George Town Literary Festival

Exciting news for book lovers in Penang - the first George Town Literary Festival, organised by Bernice Chauly, features a line-up of Farish Noor, Tan Twan Eng, Shih-Li Kow and Iskandar Al-Bakri.  You can read more on the festival blog.

Bernice Hosts More Stories at No Black Tie

After a long hiatus, I am pleased to present the following line-up of writers for our next CeritAku@readings at No Black Tie.

Details are on the attached poster.

We have some emerging and established voices, including poet/playwright Alfian Sa'at from Singapore, Shirley Lim, eminent Malaysian writer/poet based in UC Berkeley California and poet/politician Dr Nasir Hashim, Adun for Kota Damansara and leader of PSM (Parti Socialis Malaysia).

The evening promises to be an enlightening and inspiring one for lovers of the written and spoken word.

Please feel free to pass this on and we hope to see you there!

Thanks and regards
Bernice.

Bernice in the Caribbean

Live Lit on the MAP

There's a gigantic arts festival on this weekend to celebrate the opening of MAP, a  arts-and-culture space/community incorporating gallery and theatre space located in the Solaris Dutamas development. All kinds of happenings are planned including, art, performance and music. And there are plenty of literary events, among them Poetry Underground, and readings organised by Bernice Chauly to celebrate Earth Hour (8.30-9.30 pm Saturday).  Do go check out the programme for details and also the Festival's Facebook page.

When I heard about it a few days back  my reaction of course was "Oh S**t!" because my own event runs on Saturday afternoon and of course quite a few of the regulars are involved and, of course, deserve support.   I really didn't know this was on the horizon when I organised things! But one doesn't go back on promises, so yes, we're on for Saturday even if we don't have the biggest audience.

And since I can't make it to the MAP Festival on Saturday, I will hope to pop along for Sunday's events and check out this exciting space.

Our Event, the Capricorn!

So ... it turns out that our event, Readings, is a Capricorn (since it was born 8th January 2005) which makes it (according to audience member, Dave Tee, "ambitious, strong willed and never prepared to say die"!)

Forgive a short detour to nostalgia.

We began of course at Darling Muse gallery, and later in 2005 moved to Seksan's and have had a home here ever since. Bernice was the mummy of Readings, and I took over as adoptive mum when her mum became terminally ill, and then she fully handed over the event to me and started a new one, Ceritaku!, at No Black Tie.

Over the years we've given more than 160 writers space to read their work and given them a meeting place where friendships have been forged and collaborations born.

And as straits-mongrel (who also gave me permission to use his beautiful pictures) points out beautifully in his post Reading in Colours,  this event has brought together a huge diversity of folks in the kind of Muhibbah spirit that this 1 Malaysia thing is supposed to be about. Frankly, that's never been on the conscious agenda, but has definitely been one of the best things that has naturally emerged from the event.

And now we've launched a book project which hopefully will put event and writers on the map.

So a party to celebrate this was in order, and party we did.

We welcomed back some of our earliest readers and introduced some new ones.

I've been trying to get hold of The Loud girl aka Elaine Foster ever since I first heard her read at one of The British Council's Wayang Kata events.  She could also be crowned slam queen of KL, and is organising spoken word events now in collaboration with Word Forward in Singapore.  I especially loved the first piece she read, which she had written in collaboration with George Wielgus and Tsiung Han See about the coming revolution and what it would not be like!

Jo Kukathas, actor, playwright, director, and driving force behind Instant Cafe Theatre had been one of the participants in the British Council's creative writing workshops earlier this month.  I loved the pieces she brought to share with the group, and she read from one of them - she isn't prepared yet to say whether it is fiction or autobiography ("It's a something.") which tells the story of larger than life family members.  I really am looking forward to more.

Some three years back, O Thiam Chin told the sad story about how hard it was for him to self-publish his first collection of short fiction and get the copies sold.  How far he's come since then, with a very well-received second book, Never Been Better, published by MPH. (And the bookshop sent along copies for sale.)

And then it was time for cake! We actually had three cakes.  Two of them were red velvet cakes with butter-cream icing ordered from That Last Slice, and they tasted every bit as good as they looked. (Thanks, Aishah,  for driving over from Shah Alam to deliver!)

The third was an absolutely delicious chocolate cake which Saras had had a friend bake for us, and very much appreciated. 

We blew out candles and made a wish - for the next 5 - no, 50 years of Readings to be as successful.


