Tonight, I attended the second annual Winter Reading of Post Defiance, an online magazine based in the real world of Tacoma (physically, figuratively, thematically).
It was a time to sit together in someone's living room and snack on food and drink beer and wine and read winter- and Christmas-themed poems and essays and stories to one another. The readings included many animals under the canopy of the "winter" tent. Some were traditional—a poem by Robert Frost and a short story by Pearl Buck. Some were
humorous—a chapter from The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween
Dance by Elna Baker, chapters from two different Augusten Burroughs
books, an excerpt from The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies, and a poem
by E.B. White. Some were apocalyptic—excerpts from World War Z by Max Brooks
and Tonguecat by Peter Verhelst (the latter read by me). Some were horror-laden—"The
Festival" by H.P. Lovecraft. Some were written for children, although we enjoyed them as adults—a (first printing) picture book (from the 1960s) of A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles Schulz and Part 3 of a story being serialized* on Post Defiance, the latter read by its author. And there were a few more.
It was great to find a group of other people for whom literature is serious business, both as writers and (perhaps even more importantly) as readers, and to sit in their midst and to hear their voices and to hear the stories that they selected to share. It was a bit of winter magic in the midst of the dark and damp of the Pacific Northwest in December. It was beautiful.
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*
Read The Holly and the Ivy, Part 1 by Timothy Thomas McNealy.
Read The Holly and the Ivy, Part 2 by Timothy Thomas McNealy.
(Part 3 will be released at Post Defiance on Monday 16 December 2013.)
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