Last Night

I got a chance to do a reading of some of my "Alpha Male" pieces last night at a coffee bar called CopaCafe in Lexington. I do like reading aloud, although it can be semi-terrifying at times. No matter how well I know the piece, and I know my own writing fairly well, I have to make an effort to calm my nerves, read much more slowly than seems humanly possible (and even then there's a chance people will tell me I was racing along ... it's so unusual how that time warp exists when you're doing public speaking) and force myself to pause for people to take things in and the most annoying thing (of course, I love it secretly) not keep going when people laugh. The first time I ever read aloud and someone laughed, I found it so disarming. It was like being in a forest with animals making scary noises all of a sudden. I almost never expect people to laugh at things I write, even very funny things, as no one laughs when I read the stuff to myself in my own head and therefore I never really expect it.

John Irving was one of my professors in college and I used to hear him read his stuff quite a lot. He taught me a ton about reading aloud and he was top notch. He was a great fan of Dickens who did many public readings -- very entertaining ones from what audiences of the day reported -- and knew it as an art form different from writing fiction and more akin to theatre. Irving really knew how to pause and let people walk along with him, keeping a good pace in his reading. Pausing and stopping are so dramatic and important. Mark Twain was an amazing public speaker too. I heard Tom Wolfe talking about that this weekend on CSPAN and want to blog about it in more detail soon.

It was a fun evening. Thanks to all for coming out to listen to me. It was great to see you. Also thanks to all the other writers on the program, even more of a treat for me to hear all your great stuff.