After the break, Bernice Chauly read from the book she is finishing Growing Up with Ghosts which she describes as:

... a literary autobiography, a memoir of sorts in five voices ... about her Chinese and Punjabi family and diasporas which span hundreds of years.

It will also form part of her MA in English Literature and Creative Writing at University Malaya.  Bernice has also been chosen as one of four writers worldwide to participate in Winternachten's (International Writers' Festival of The Hague) tour of the Dutch Caribbean and Suriname in April on the theme A Sense of Belonging.

What I've heard of the new work so far (in the workshops and here in Readings) shows that Bernice is working with fascinating material, and as she says, writing of this kind has been very much neglected in Malaysia. I think it also takes a lot of courage to put your own story out there in the public arena.

Do read this interview Bernice did with The Nutgraph last year, in which she shares some of her personal history with us.

Kam Raslan is the writer who has read more frequently at Readings than any other and  we have followed his Datuk Hamid from his first tentative fumblings with a Swiss milkmaid,  appearing in his own column in Off The Edge, and finally getting a whole book - which the Malaysian public took to their hearts - dedicated to his adventures.  Now it seems that there is a sequel in the pipeline, and the extract that Kam read was as endearing and as funny as ever.  It had the Datuk in a department store attempting to choose a perfume for The Wife's birthday, when a whiff of a fragrance called Betrayal sets off a train of Proustian memory ...

I  had to put Rahmat Harun last, because he is just such an impossible act to follow.  And of course the famous  Keranamu Malaysia had to be the centrepiece of his performance ....  This guy is a force of nature!

Thanks very much to Seksan for the wonderful space (though I was a bit sad that for the first time there was no art on the walls), to all who read and all who supported, to Aishah and Saras for cakes, and to all those who helped set up and clear away.  Nothing happens without you all.

August Ceritaku@Readings

Hurray, Bernice has organised another night of readings and storytelling next Sunday (30th at 9.30) at No Black Tie with a stellar line-up. There's a RM30 cover charge.

No Black Tie is at 17, Jalan Mesui, KL.

Tash at No Black Tie

Tash Aw last night at No Black Tie, reading from a short story set in Indonesia. He also read a tiny extract from Map of the Invisible World ... and left us hungry for more.

Earlier we heard from : Charlene Rajendran who read extracts from her new book Taxi Tales on a Crooked Bridge and her collection of poetry Mangosteen Crumble, doing a brilliant job of capturing the voices of Singaporean cabbies; Hishamuddin Rais who "cerita-ed" rather than read - was totally irreverent and at times very funny when he talked about how the Malays in this country really have it hard ("We have to go to heaven!") ; and Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize winner, Clarissa Tan, who read from short story in progress.

We left at the break since it was already nearly midnight and we had to be back, but I really wish I could have stayed to hear Farish Noor and John Krich ("one of the most original voices in the new wave of travel writing" Salon.Com). (So fill me in on what I missed, guys.)

Bernice did a great job of hosting, as always.

(Picture taken by my niece Shahnim )

CeritAku@Readings June

This month we feature a stellar lineup of Malaysian writers who will be reading and storytelling at No Black Tie, 9.30pm, Sunday 7th June :

Tash Aw
Clarissa Tan
Charlene Rajendran
Hishamuddin Rais
Zedeck Siew
and
Farish Noor

Tel: 03 2142 3737 (reservations recommended)

www.noblacktie.com.my

Cover: RM 20
Books will be sold. (20% discount for Tash's books unless you have the 25% The Star coupon.)

ceritAku@readings is hosted by Bernice Chauly.

Spread the word. See you there!

--------------------------

bernice chauly
writer/photographer/actor
www.bernicechauly.wordpress.com

hp +6 012 323 0929
fax +6 03 7493 1573
kuala lumpur, malaysia

Mystery, Magic, Durians, Clouds and Zambia

This Saturday's Readings@Seksan turned out to be a female affair though not by design. Although a couple of folks I'd hoped to have event couldn't make it (Marina Mahathir had her own book launch at Megamall but will be with us next time; and Avanti Kumar was whisked off somewhere else by his publishers to promote his book.)

As always we managed to have one little disaster this Saturday (the usual anything that can go wrong manages to) , the microphone packed up but thankfully everyone read extra loudly and the audience huddled in close to listen.


