Why surprising? Because book events tend to be quiet, intellectual pleasures--an eager-to-please author drones on too long, to a score of "bookstore" music and quiet snores. This event was both lively and enlivening. The venue was a local theater, and the readings took place on stage, with the audience in their place, watching and listening. Judy Reeves introduced Roger and I, we both said a few words, and the entertainment began.
What a night of theater--better than any night of one-acts in memory. (Why did not any theater producer think of 5 minute one-acts? One is instantly intrigued, and never bored.) Each voice seemed an ambassador from another world--mothers, students, husbands, widows, teachers, children, robbers and con men...The range of world-views, races, and ages was wonderfully unsettling, unlike most plays where people who look and sound alike discuss a difference of opinion in strained tones.
Last week, I saw a high school play (my niece Emma gave an excellent performance in a forgettable musical) and was reminded of why we go to the theater. Everyone in the audience was rooting for the performers. Not a cynic in the house.
The anthology reading created the same result--all of us cheering our fellow writers on, waiting with held breath for the final word of the story. Find A Year in Ink
here on Amazon, or explore the SDWI website to hear about classes and workshops.I sit in my cozy boat this morning as the masts of neighboring boats, barely visible out my porthole, wave lazily against blue sky. Sunshine is welcome today: We're off to a binational communications meeting over in Tijuana today--hasta manana!