West arts briefs

ST. LOUIS PARK

Hmong author to discuss memoir Kao Kalia Yang, author of "The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir," will speak, sign books and answer questions at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at St. Louis Park City Hall's third-floor council chambers.

Yang, who attended high school in St. Paul and now teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, tells the story of her and her family's experiences coming to the United State from Laos.

The book is a Minnesota Book Award winner, Readers Choice Award recipient, Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award winner, and was on the Indiebound Reading Group "Top Ten" List.

This event is free and open to the public, and is co-sponsored by St. Louis Park's Human Rights Commission and Bookmark in the Park, a community project to encourage intergenerational reading among families in St. Louis Park.

Free parking will be available at City Hall, at 5005 Minnetonka Blvd. For further information, contact Eve Winters at 612-419-9770 or go to www.bookmark-in-the-park.org.

Writing seminars at county libraries The Hennepin County Library is offering several writing seminars through its "First Pages" program to help people realize some of their personal writing ambitions.

• "Start Your Memoir -- For Writers 55 and Older," 3 p.m. Nov. 6. at the Wayzata Library. This is a chance to get started writing your personal history, family history or any story you want to tell. Basic elements of memoir writing will be discussed, and the class will include exercises to get started.

• "Capturing Life-Changing Experiences," 7 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Excelsior Library. Learn how to share your story through creative nonfiction writing.

• "Character Creation," 2 p.m. Nov. 26 at the Sumner Library in Minneapolis. This program is especially for kids in grades 4-6. The class will cover how a writer develops a character that can capture a reader's imagination.

• "What Would You Like to Write?" 3 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Ridgedale Library in Minnetonka. This is a beginning writing class to help decide where your interests lie, with writing exercises in fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry.

Registration is required for all of these classes. For more information on these and other writing seminars at county libraries, go to www.hclib.org.

The artists are Beth Barron, Rachel Breen, Joel Carter, Toni Dachis, David Feinberg, Marty Harris, Jay Isenberg, Joyce Lyon, Avigail Manneberg and Liba Zweigbaum.

The public is invited to observe their creative process throughout November; for details on their individual studio schedules, go to www.sabesjcc.org.

The Tychman Shapiro Gallery is part of the Robert and Janet Sabes Center for Jewish Arts and Humanities at 4330 S. Cedar Lake Road in St. Louis Park.

'Short play festival' submissions sought The Northfield Arts Guild is seeking submissions for its sixth annual Very Short Play Festival, to be held April 29-30.

Submissions cannot exceed 10 minutes in length when staged. Writers of all ages are welcome to enter, and there are no other restrictions on genre or content. Submissions can be stand-alone excerpts from longer works.

Selected youth plays (rated G or PG) will be performed on April 29. Selected adult plays (rated PG-13 and up) will be performed on April 30.

Scripts may be submitted either by e-mail to Anna Moltchanova at amoltcha@carleton.edu or by regular mail to the Northfield Arts Guild, Attn: Very Short Play Festival VI, 304 Division St., Northfield, MN 55057.

Deadline for submissions is March 17, and winning authors will be notified by e-mail by March 31.

For more information, go to www.northfieldartsguild.org.