Lawyer-by-day Jade-Yi Lo had the unenviable task of reading first. Jade attended my creative writing class and is a new writer absolutely hungry to write and very hard working. The story she'd shared with us on the last night of the class, The Girl with Red Ruby Shoes, was such so magical, I invited her to read in front of the crowd at Seksan's. She'd reworked the story, and even though I knew the ending, it still kicked me in the stomach.

Adeline Loh read the first hilarious chapter of her book Peeing in the Bush about what drove her to leap into the unknown, the reactions of nearest and dearest, and the search for a travelling companion ...


Lee Eeleen's story Scenes From The Shopping Complex appears in the Urban Odysseys collection. It is a beautifully observed piece about the nightmare of a weekend family trip to the shopping mall and the politics of family life. Much of it is written like a film script, and I particualrly love the delicious counterpoint between the supermarket soundtrack of James Dobson's Focus on the Family (which yes, for some reason really does get played ad nauseam in supermarkets here) and the reality of shopping with kids. Great comedy.

I was so grateful when Bernice agreed (the night before!) to come and read for us. And she had new material - autobiographical pieces for the new autobiography she is writing, Growing Up With Ghosts, as part of her M.A. course in creative writing at Universiti Malaya. I loved the portrait of the whole family feasting on durian - you could smell and taste the fruit. Yum!


Shih-Li Kow read her shortest story Let the Bird Sing from her new collection Ripples. A small bird sits on the windowsill of a dying man and the two are locked into one final adversarial battle. It's one of the more surreal pieces in the book - an excellent piece of micro-fiction.

Sheena Baharudin is a poet, spoken word artist, and lecturer at the International Islamic University. (It was nice to see that she had brought along some of her students!) She has performed her work alongside leading poets at various venues around the city. I am impressed by how she has grown as a poet, and how much more assured her voice has becom both live and on the page. Just take a look at the poems she read - Monologue 1.01.001 and and Cloudy Conversations.

Thanks to all who came (including quite a number of new people who I hope will find their way again), to all who read, to Shahril Nizam for the blog poster, to Seksan for his inspiring space, to the guys from MPH in Bangsar Village for bringing over books to sell, to Eugene and friends who cleared up, and to Reza in advance for fixing the microphone ...

See you all later in the month. I've fixed readings for March 28th (provided Seksan will have us) and have a great line-up already worked out. More about it later.

Sorry I'm late posting this - my photos weren't so good so I was waiting for someone to come up with some better ones and Tan May Lee came to my rescue! (The first three nice pics are hers, the last three not so nice pics are mine.)

Ceritaku for Christmas

Date: Dec 26 2008
Time: 9.30pm onwards
Cover: RM20

No Black Tie, 17 Jalan Mesui KL
Tel: 03 21423737

or check out www.noblacktie. com.my for online reservations.

See you there!!

bernice chauly
writer/photographer /actor
www.bernicechauly. wordpress. com

Thanks sincerely Shahril Nizam for making the poster!

Readings@No Black Tie on Sunday

Bernice is organising a special edition of Readings at No Black Tie this coming Sunday with a really good list of writers lined up.

Bali Photos (2)

Remember Camilla Gibb who was in KL last year for the literary festival? Well her novel Sweetness in the Belly which many of you have enjoyed has now been translated into Bahasa Indonesia with the title Lilly : Pencarian Cinta Seorang Gadis Eropa di Etiopia. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Bahasa Malaysia version for the local market??

Pakistani author Moni Mohsin now lives in London, and her debut novel The End of Innocence was published in 2006. Really enjoyed talking to her at the dinner at Karim Razlan's house.

The last session on the last day was defintely one of the best. Deepika Shetty was in conversation with Mexican master of magical realism Alberto Ruy Sanchez. It is impossible to listen to him and not fall in love.

Guess what? Bernice discovered that he will be stopping over in KL next week and plans to get him to do a reading. (More news about this later when it's fixed up.)

And here's our Bernice between sessions.

Courting Controversy, Inviting the Surreal

There was no tree chopping, no pneumatic drills, no detours to mess up readings on Saturday ... just enough torrential rain to delay the start until folks could arrive. (We're jinxed, we really are. What will it be next month?) But in the end though, we got a fair sized crowd with a lot of people here for the first time. (Welcome!)

Animah shared the MC-ing with me, partly because she knows two of the readers as work colleagues and partly because - yes - I am tired of hearing myself and it's nice to relax, and Animah adds a touch of glamour, don't you think?

