At Draft

Yesterday, I was a happy attendee and terrified participant at The Draft Reading Series. As usual at these readings, the organizers were super on-the-ball, supportive and fun. Here is Maria from the Draft group, below, introducing the event and being charming:

Then amazing Amy Jones read, also new work, which was shocking and very funny and made me even more excited to read her forthcoming book as well as for the other events we'll be doing together soon (oooh, suspense: stay tuned, Metcalf-Rooke fans!!)



Then Sachiko Murakami read some striking poems about Vancouver, and wore some really nice boots (not pictured):

Then Lina Medaglia read from her novel about immigration, superstition and how hard it is to be a kid because no one will tell you anything:

Since it was the Draft reading series, I read a story in draft form, ie., something I wrote the week before and edited over breakfast. This is something I had never done before, and it was really only Hallowe'en kisses (can you believe I could not find a picture to link to here? Can you also believe that it didn't occur to me before now that bringing candy to readings is awesome?) Here I am, terrified, and full of sugar (thanks for taking the pic, B):

Then, of course, the camera died (B, I don't blame you) before I could get a shot of final reader Roz Spafford, but I assure you she was interesting too! And then there was the first open mic I'd ever seen, which was quite quite good, considering the reputation of such ventures, and included such cool readers as August Bourre and Terri Favro!

It was an entertaining and illuminating (I can read draft work to strangers without bursting into flame--who knew??) afternoon, though I was shocked that there was candy leftover. Don't worry, that will be rectified shortly!

Teenland, whoa-oh
RR