Alan Lau and Susie Kozawa — 'This Single Road'

Third Place Books welcomes painter and poet Alan Lau to our Ravenna store for a conversation about his new book This Single Road: Postcards and Notebooks from Kyoto, a collection of plein air drawings observing and connecting with the city and its people. While Alan discusses the book, sound artist Susie Kozawa will create a collaborative soundscape supporting his words and images.

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured books!

This event is free to attend. Registration is recommended in advance.

Please note: While RSVP helps us anticipate attendance, your RSVP may not guarantee a seat. Seating is first-come, first-served, and all events at our Ravenna neighborhood store are free and open to the public. Only standing room may be available for events with high interest.

We are happy to accommodate any accessibility concerns. Please contact us at [email protected] or call our Ravenna store at (206) 525-2347.

"We spend so much time on trains and subways that I can't resist sneaking in some sketches. I love the ephemeral moment when we as strangers on this earth get to spend mere seconds or minutes together sharing space before dispersing and never meeting again. Maybe it’s my own futile attempt to hold on to that elusive moment in time."

In This Single Road, poet and painter Alan Chong Lau opens his Kyoto notebooks to us— inexpensive pocket notebooks filled with quick sketches, poems, and fragments of daily life. Many of these moments return as watercolor postcards sent to friends, so what begins in private observation becomes a quiet act of generosity, a way of keeping connection alive through art.

Echoing the haibun tradition of Bashō and Santōka, This Single Road is less a travelogue than a record of engagement — intimate and playful — a lifelong conversation with place, with practice, and with Kazuko, his companion in life and art.

Alan Chong Lau is a poet and visual artist based in Seattle, Washington. He is the co-author of The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99 with Garrett Hongo and Lawson Inada (Buddhahead Press, 1978) and the author of Songs For Jadina (Greenfield Review Press, 1980) and Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker’s Journal (University of Hawai’i Press, 2000). He serves as the arts editor for the International Examiner that covers news, features, and the arts for the Northwest’s pan-Asian Pacific American community. As an artist, he is represented by ArtX Contemporary Gallery in Seattle, Washington.

Susie Kozawa, a sound artist, composer and performer, works mostly with sound collages and site-specific installations, in which the gathering of sounds is a primary activity. She explores different acoustic spaces using musical instruments she makes out of found objects, kelp, modified toys and human voice.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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