The first reader was Suflan Shamsuddin (above) whose book Reset has just been published by ZI publications. He read one chapter which was written in the form of an exchange of letters debating Malay privilege and the destiny of the NEP.

It was beautifully lucid and accessible piece, a difficult subject intelligently handled, and Suflan read very well.

Reset is actually being launched today (Tuesday) at 5.30 at Borders The Curve. (Go read the author's website for more about the book.)

Next was a reader I've been chasing to read for a long time - Uthaya Sankar SB. Best known for his controversial short stories, he read us a very surreal piece from his latest collection Rudra Avatara which featured (was struggling with the language barrier here) a cat in it which got burnt to death and then came back from the dead (because of course, it had 9 lives) and became some kind of a leader. (Someone please fill in gaps here.)

Paul Leslie Smith (also introduced by Animah and one of her colleagues) chose two contrasting episodes from his large historical novel Rainforest Tears set in Sarawak- the first lushly romantic, the second describing a harrowing scene of absolute violence as a mob takes revenge on a collaborators after WWII. The writing is very vivid indeed. (Sadly, there are no online links to send you to online. Hope the publisher - Marshall Cavendish works to fix this as authors deserve better!)

After the break Bernice read for us - this time a fiction piece but no less raw and moving than her poetry. She is collaborating on a collection of stories with with three other women writers, and of course will be appearing at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival in October.

Ioannis Gatsiounis read in one of the first Readings (back in 2005!). He was torn whether to read fiction of non-fiction but in the end chose to read a piece from his first book with Beyond the Veneer - his review of Christopher Hitchen's book God is Not Great.

(Sensitive issues? What sensitive issues? We explored plenty of 'em this afternoon!)

The final reader was Rumaizah Abu Bakar one of the three contributors to News From Home and now some of her fiction and poetry has also been published in the latest edition of Elarti (copies of which Sufian was selling at the event.) Rumaizah read her intriguing short story Peppery affair about the romance of a pepper pot and kitchen knife.

So it was an afternoon in which controversy was courted and the surreal invited ... sounds just about the right mix for Merdeka!

Thanks to everyone who read and everyone who came. Thanks to Sek San for the beautiful venue. Thanks to Shahril Nizam for the poster. Thanks to those who helped set up and those who cleared away. Thanks to Animah for letting me nick her photos which are much better than mine. (The only one of mine above is the one of Uthaya.)

Readings will take a rest during Ramadan and be back 25th October with Preeta Samarasan and Sharmini Flint.

Update :

Please take a look at Sufian Abas' gobsmakingly gorgeous photos on Facebook.

National Day Books

Malaysia is enjoying a long weekend for the 51st National Day, so Sunday's newspapers are, predictably, full of talk of nation building. It was a lovely surprise to see my friend and erstwhile writing group buddy Soo Choon on the pages of the Star, talking about her cross-cultural marriage.

In a very packed-with-good-stuff ReadsMonthly section the Starmag team journalists compile a list of their 51 best reads esp for Merdeka.

Daphne Lee interviews Bernice Chauly about her work (You can find the full interview on Daphne's blog.) :

Chauly’s poems are deeply personal. They may or may not be autobiographical in detail, but the stories they tell feel like they were shaped by real emotions and memories.

They are Chauly’s emotions, memories and stories, but they also speak to and for women the world over. They are familiar tales, but filtered through the voice of an individual, they defy the cliches of everyday experience and become significant, compelling and unique.

and Ahnaf reviews her collection of poetry The Book of Sins.

There's a write up by Rouwen Lin about the Read While Waiting flashmob event of last weekend.

Janet Tay review Nam Le's collection of short fiction The Boat (and there's a 25% off token!), and KayKay enjoys David Sedaris' When You Are englulfed by Flames.

Vernon Adrian Emaung crossed the causeway for Kee Thuan Chye's The Swordfish, Then the Concubine, which sounds as if it was beautifully staged :

Set in minimalist staging that featured a serambi or open platform for village gatherings, 15 Singaporean actors tackled a story that called for a cast of thousands across two generations – you couldn’t get more epic than that, right? Especially so when you have a gamelan orchestra providing for the peaks and troughs of human drama, the deafening clamour of war, and the crescendo of divine retribution. Music composer Joyce Teo and the Gamelan Asmarada group delivered proficiently on that aspect. The underlying political commentary linked current issues to these ancient myths quite commendably in the writing. Similarly, it was truly fascinating to watch the production draw stylistically from bangsawan (Malay opera), dikir barat, and silat to facilitate and vibrantly colour the storytelling.

