Monthly Archives: July 2012

Karen Thompson Walker

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Karen Thomson Walker charms the audience with a reading of The Age of Miracles

A large crowd squeezed into the poetry corner of Magers & Quinn Booksellers to hear Karen Thompson Walker read from critically acclaimed The Age of Miracles on Thursday, July 26, 2012. A former book editor at Simon & Schuster,Walker was extremely forthcoming with the entire writing process of her debut novel. Even though she was sure to emphasize how she had braced herself for rejection letters and how lucky she felt to finally be standing in front of a group of readers of her book, I am sure an entire crop of Twin Cities’s editorial interns and editorial assistants found new hope in getting that manuscript they are writing with every free minute published to praise and positive reviews.

It was evident that Walker is classy, sophisticated, and well-spoken, but she is also humble and friendly. It was like she wanted us to like her, and I appreciated that. Walker read the first chapter and a half from the book, which gave a clear portrait of life before “the slowing,” but with the unsettling voice of someone who has already experienced its effects. “The slowing” refers to the earth’s rotation gradually slowing, thus making the days longer. Gravity becomes slightly stronger—birds begin to fall from the sky, baseballs travel shorter distances, airplanes are no longer the same. Another effect of “the slowing” is its influence on the migration of whales: the whales begin to beach themselves.

It is on a beach spotted with dying whales that the audience was introduced to the true story of The Age of Miracles, that of an eleven-year-old girl trying to grow up in a world turned on its head. In the second section Walker read, narrator Julia accompanies the boy she’s been adoring from afar to the beach. While the scene gives us snippets of the trauma the rest of the world is experiencing, we also see into the mind of a girl on the verge of adolescence. Julia lets us in on thoughts such as, “I was the girl walking with him,” and “I was a little bit in love. I had spent an entire afternoon with Seth Moreno.” For me, this was the best part, the juxtaposition of the concerns of an average eleven-year-old girl in love and the shocking effects of “the slowing.” But there’s also some science in a book of such feeling. Walker consulted an astrophysicist doing his graduate work to keep her story realistic, even if it took her a while to muster up the courage to fact-check the conceit she had conceived while writing for fun every day before work.

As much as I love attending all kinds of readings at all kinds of venues, I have to admit I especially loved this reading. It’s no surprise I feel comfortable at Magers & Quinn—I worked there for almost a year, and I try to drop in every few weeks or so, but this reading was co-sponsored by the lovely duo of Hazel & Wren (Amanda Wray and Melissa Wray respectively)—literary bloggers, writers, graphic designers, letter press printers, and anything-else-creative extraordinaires. (Check out their stellar interview with Walker here.) While introducing the author, the

Amanda (left (Hazel)) and Melissa (right (Wren)) Wray revel in real people, real books

duo summed up their excitement in partnering with Magers & Quinn to host Walker in a few sweet words: “Real people and an actual bookstore.” I loved hearing these words from two fierce forces in the literary virtual world. I also swooped up an original Hazel & Wren letter press bookmark specially printed for the reading. Smartly, it reads, “We were here,” a quote from Walker’s novel.

I have yet to read The Age of Miracles in its entirety, but I am definitely looking forward to it.

–SS

Were you There? Have something to add, or a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below, or send us an email at LitSeen.Mpls@gmail.com! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!

Best of Summer Stories

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Every summer for the last four years, Vita.Mn has prompted local writers to submit a work of short fiction on a theme.  The top submissions are then invited to compete in a live performance for two coveted prizes: the audience choice award, consisting of $400 and admission to the Loft’s three-day Nature and Environmental Writing Conference in Sandstone, Minnesota, and the grand prize (chosen by a private panel of judges), which amounts to $750 and publication in bot Vita.Mn’s print and online editions.

So it was that the Loft Literary Center, Vita.mn, and Hell’s Kitchen teamed up to present the fourth annual “Best of Summer Stories” competition on Wednesday, July 25 2012.  Hell’s Kitchen—a multifaceted subterranean downtown Minneapolis venue—was a spacious, unconventional, and ultimately perfect setting for this year’s theme: the Seven Deadly Sins. With dungeon-esque candlelight and low wattage fixtures, and the looming presence of a fallen angel providing the stage’s backdrop, the classy yet macabre environment lent just the right tone for an evening of lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.

Ben Barnhart reads “Breaking Down Silos” before a rapt audience and a fallen angel.

A powder-blue-suited John Jodzio emceed the event, delivering the audience through nineteen impressive writers reading nineteen exceptional stories—seriously, whoever did the vetting either had a really easy job or did really good work with a difficult one.  Twenty writers were invited, but Betsy Rathburn couldn’t attend to read her story “Fireworks.” Too bad—she missed out on a supportive, enthusiastic audience at the ready to hoot, laugh, and squeal for their favorite short-short stories.

