The Writer's Community Kickoff Extravaganza

*First and foremost, I need to apologize for the delay on posting this entry. It's been written forever, but getting it online has proved a pain in my hind. Many sorries.

Ahem.


What a killer first meeting! We practically doubled the biggest turnout we've ever had, and there were plenty of new faces. That's encouraging stuff. I want to thank everyone that showed up, and I really hope that you'll make it a pattern. We promise we'll do our best to make it worth your while.

So I opened things up with a Lorrie Moore piece called "How to Become a Writer OR, Have You Earned This Cliche?" It was longer than I expected, and made my mouth dry. Let that be a lesson to you, my friends: practice your piece before you present it to the group.

Miss Laura Relyea followed with an excerpt from Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Quite different from his more well-known Fahrenheit 451, this passage made me very curious about the rules of the game "statues".

Matthew Trisler read an essay by Miranda July called "Swimteam", which was very funny, and left me with visions of elderly people rolling around on the floor with their faces in bowls of water. I later had a dream about this but, instead of being funny, it was terrifying.

Rebecca Patrick read a Dave Sedaris essay called "The Birds" which served a number of purposes. First, it made the idea of going with the group to see Sedaris read at IU all the more lucrative. Please remember to let us know if you'd like to attend. Secondly, it provided practical advice on how to get rid of household pests, like evoking the image of Janis Joplin, for instance.

Joe Betz read next, but not before slyly plugging The Broken Plate, BSU's literary magazine. Submissions are due Oct. 22. Visit http://brokenplate.iweb.bsu.edu/ for more information
. Joe read two excellent Billy Collins poems, "Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant" and "Evasive Manuvers".

Drew Alexander was the first truly brave one, reading a poem of his own entitled "A Conversation". Garrett Cox and Jet Zike followed suit, with an untitled poem and "Stare", respectively.

Finally, Sean Orlosky closed out the evening with the classic "Ozymandias", complete with 500-year-old-man voice.

Please join us next week for more poetry and prose, discussion and banter, and for the answer to the question "what four-letter-word lost Sean the national spelling bee?" You didn't think I'd forget, did you Sean?

I look forward to seeing you all next Monday. This is Andrew Clark-Kennedy, heading down to the kitchen for a snack.