It was quite an honour to have a Malaysian play kick off a Singaporean Theatre Festival. How sad I am I missed it. But I do hope it is staged here soon.

Ceritaku and Maskara in March

There's plenty of good stuff going on this weekend. This Saturday sees the 7th Maskara readings at Rumah Pena at 8.30. (More information here.)


And the second Ceritaku live storytelling event organised by Bernice Chauly happens this coming Sunday at no Black Tie.

Bernice and Thuan Chye Tell Tell

Tell magazine is one of my favourites on the newsstand for its well written and intelligent content. I am sad that I missed a few issues in the beginning, but now it's a must buy.

The present issue has a couple of nice pieces on local authors. Bernice Chauly is interviewed by Michelle Gunaselan about her latest collection of poetry The Book of Sins.

Bernice talks about the significance of the title, the concept of sin (around which she structures the book), about being taught Cathecism by nuns in her mission school (an experience that does rather scar one for life!), about her parents introducing her to books (her mother made her read Ayn Rand at 12!) and about how it feels to get up and read poetry which is so personal in public.

Elsewhere, Mustapha Mahidin meets playwright Kee Thuan Chye and his family. I've always loved the names he chose for his children: Soraya Sunitra Kee Xian Yin is his daughter, and Jebat Arjuna Kee Jia Liang is his son. (I first came across them in the dedication to We Could **** You, Mr. Birch). MalayIndianChinese elements all in one!

The current also features a tribute to Benazir Bhutto and (very topically) a piece on hidden cameras in hotel rooms and how to detect 'em.

Poetic Passions

Ahnaf in today's Starmag does a very good job of providing an overview of what's happening on the live literary scene in KL. Noting that:

Over the past two years, the idea of poets performing their work rather than just writing for themselves or simply reading it aloud has become increasingly popular ...

he interviews local performance poets Priya Kulasegaran and George Wielgus (left - and soon to appear at Readings@Seksan) as well as Bernice Chauly and Chris Mooney-Singh of WordForward who is bringing Poetry Slam to KL.

Priya talks about how audiences for Project OMG have been steadily growing through word of mouth and I think she's right when she says:

Younger people like us are getting involved ... After being fed the kind of music you’re supposed to listen to, and the kind of movies you’re supposed to watch, there’s a kind of reaction.

I'm glad that the piece also highlights the contribution of the British Council and the Wayang Kata events and workshops it organises and also the wonderful irony that the organisation that has done most to encourage a local literary scene is a foreign one.

Bernice Chauly talks about how live literature events have helped to create a much-needed sense of community among local writers, and also how our Malaysian authors doing so well on the world stage, have really done a lot to encourage local writers as well. Bernice says that when Tash Aw won the Whitbread first novel award in 2005:

It was like, ‘Oh wow, Malaysians? Writers? Really? So good, ah? Wow.’

Yeah, that good. Believe it!

Note: Links to the organisers of spoken words events are listed in a side-bar. The email given to contact me about Readings is wrong - please use sharonbakar@yahoo.com if you want to get in touch.

Ceritaku at Readings!

For the first time, Live Storytelling in KL!

'Readings' celebrates its 3rd Anniversary and we now welcome the storytellers and 'penglipur lara's' among us. We know you can write, but can you tell a story?

'Ceritaku' is a platform for people who can spin a good ol' fashioned yarn and are not afraid to do it live!

If you have a story to tell, please contact Bernice (012 323 0929)

See you there!

Happy Third Birthday, Readings!

Saturday marked the third anniversary of our first ever Readings, which has run more or less monthly since then, providing a much needed platform and meeting place for local writers.

Our first readers was Shih-Li Kow (and apologies for spelling her name wrong earlier) who read the title piece from News from Home, a collection of short fiction which showcases the work of three new writers published by Silverfish. It is a very enjoyable story which came over very well.

I've been wanting to get Tunku Halim ("Malaysia's Stephen King") to Readings for a long time, but he isn't in the country very often (he lives in Tasmania!) so I was really happy when he said he was back and could come along. He read a story called Blue Glass from his new collection Gravedigger's Kiss very spookily. (Though members of the audience commented afterwards that he isn't as scary in person as they thought he would be ...).

Bernice Chauly launched her new collection of poetry and prose The Book of Sins. It is so nice to see that pieces we've hear her read on other occasions have now been collected together and a whole work given shape.

