Whenever my spirits need a boost, a dose of good literature almost always does the job.

For the past five years, my reading has come mostly from helping to edit the online literary journal flashquake (www.flashquake.org), a classy zine that publishes fiction and creative nonfiction of 1,000 words or less and poetry of 35 lines or less.

It's a volunteer gig that takes way too much time to read and comment on the more than 400 submissions we receive each quarter, with much of the writing ranging from dreary to downright punishing.

But even the bad writers deserve credit for trying, and about one piece in 10 is fresh material that just sparkles; when one of these gems appears on my computer screen, it gives me a lift that justifies all the time invested.

These stories open windows on the world totally different from the daily journalism I've toiled in for four decades.

If reading good literature is an elevating rush, it can sometimes be even better to have good work read to me, and I've been fortunate to enjoy a heavy helping of that in the past week.

Lorna Hershinow brought her Celebrate Teen Reading Festival to Windward Community College and drew an overflow crowd of high school students to the Paliku Theatre.

The program is intended to expose young readers to some of Hawai'i's best writers, but there's no law that says an adult can't join in on the fun.

I was captivated by readings that included Jon Osorio's Hawaiian storytelling, Keola Beamer's short stories, Kealoha's slam poetry and Sage Takehiro's edgy poems.

The way writers from different generations approach their work fascinated me. The veteran Beamer, best known for his slack key guitar music, has had second thoughts about his use of a certain four-letter word as he's grown older and had his wife on stage to bleep it out of his stories with a duck horn.

Takehiro, a University of Hawai'i grad student just starting out with her first book of poems, "Honua," always seems on the lookout for creative ways to use the same word, telling the students, "They gave us a language that includes this word and then tell us we can't use it because it's bad?"

I haven't gotten out to live performances as much as I used to since I've been in a wheelchair and appreciated the thoughtfulness when Joe Moore asked if I'd like to see a video of his recent play, "Prophecy & Honor," about the court-martial of Gen. Billy Mitchell, a father of the U.S. Air Force.

I've never been a student of military history, but Moore displayed a nice writing touch in combining intense drama with engaging humor to entertain as well as educate.

It was a quality production that starred Hollywood standouts Richard Dreyfus, George Segal and Don Stroud along with local favorites Moore, Frank De Lima and Terence Knapp. The four-day run at the Hawai'i Theatre last month raised $60,000 for the Pacific Aviation Museum, where copies of the DVD are still on sale.

We're lucky to live in a vibrant theater community featuring fare from Broadway standards to original work by talented local playwrights.

The Fall Festival of Writers 2007 at UH-Manoa Oct. 3-5 focuses on the local theater, with workshops during the day by top playwrights Alani Apoi, Lee Cataluna, Briar Grace-Smith, Vicky Kneubuhl, Darrell Lum, Ed Sakamoto, Albert Wendt and Y York and performances at night of their works and those of emerging playwrights at Kumu Kahua.

The events are free and open to the public. A flier with details is available at www.english.hawaii.edu/events/fallceleb.html.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.