th at 7 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble Bookseller, 1739 Olentangy River Rd. That's located about a stone's throw from the Ohio State campus.

Sadly, Buckell's new book Sly Mongoose won't be out prior to the reading, but his highly praised novel Ragamuffin is still available. For more information on Buckell and his writings see my review of Ragamuffin and my featured interview with him. I also highly recommend Bacigalupi's Pump Six and Other Stories (see my overall review here and my praise for the title story here). As readers may remember, I'm really pushing for the title story of Bacigalupi's collection to be nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards. And obviously Finlay, McDonald, Melko, and Prineas are all top-notch authors.

A few years ago I ran a major literary reading series in the Twin Cities, meaning I attended the dang things several times each week. As you might guess, that really burned me out on the whole idea of author readings.This is the first reading since then that I'm actually excited about attending.