Three-Hour Storytime Part of Backspace Art Fest

This had been the announcement in the Writers Guild Newsletter September:

CALLING Demonic Agony Aunts and Performers who like to walk the spooky dark side.

HAUNTED GALLERY IN BACK SPACE

The Writers Guild is working with Backspace Gallery to host a haunted house-type attraction in their galleries every Fri and Sat the month of October. This installation will be co-sponsored with BAC grants awarded to Backspace, Urban Deer Record Co., and the Writers Guild.

And to the point. . . .

We are also co-sponsoring spooky readings, your work or others or a mix. This will be kind of vaudeville-style where a group will move through the performance space, listen/watch for a bit, and move on, so you’ll read for 2-3 minutes at a time. No need to be in costume but spooky/creepy/macabre attire is strongly encouraged.

So I ended up signed for two Saturday stints (for unrelated reasons, my Fridays were already taken this month), from 5-8 p.m., on the first and third weeks. That is, this evening just passed and October 21st. And last night, it happened, there was no story reading (I’d stopped in briefly myself to check things out and, as coordinator Tony Brewer confirmed this evening, there’d been a last-minute cancellation, with two musicians from Urban Deer filling the space instead), so I was the first in what was still uncharted territory. Which meant some experimentation when I came in at 4:30.

But no problem. Impressed myself by the improvised music Friday, I’d already e-suggested we might keep it in as background for the readings too. Then a testing of “mics,” concluding that, as a change of setup, a hand-held microphone would work best (albeit being a bit of a pain when I, reading by preference from printed MSS, had to turn pages).

Then also, when the event began, that shorter five-minute or so tales (the “2-3 minutes” of the call being long since abandoned as a chimera) worked better than longer ones, adding some improvised patter between stories for those who might linger (“. . . it won’t be a good story, but it won’t be a bad one either. It will be a horrible story.” Hey, nobody said this was high art). But the thing is, it worked. The crowds weren’t large, but when there were gaps — which there would be anyway, or else one would find some other excuse — there were chances to take a break. Cokes from the refreshment stand helped keep my throat from getting too dry, and listeners seemed to be appreciative. . . .

Or in short, while grueling (it was still three hours) it was rather fun.