So say you’ve written this great little personal narrative in your spring Personal Essay class at StoryStudio, or perhaps a tightly woven short story in your winter Fiction I class. Don’t let these little gems collect dusk in the back of your closet! Even if getting your story published seems like a huge leap, there are plenty of other ways to avoid hiding your hard work from the world. Almost every night of the week, Chicagoans are gathering in bars and book stores across the city to share a drink and share their stories. Most of these reading series have pretty easy submission processes, and the majority don’t require anything but a single piece of original work (you need not be a published author, a card carrying freelancer or a college professor to read your work out loud).
Here is a brief list of reading series that go on around this fine city. Stop by, check them out, and dust off that story from your last StoryStudio class.
Reading Under the Influence: 1st Wednesday of the month at Sheffield’s
I’ve been to this one a bunch of times, and best thing about it is the diversity of genres/writers AND the trivia questions interspersed between readings.
Check out their website at: Reading Under the Influence
Quickies: 2nd Tuesday of the month at The Innertown Pub
The best thing about this series? It’s quick. It’s painless. Even if you don’t like the reader, they’ll be done in 5 minutes. So what have you got to lose? If you have 1-2 pages of work you’d like to read, this is the place.
Visit their website at: Quickies Chicago
Second Story: Ongoing at The Morseland and Websters’ Wine Bar
The process for joining this reading series a little more formal - twice a year the good folks of Second Story open up their submission process to the public, and take on a slew on new storytellers who thereafter remain part of their storytelling cohort. Submissions are due Dec. 1 and June 1
Visit their website at: 2nd Story
And while you’re at it, check out these reading series - all of which, although they’re harder to access as a writer, are totally worth going to if you just want to hear some really awesome writing:
The Encyclopedia Show: The first Wednesday of the month at the Vittum Theatre. The series is hosted by Robbie Q. Telfer of Young Chicago Authors, and features local writers who all write on a single theme (i.e. “insects").
Check out the website at: The Encyclopedia Show
The Paper Machete “Live Magazine”: Every Saturday afternoon at Ricochet’s in Lincoln Square, hosted by Christopher Piatt (former theatre editor for Time Out Chicago). While I don’t think Piatt has a website up and running yet, you can read about the series here:
http://chicagoist.com/2010/03/05/take_a_handful_of_clever.php
So much to do, and only seven days in a week.
There are a lot great things about running StoryStudio Chicago. And one of them is hosting our annual Writers Read Showcase, which happens this evening, Thursday, May 20.
I miss my theatre days so organizing this student reading gives me the opportunity to stretch some of those theatre muscles with the work of choosing how to pair stories and rehearsal time to find a reading groove. In the old days, I used to know every writer who walked through the door. But now that StoryStudio serves more than 650 students each year, our readers come to us from many different classes taught by different studio instructors. This has been a boon for me because it gives me the opportunity to see and hear what our students are working on, the stories they’re discovering.
Tonight, we have Tina and Michael from the Advanced Fiction Workshop. Ironically, both of them will be reading fiction written in verse.
Lindsay will be reading a condensed short story she’s worked on in Fiction II and Tom will be sharing part of an essay started in the Personal Essay class.
Our headliner tonight will be our novel instructor Elizabeth (Beth) Wetmore. Now, I’ve heard Beth read from her novel-in-progress before and I can tell you, you’re in for a treat.
I hope you’ll come out to Latitude (corner of Sunnyside and Lincoln in Lincoln Square) tonight for the 7pm reading. The program is free. Drinks and/or dinner are on you. And with the weather today, you might want to spend an hour inside listening to stories, and then wander out to the sidewalk patio for an “after reading” drink and some networking with other writers. But do join us and say hello.
Although I’ve been salivating over StoryStudio courses since I moved to Chicago nine months ago, I only recently got to sit in a classroom.
Since graduating in creative writing from Oberlin College, I’ve thought a lot about writing. Wouldn’t my trip to El Salvador during a heated election season make a great investigative piece? Although I’m not enjoying watching this girl lick her boyfriend’s neck on the bus, wouldn’t that work well in a short story? Couldn’t there be a poem about that man who’s carrying a fighting chicken on his Honda Wave?
Although I’ve had plenty of ideas, none of them have made it to the page. I’ve made plenty of excuses: having a full time job is tiring, it’s a crime to put clean silverware into a dirty drawer, friends will forget my name unless I update my Facebook status. How better to fix this problem than the public humiliation of showing up to a workshop without a piece in hand? Enter StoryStudio.
On Monday night I arrived eager to start the Writing the Personal Essay class with Ellen Blum Barish. Although I was most excited to be held accountable for producing work, I also looked forward to being in a community of writers again. I missed hanging out with people who make jokes about semi colons and know what it means to spend 13 hours in a empty bathtub with a bag of marshmallows while hammering out a revision.
