Avi

word craft

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Reading from my work

AviOver the many years I have giv­en my share (and then some) of speech­es, and talks to con­fer­ences, and var­i­ous gath­er­ings. Many writ­ers do this sim­ply because they are asked to do so. It’s part of the plea­sure and busi­ness of writ­ing, mak­ing your work, and your­self known.

The truth is, the pri­ma­ry sub­ject of such talks is me, as it is for any authorIt is what I am asked to talk about, and what peo­ple most often want to hear: How you work. Your process, the kind of ques­tions I list­ed on my May 5th blog post.

Over time, how­ev­er, what I’ve come to much pre­fer to do—rather than give a for­mal speech—is to read from my work. I can inter­sperse these read­ings to inform folks about some of the things they want to know, but it is the shar­ing of the work which is most gratifying.

That said, when read­ing text, I don’t read exact­ly what has been print­ed. I learned not to do this from Charles Dick­ens, a famous­ly suc­cess­ful read­er of his own work. Dick­ens altered his texts for read­ing per­for­mances. He would sub­tract and/or add to make them read­ing texts, which is to say more dra­mat­ic, much more fun for the audi­ence. And, me.

Regard­ing such read­ings, as it has been said, “If the work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.”

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