My first Public Reading! Part 3

The following pictures show the reaction of the audience after our readings.

     Reactions to my reading was immediate and astounding. One of my fellow seniors, who also was in workshop with me once, told me how proud she was of how far I had taken the story since she first work-shopped it. The associate dean of our program, also one of the faculty, whispered to me that I had everyone eating out of the palm of my hand!

Photo courtesy of classmate/friend Shelia

Photo courtesy of classmate/friend Shelia

That same evening, while on an outing with some of the class, our program's acting-director patted me on the shoulder and expressed how I wowed the entire auditorium, including her. I felt humbled and thrilled.

The next three days, I received thumbs-ups and earlier-termers who approached me to say how excited they were about my story. I had at least three schoolmates (one first-termer and two long-time schoolmates) tell me I had opened their eyes to my genre. Our program's former director-now-faculty-member high-fived me when we met in an elevator!

It was an exhilarating experience and one this introvert does not take lightly.

Photo courtesy of classmate/friend Shelia 

My first Public Reading! Part 2

Photo courtesy of classmate/friend Tina

16 of us would be completing and going through commencement this term. The first eight went on June 20. The second group of eight (my team) would go on June 21. I was third in line and before we started, my fourth-term mentor (my professor during my thesis term) approached me and asked what I would be reading. I told her a scene from my second chapter. She wished me luck and went to her seat.

Photo courtesy of classmate/friend Tina

When it was my turn, I made sure my bookmarks were in place of where I would start and end. I had written my introduction and binder-clipped it to the front. I had practiced my ten minutes down to eight. This would give me enough time to ad-lib my thanks to my classmates and to the three mentors that were my instructors during my time in the program.

The lights were in my eyes but I decided to focus on my sheets of paper. At one point, the microphone went out -others told me they hadn't noticed and that my voice still carried to the back- and so I continued to read, making sure that my eye contact was for everyone. I had read the piece enough to smile and/or react as my characters would. I didn't mimic my two protagonists' accents or dialects but I retained their tonal inflections. 

When I ended with a 'thank you', the auditorium reacted in a way I didn't expect. There were woots, whistles and call-outs! When I returned to my seat, my fellow cohorts told me what a great job I did as well as fist-bumps and handshakes.
[Part Three in next post...]

My first Public Reading! Part 1

      As part of the requirement to complete my MFA, graduating cohorts have to do a public reading of their thesis. The program had changed the timing. With only 10 minutes, weeks before I traveled to Tampa for this last writing residency and my commencement, I practiced several pieces before deciding on one scene.

I worked out that I would dress up for this. I am a budding cosplayer (costume player at a scifi/fantasy/horror/comic/anime convention) and because this residency would be my last, I decided I would dress as the time period of my historical fiction, the early 1930s.

We were split into two teams of eight. I would be in the second team and the third in line. On Day 4 of the residency, June 21st, I did my first public reading.

Photo courtesy of friend/classmate Tina

Photo courtesy of classmate/friend Shelia

My costume consisted of clothing I already had in my closet. I wore a matching vest and slacks my mother had sewn for me several years before. I wore a pair of J.G. Hook shoes I had purchased many years ago. My dress shirt one of a set I bought from Steve and Barry's about six-seven years ago. Also, in honor of Father's Day, I wore one of my father's messenger caps, pin-striped as my outfit.

[Part Two in next post...]

The Thrill of the Chase...

Remember the first time you had to stand up in class and recite something or read an essay you wrote or whatnot? You don't remember?
Well, good, because I remember my first time, and thinking about it traumatizes me now.

1982. Bronx, NY, Parkway Elementary School, Kindergarten.
We had to do that repulsive Show-N-Tell and I had a whole spiel ready. But when it came my turn, I froze. Absolutely and irrevocably frozen.
My teacher yelled at me. At 5, I couldn't understand WHY she was so angry with me. So I wouldn't dance like a puppet? Like the other kids?
I cried and stewed in a corner for the rest of class.

Fast forward to junior college, and I'm in the first course in Creative Writing.

I'm about 18-19 years old.

In the past, the only class coursework involving ANY of my stories has been relegated to that short span for which they devote a minute time to the ART OF FICTION (said like a bass-voice narrator speaking through a bullhorn).

Now we are in a circle, our desks to form a ring, and each session, the professor chooses who's to read the next story. She comes to me. It's my turn. My limbs are shaking. I am becoming frozen. My chin trembles so that I forget how to form words. Most every one's gaze is on me.
I can't feel the paper, and I clench it tightly. It's pastel yellow, printer paper that was once used on a dot matrix ('member those?) printer, and later, through an inkjet.
I begin to read.
I'm the only student that writes about gangster dogs in suits and fedoras.
I have a classmate who writes from the perspective of flowers in a meadow, but one can guess I am pretty much the oddball in the class.
My professor, the only one impressed by what she saw as natural talent and skill.
I continue to read.
I finished the scene when my protagonist chases a rival into a New York subway, the rival slips off the platform and into the tracks the same time a train arrives, killing him.
My protagonist looks at his watch and says, "Hm..Well what do ya know? It's right on time!"
I'm finished.
I look up. Everyone watches me and I mean EVERYONE.
I swallow as I turn to my professor. My mouth is dry but she nods, her confidence in me confirmed.
A classmate, "Whoa."
I hear, "That was the most incredible thing I've ever heard!"
"I was literally shaking."
"I'll never look at dogs the same way again."
More and more words of praise and admiration.

There's already a hater, who never liked my stuff and often criticized my work before I would even finish. She looked away. I don't care.

The words of encouragement are enough, and thank God, because this was my last stop, pun definitely intended, before I decided I may give up on writing.
From that class, from that experience and many afterwards, I decided to pursue writing, no matter how long it took me.

A classmate explained that as I read the piece, my speech became faster and faster, thereby intensifying the action but also making it difficult for some to understand me.
However, the class heard what they needed to hear to give me feedback, and I walked on air the rest of that day.