Opening introductions revealed that the class held a diversity of voices: from first-timers to bloggers to grad school applicants, we all had different reasons for being there. After discussing the nature of personal essays, we looked at a piece on sighing. During my first read I was skeptical: so what that we all sigh? Is this worth a whole page of pontification? However, as the group discussed the piece, I realized that I had missed the use of second person, the purposeful withhold of information, and the tone of longing. I remembered what it felt like to read with detail and attentiveness; something I hadn’t been practicing while scanning RSS feeds and tweets.
Next we worked on an in-class exercise: we had ten minutes to write in detail about how we woke up that morning, and then share our entries out loud. I started censoring my writing for reading: would people care that I spilled scrambled eggs on the counter and changed my skirt three times?After a few minutes I realized the exercise wasn’t about what people thought; but rather, about getting in the habit of remembering and recording details. And when my classmates read their pieces, these mundane small details (coriander tea, an alarm clock that said ‘thank you for arriving this morning’) were what resonated most.
As the class continues, I look forward to stretching my out-of-practice literary muscles. And, eventually, writing about a chicken on a motorcycle.
Written by member Diane O’Neill
I first met StoryStudio Chicago people at a table at the 2009 AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference, my very first writing conference. I’ve attended other conferences, but all related to my profession in the field of disability rights. The setting was similar: a hotel with vibrant plush carpeting and chandelier lightings, concurrent forums, tables with brochures aplenty, representatives of different organizations. But this time, instead of panels talking about independent living or provisions of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) or how the Internet can be made more accessible to people who are deaf or blind, I squeezed into rooms to hear people with publishing credits that steal my breath away talk about YA fiction or the ramifications about writing about your family or literature as a force for social justice. I was in a candy store, and the rooms with tables upon tables of publishers and writing organizations was like stepping into a Fannie Mae or Hershey’s factory showroom.
Jill was the StoryStudio rep, and I idly picked up a flier. “Why, this is right in my neighborhood!” I exclaimed, noting that I was an addicted writer but how solitary the profession was.
“Then we’re right here for you!” was her reply.
Since then, I’ve attended writeathons and a couple of one-night classes and an Author Talk presentation by YA authors detailing their road to publication. (I bought and read Simone Elkeles’s Perfect Chemistry and found it to be just that--perfect!) I attended the Beaux Arts party and listened to Molly read the hilarious prologue of her YA novel. But I hadn’t shared any of my own writing and felt a little bit like an imposter--"Sure she haunts writeathons--but can she write?” As a writer with an impressive stack of rejections (including some “good” ones), I love sharing my work, so when Lisa (StoryStudio events coordinator) announced the potluck reading, I immediately signed up. 
On March 22, readers and audience gathered in a corner of the studio, sofa and comfy arm chairs arranged in a circle--with a special chair designated “the throne” for the on-the-spot reader. We munched on snacks, including my homemade Irish bread. Three members read fiction: a YA novel excerpt about a dysfunctional family being televised for reality TV; literary science fiction about a woman who realizes from a photograph that she’s lost a significant memory and consults a psychic/mechanic; and a poetic work, “I am Lane,” about a sociopath, hinting that all of us listeners and readers are, too, sociopaths. I read memoir excerpts about two best friends who have died, hoping to show how their light lives on. Reading about Jennie and Maggie was intense; I found myself shaking afterwards. But what a creative, encouraging group--what a positive experience! (And afterwards, my 18-year-old son celebrated with me at our neighborhood Mexican restaurant!)
It’s only a little more than a year, but I’m glad I attended that AWP conference and walked past that StoryStudio table. I’m hoping that StoryStudio hosts more potluck readings--I’ll bring the Irish bread--and I hope more members join the fun!
About Diane:
I am a curriculum designer and writer for the Hadley School for the Blind, and my six-word memoir ("The Bobbsey Twins Saved My Life") is in SMITH Magazine’s “It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.” I live blocks away from StoryStudio with my 18-year-old son (who’s getting ready to zoom off to college) and three feline muses. Currently, a friend and I are working on a comedy about hexing exes for Script Frenzy.
We’re officially over one twelfth of the way into the New Year, and if you’re anything like me, some of those crazy, exciting New Year’s Resolutions – the same ones that seemed like such bold goals at the end of December – may be feeling a little insurmountable by now. But instead of kicking yourself for not yet finishing your novel or losing that holiday weight, take a peek at SSC student Barabara Govednik’s essay at The Women’s Conference, and consider a new kind of personal goal for the coming year: “…To simply be who I am without putting up all the arguments against myself that have become second nature.” You might just find yourself making a new resolution.
Congratulations to Barbara for her publication – and many thanks for the sound advice!
