The annual Wordstock book fair is this weekend—the festival is already sorta under way, in fact, as this week sees lunch-hour mobile readings from Wordstock authors around town. (Today, the Anonymous author of Love Is Not Constantly Wondering If You're Making the Biggest Mistake of Your Life and Daniel H. Wilson are at Director Park at 12:30.)

But what I'm here to announce is that the Mercury and Seattle's The Stranger are crashing Wordstock. 'CAUSE WE'RE CRAZY LIKE THAT!! On Saturday, we're throwing a joint book release/unofficial Wordstock after-party at the Jack London Bar, with drink specials (happy hour all night!) for festival attendees.

At the party, The Stranger's Christopher Frizzelle and Bethany Jean Clement will face off against me and Bobby Roberts in a storytelling duel, moderated by comedian/Blogtown funny-person Alex Falcone—the theme of the show is "When We Were Young and Dumb," and promises to cover such topics as virginity loss, LSD, softball, and Jesus. The show will last a humane amount of time, after which we'll all enjoy those aforementioned drink specials, and Frizzelle and Clement will sign copies of the Stranger staff's new book How to Be a Person: The Stranger's Guide to College, Sex, Intoxicants, Tacos, and Life Itself.

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To get everyone in the mood, a contest: Two lucky winners will snag a signed copy of How to Be a Person, plus a pair of weekend passes to Wordstock. All you gotta do to win is email me with "Wordstock" in the subject line by noon on Wednesday. I'll pick a winner at "random." (Those scare quotes mean that if you promise to come to our party your odds of winning will increase exponentially.) Make sure you're available to swing by the Mercury office during business hours to pick up your tickets.