Community

After losing three days to a weird connectivity problem, I'm back in the saddle, well, the desk chair. It's been a busy three days, in large part because of writing-related socializing, and that's all good. Friday evening was a writers' garden party, beautiful surroundings and interesting people and a finger buffet of the highest order. The storm clouds passed over without ruining anything. I loved being among all those writers, maybe fifty or so. In a group of like-minded people one need not fish too deeply for something to talk about. Saturday evening was a concert, again with the finger buffet, and a silent auction. Not so much about writing, but art was in the air, so it was all good. Sunday I read a lot, visited family, then went last evening to a staged reading of a play written by Melanie Tem, Fry Day.



Staged readings are a great way to get audience feedback. I had seen a reading of a shorter version of this play, a surreal drama about a family in grief over the loss of the eldest daughter. Melanie had decided to expand the play and she did so seamlessly from what I could tell. The audience gave her cudos for the work in general, big loud cudos, and mentioned the effect the play had on them and offered points to consider in fine tuning the current version. This is one of the acts of community that really works, to take the time to go out in the evening to see a work in progress and to talk openly about how well things work. Tonight I plan to go to a poetry reading to hear one of my favorite poets. I'll let you know tomorrow how that goes. KD