Entrance to The Dixon Place

My Halloween evening was spent at The Dixon Place on the lower east side, where readers from the  Guerilla Lit Reading Series came together and read excerpts of their work. We heard readings from three authors that lasted about an hour long. Jacob M. Appel,  Laura Catherine Brown, and Brian Leung all told us about their literary backgrounds before they began to read their work and told us what inspired some of their work, and the backstory to the pieces they were reading that evening. The venue for the evening was comforting and somewhat cozy for the cool October night. It was dimly lit like a fire almost burning out, and there was a pride flag on the wall almost wanting to welcome everyone into the location. There was a bar, which allowed readers and guests to place orders for beverages if they choose. The walls were decorated with frameworks of art but the dimly lit setting made it somewhat rhetorical to have artwork hanging.

Our first reader, Jacob M. Appel read a portion of his story of a pet hedgehog. Appel modestly confessed to his popularity and describes that his story was from an anthology that he wrote titled ” Einstein’s Beach House”. The story started with Appel talking about his relationship with his girlfriend. The story progressed to the couple purchasing a pet hedgehog. Instantly one can notice as the story progresses that the hedgehog isn’t simply a hedgehog. The pet was a signifier to Appel’s second character (his girlfriend) as their child together in the relationship. Appel continues to state in the story how his girlfriend took care of the house pet as if it had human emotions and could be tended too as a baby. Appel’s rise and falls in the tone of the story kept the story interesting to hear. The lack of monotonous speaking engaged me, the listener, and allowed me to make inferences based on how Appel was reading the story. Appel also stood firmly and projected his voice during his reading allowing for listeners to have a clear idea of what was going on, instead of mumbling his words. Appel also changed the tone of his voice to signify the change in character dialogue between him (in the story), and his girlfriend.

Brown reading her excerpt from “Mary Made Me”

The second reader was Laura Catherine Brown. Brown came to the venue in festive Halloween attire and dressed as her character’s who she explains are mostly hippies. Brown read from a book she published titled “Made By Mary”. The part of the book the Brown started to read from was speaking about a lesbian couple who were struggling to have a child together. Parts of the dialogue describes the struggle that the two couple faced before deciding on surrogacy, and struggles they faced after such as the chosen mother being a pagan, and a drug trafficker. Although Brown spoke with an animated voice, and into the microphone, certain concepts of the excerpt were hard to grasp and analyze which made understanding the jist of the reading a bit difficult. As a spectator, I can’t help but feel that if Brown had maybe chosen a different reading, or adjusted from where she began the reading the passage, it would have been a bit more of a different experience.

The last and final reader was  Brian Leung. I found his work a little odd, and personally, I was not a fan. Although Leung did a great job in reading to his audience with a clear voice, the concepts presented in his book/excerpt were hard to grasp, as well as the character attributes. As Leung was reading, my mind was trying to form character connections and give certain people in the passage personalities, but it was very hard (no pun intended) to read the characters. Another thing that struck me as somewhat shocking was that Leung often stopped in the middle of his passages to correct what he was saying, or ask Laura Brown the previous reader if that’s what she took away from that paragraph in the book. This initially seemed like he was asking for opinions and a general critique, but the continuous questions about his own writing made it seem like Leung was reading a rough draft rather than a published novel. Inadvertently, making his excerpt harder to comprehend.

All three reading were an interesting experience. As a first timer at a literacy reading, I thought it was interesting how authors share and appreciate each other’s work. We learned earlier that a gallery is a space where artists can display their work, but now I also learned that readings are a way for authors to use their reading and speaking skills to showcase their work and have it sold in places other than a bookstore.