Memoir, Mystery, and Mermaid at March First Sunday Prose

It seemed like a relatively small, but attentive crowd at this afternoon’s Bloomington Writers Guild “First Sunday Prose” at Morgenstern’s Books (see February 5, et al.), despite a high-powered lineup of featured readers. But then it was also a sunny and not-too-chilly afternoon starting a week forecast to get colder, so that may have provided a competing draw.

Of the featured, first up was poet, story, and essay writer John Irvin Cardwell, with multiple books as well as a career as (among other things) a policy advocate and member of numerous private boards and public commissions, with two stories: the first, “Misery,” exposing the plight of the urban homeless, followed by “Hanging Out with Frank,” a memoir of times spent with one-time Indiana Governor Frank O’Bannon when he’d led the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus, as illustrative of the meaning of friendship. Then he was followed by multi-published short fiction mystery writer, as well as Edgar and Derringer Award nominee and Bill Crider Prize, et al., winner, Joseph S. Walker, with a just released piece in the current ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, “Moving Day.”

After the break, the “Open Mic” portion was also small, with Walker drafted in as third of three readers with another brief story, “Kindling Delight,” following usually final place MC Joan Hawkins, with me — also unusually — leading off with “The Mermaid Vampiress” (who, as we found out, does not wear a seashell bra). Also of the mermaid, taking a lead from my “Casket Suite” of five related-tale readings on successive months at the Guild’s “First Wednesday Spoken Word” (cf. March 2, below), this was the first of a three month series to be continued in April and May.