A Great Evening of Readings

Wanted to send out a special thank you to Laurie Fuhr and Meghan Doraty of fillingStation Magazine for inviting me and my friend Sarah Johnson to read for the December Flywheel Reading Series held at Pages on Kensington.

We were there partly to promote the Freshwater Pearls Anthology so of course we read from our stories in the anthology but also because of the amount of time allotted for each reader, we were able to read from other works.

By the way, if you haven't picked up your copy of Freshwater Pearls they are available through the Alexandra Writers Centre Society, Owl's Nest Books, Pages on Kensington and Recliner Books.

Sarah kicked us off with an excerpt from You're Bleeding. Not only the piece published in the anthology but also an excerpt from her novel in progress. The excerpt was a gripping tale of a poor bullied girl with huge family issues of her own.

Her second piece, was a humourous essay about the perils of raising a toddler boy.

We weren't alone in our readings. Local Calgary poet, John Creary, shared a number of his poems, most of which were already published or soon to be published.

And then there was me.

I read from Wednesday, my story in the anthology and also from a story I just recently finished that held many references to the Beatles and John Lennon. Funny, too, as the anniversary of Lennon's death was yesterday.

I learned rather quickly that 15 to 20 minutes is a long time to read. My throat almost closed up a couple of times. So this is why readers have water by their side.

Near the end of my reading, a book suddenly went tumbling to the floor. The Visual Orgasm. Not sure how it's related, but for a brief moment, I thought maybe I had pissed off the spirit of Lennon and he was letting me know. (and apparently some of the audience thought the same thing)

Maybe mere coincidence but you never know.

Overall, fabulous night. I had loads of fun. Now can't wait for the reading in March with Writing in the Works. March 10 at Memorial Park Library.

For anyone who's interested, Flywheel is always looking for readers. Check out the Filling Station website for more information on how you can get involved.