Literary footnotes

JOEL LONG, local poet and author of "Winged Insects," and KATHERINE COLES, local poet and author of a new novel, "Fire Season," will read from their work, Wednesday, 7 p.m., Salt Lake City Main Library, 211 S. 500 East.

THOMAS AND FRIENDS will bring its 60th anniversary traveling trunk tour to Borders Books, 50 S. Main, Wednesday, 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Thomas the Tank Engine is one of most enduring preschool characters. Each trunk includes a giant read-aloud book for a special story time performed by a dressed-up conductor.

LEMONY SNICKET (DANIEL HANDLER), children's author, will appear Wednesday, 5:30 p.m., Skyline High School auditorium, 3261 E. 3760 South. Tickets sell for $15 and include a copy of "Book the Twelfth" and a place in a booksigning line. Sponsored by The King's English (484-9100).

KAMAU BRATHWAITE, internationally known poet, professor of comparative literature at New York University and author of "Ancestors," will read from his work, Thursday, 7 p.m., Vieve Gore Concert Hall, Westminster College, 1840 S. 1300 East. Brathwaite has written much about the impact of the English language on the Caribbean and Jamaican Creole identity. Part of the prestigious Anne Newman Sutton Weeks Poetry Series.

SARAH GORDON, professor of law and history, University of Pennsylvania and author of "The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in 19th Century America," will deliver the 11th-annual Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture, sponsored by Utah State University, Logan LDS Tabernacle, Logan (435-797-2663).

E-mail: dennis@desnews.com