North Coast Writers broadens the literary scope for its first event launching the fall and winter series. 

The group’s seasonal opener is 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 10, at Wine on the Waterfront, 115 Railroad Ave., Port Angeles. 

The event features Jerry Kraft, a Port Angeles poet, playwright and theater critic, who premieres his new one-act play, “Picking,” along with a selection of short scripts featured as part of the Seattle 14/48 Festival. 

Assisting Kraft are readers Mary-Alice Boulter, Renee Bible and Annika Pederson. 

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. to allow for purchase of refreshments prior to the event.

Kraft says the presentation is “somewhere between a full staged reading and a traditional poetry reading, (and) promises an entertaining and rewarding theatrical experience focusing on the particular art of dramatic writing.”

According to Kraft, “Picking” is about “three young women who are itinerant fruit pickers traveling the fields doing seasonal harvest work and spending their nights imagining a fantastical world much removed from their dreary lives. It is a work in progress and response from the audience will be much appreciated by the playwright.”

Kraft describes the Seattle 14/48 Festival, where his additional short scripts originated, as revolving around plays “written, cast, produced, directed and presented to an audience within 24 hours. The process is repeated the next night, so the festival actually presents 14 new plays in 48 hours."

Kraft’s numerous plays written in a wide variety of styles and subject matter, along with book and lyrics for several musicals, have been staged in Seattle, Port Angeles, Spokane and Portland, Ore. 

For the past 10 years, he served as Seattle-area theater critic for SeattleActor.com. 

His published work and poetry, appearing around the country in several literary journals, includes the 2011 winning entry in adult poetry for “Tidepools.”