Subverting the concept of the seven deadly sins, Bernice comes up with a list of her own (Pride, Greed, Wrath, War, Gluttony, Love, Betrayal and Lust) which becomes the organising principle for this intensely personal book, which ends with her poems about her mother's death and forgiveness.

During the break it was time to get down to the business of celebrating our birthday with a chocolate cake. Bernice and I blew out the candles, made wishes, and cut the chocolate cake.

Is this a party, or what??

Poor Chua Kok Yee got to read with a big red stain on his shirt. No, Tunku Halim hadn't stabbed him. He had been attacked by a wine bottle while bravely struggling with a recalcitrant cork!

He took the presence of the large picture of piggies on the other wall as an omen that he should read his short story about three little pigs from News From Home - a funny and clever piece.

Chuah Guat Eng was once upon a time my writing teacher and I am very grateful to her for her help and encouragment. Guat's first novel, Echoes of Silence was launched in 1994 and her poems, short stories and articles have appeared in many publications. She has also recently finished her PhD.

Today she was launching her new collection of short fiction, The Old House & Other Stories and she read three extracts connected with the theme of how we use of language which gave us an excellent taster of the book.

Last up was journalist Gerald Chuah whom I first met when we were both doing a telephone interview with self-help guru, Jack Canfield. (He came along prepared and I benefited!) Gerald's book In the Eye of the Tiger:Survival Principles from Sylvester Stallone's Life and Films is pretty unique, and I think Rehman Rashid describes it best:

It is the uber-fanzine ... the product of an obsession that might be certifiable were it not channelled and refined into this ageless document ... genre-defying ... he’s penetrated the vacuity of Hollywood to tap the heart within.

Gerald still seems overwhelmed by the fact that he managed to achieve his dream and write the book. (And it is a beautifully produced book too.)

My thanks to Seksan for the beautiful space. To all who read and all who came. To my friends who set things up and cleared up so well.

Postscript:

BP has an excellent write-up here, and Ted has great photos too.

Got a Story to Tell? Here's your Platform!

Bernice Chauly is looking for storytellers for a no Black Tie Gig. Here's her email in all its lowercase splendour, but with links added:

dear friends,

as you may know, the 'readings' that i began in january 2005 at darling muse art gallery celebrates its 3rd anniversary this month. sharon bakar, now brilliantly* runs the monthly readings at 67tempinis satu.. in the middle of 2007, i also started 'readings' at popular jazz bar noblacktie at the invitation of evelyn hii. both venues have achieved success as platforms for new and emerging Malaysian writers, as well as foreign writers who happen to be in Malaysia at the time.

since kl now has an abundance of literary events; 'readings', wayangkata (a british council event), omg (open mike gig at dram projects), maskara (malay poets/writers at rumah pena), suara kata (r a fine art) and an upcoming poetry slam (wordforward s'pore and dram projects), i have decided to open up this platform even more. inspired by stories related by ex-mcoba schoolboys who remembered mr.wilson (aka anthony burgess) at a recent event, and an email from the paris review which was an invitation to an evening of storytelling in new york (www.themoth.org), i have decided to try out a storytelling session at next month's nbt event. this is aimed at celebrating and remembering our 'penglipur lara' tradition as well as to celebrate the natural storytellers among us.. this means that your aunty, uncle, hairdresser, cikgu, taxi-driver, grandmother, cousin, housekeeper, 'siapa-siapa yang you tahu boleh cerita' is welcome to get up on stage and spin a good ol-fashioned yarn.

conditions: no script, no text, max 15 mins, have to be raconteur' style, off the cuff, entertaining, funny, sad, whatever as long as its a good story...and does not suffer from stage-fright!

i know its a bit last-minute, but if you know of anyone who can pull this off (that includes yourself) please let me know asap.

judging from the new york success of these sessions over the past 10 years, i am confident we will be able to inject even more enthusiasm and fun into our literary outings.

a website is in the works for the readings, and well as plans to publish work read and podcast work to come.

date for first storytelling session/reading - still thinking of a name. anyone??
sunday feb 3rd, noblacktie, 9-12pm

pass the word around!
and please let me know latest this sunday

have a great weekend!
bernice

Bernice can be reached at mulutmata at yahoo dot com.

She's certainly right about there being plenty going on and the need for events to differentiate themselves. I think this could be a very exciting venture. (And I wonder, am I brave enough to try myself??)

* Ahem.

(Painting = The Storyteller by David Watson Hood nicked from here.)