As the 29th Harman writer, Katherine Vaz, stepped on to the stage, she was greeted with polite applause. She began with an introduction of herself, what brought her to Baruch on that rainy evening, and a short description of her works. It could be clearly seen that she was very comfortable in this type of a situation, and was rather enjoying herself. The audience, now full of food, was ready to hear this reading.
This was the first reading I have attended, and I felt intrigued by the anticipation in the room, as it seemed that everyone else knew what was to be expected.
It looked as if a spotlight had been placed on Ms, Vaz, with her yellow dress illuminating her surroundings. She spoke clearly yet casually about her newest work, Below the Salt to be released in January. This is her fifth work in her collection of publications, which also includes Our Lady of the Artichokes, a collection of short stories.
Her most recent work has some striking similarities with the ones that preceded it. For example, there is religious aspect that is prevalent in many of her short stories in Our Lady of the Artichokes as well. Below the Salt, in which she read excerpts from important sections, tells the story of a mother and a child during the time of the Civil War, banished from their homeland due to the fact that they did not wish to convert to Presbyterianism. The main character is the child, John Olves, and the story tracks his progression through life’s stages.
Ms. Vaz used her powerful voice to provide the audience with images of what was happening in the story. As I looked around, I saw many people with eyes closed and brows furrowed, trying to picture the beautiful words she spoke. Describing the mother and John’s time in captivity, she read the phrase “He ate nothing but the music of birds” before explaining that his mom taught him how to sing. She also went on to speak about the religious significance. The guards in the prison were using John to “break her”. The mother’s response to this behavior was “I’ll go hungry but feed my baby”. This speaks to the religious backdrop of the story and the moral lessons that most religions provide, such as respecting other human beings and taking care of children.
Katherine Vaz was able to seamlessly transition between reading her story and anecdotes from the time she wrote the novel. As she read about John going to fight in the Civil War, there was a very powerful line which caught my attention. “’We are all condemned to this world,’ John said.” She continued on to describe some of the horrors at which point she started to explain how she acquired the knowledge to some for the details she used, such as the starving at Vicksburg. She studied letters of soldiers from the Library of Congress. After sharing a quirky story about Lincoln and a librarian, she continued to read her story as if she had never stopped. This allowed the reading to be smooth, and easy to follow.
Overall, I was not only impressed by Katherine Vaz’s ability to read to an audience, but also with her writing technique. Her description of a love scene involving spoke to me greatly. The setting was described as “The sun flattens on to the river. Red meets blue”. The sun and water converging is not only symbolic of the two lovers meeting, but is, simply put, beautiful. As she said herself, she believed that she should not “hang a tassel off every sentence” but let the words speak to the reader. Both her words and personality were a joy to be around, and I look forward to the release of Below the Salt.
Credit: Christopher Cerf