Ben Barnhart started things off with “Breaking Down Silos,” and the night never looked back.  Brian Beatty’s eleven-year-old narrator ranted against an unidentified antagonist in “My Wrath” (in order to help the audience imagine him as an eleven-year-old, Beatty instructed us to imagine him “shorter, fatter, and with less grey in my beard”). I would point out the highlights, but the writing on display was of such consistent quality that there simply weren’t any low points to distinguish them. What did stand out, though, was how each of these readers performed their original works with boldness and confidence, adding sass and character to each voice we heard. Jocelyn Hale of the Loft presented the audience choice award to the much deserving Brian Judd, whose epistolary historical

Audience Choice Award-winner Brian Judd reading his story, “Fox and Foxibility”

fiction yarn “Fox and Foxibility” was rendered with an actor’s commitment to craft—Judd read the whole piece in what I understood as a mock-historical affect, though this theory weakened when he graciously accepted his prize in what seemed to be a continuation of the persona…  For what it’s worth, Judd gave a stellar performance and wrote a stellar piece, but I voted for Erin Boe, who’s authentic rendering of her story “The Painter” won me over with the line, “I’ll give you some clam chowder… but it’s not vegan.”  (Maybe you had to be there.)

The fourth annual Best of Summer Stories was a thorough success on every front—entertaining, rewarding, novel, and inspiring—from start to finish. I’ll make a point to attend next year, and every year after that.  My only question is, why stop at “Best of Summer”? There are four seasons to a year, and clearly there’s more than enough talent to go around.

–RHM

Were you There? Have something to add, or a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below, or send us an email at LitSeen.Mpls@gmail.com! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!

Convectional Magic: an Interview with OUR FLOW IS HARD

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The first time I came across a listing for the new Twin Cities-based reading series “Our Flow Is Hard” my reaction wasn’t too complicated: “I have to check that out.” Partly because of the witty and bold entendre in the collective’s name, but primarily because I knew it was a chance to witness a group of young poets developing into something new, something organic and public and interactive.  I attended the first OFIH event (and wrote about it here), and my curiosity was only piqued: they do things a bit differently in OFIH, and the difference seems deliberate. Continue reading →

Field of Reads

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What happens when a few cultural institutions get together and encourage people to come sit around and read for a while? People come sit around and read for a while. On Saturday, July 14 2012, Coffee House Press publisher Chris Fischbach and the Walker Art Center teamed up for Field of Reads, a day-long campaign to turn the Walker’s Open Field into a site for reading, book-swapping, story-timing, and literary mingling.

The day’s attractions featured a  lending library (accessible every day at Open Field) which also included starter kits, Bananagrams, Jenga, and bundles of other activities; a tent set up for a children’s storytime;  lawn chairs and mats to spread out on the lawn; and an spread of impressive books available to swap.  These were not old, ratty editions, either–the swappable books appeared to be in like-new shape, and quality titles, from classics to local independent gems, abounded.

Books for free! Books for swap! Bring us your books! Take our books with you!

I brought my own book (I forgot to bring one to swap) and I got down to business pretty quickly.  After chatting with a few of the other attendees and the friendly Walker Art Center staff, I cracked open a novel and buried my nose.  Similar to my reaction to Boneshaker Books’s Sustained Silent Reading a few weeks ago, I found something about reading in public inspiring, something calming and reassuring that ultimately increased my attention span, allowed me to more fully give myself over to the words on the page.  I’m still tinkering with my thinking about this, but a nascent theory is that reading in public, for me at least, demands that I block out distractions and therefore increases my ability to focus–as opposed to the stillness of privacy, which in turn causes me to seek out distractions and encourages my mind to wander…

But there is something additionally peculiar to an “event” that focuses not on being entertained, but on engaging a private entertainment while in public.  It moves away from performance, from the ritual aspects of an author appearance or “reading.”  The shared experience aspect of communal reading is far more tenuous than if everyone is hearing the same words at the same time.  But there is something shared, something affirmed, in simultaneously giving yourself over–even if the objects to which you give yourself over are drastically different for each person. And this affirmation, it seems to me, is only possible when the opportunity is publicized, as in Field of Reads and Sustained Silent Reading.  Opening your book and reading in public is a great thing to do, but it doesn’t offer the same sense of shared experience that one receives from participating in an organized event.

A reader of Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles. Don’t miss KTW’s reading on Thursday, July 26!

Reading Room, the overarching program responsible for Field of Reads (check out MPR’s excellent piece here), is an ongoing opportunity for local lit lovers to utilize a multifaceted and readily available resource.  Now equipped with the most comfortable lawn chairs on the market (“we tested them all, and these are the best” says Graywolf Press associate publisher Katie Dublinski) and picnic tables and umbrellas for when that hot sun bears down, Open Field hopes to extend this communal literary affirmation on a more spontaneous basis.  The Walker might not be the most convenient place to get to, tucked in its nest of boulevards and freeways, but next time you have an afternoon and you feel like having a read, take your book on a stroll through Loring Park, cross the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge, and turn a few pages with a few like-minded Twin Citizens.

-RHM

Were you There? Have something to add, or a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below, or send us an email at LitSeen.Mpls@gmail.com! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!