A great night at the Tearoom

My reading last night at the Cornwall Tearoom in Bad Wimpfen went exactly right. Peggy Fehily, the owner, and I were joined by my husband Markus and eleven other guests. As Peggy says, the place feels full with eight people. At 14 we had every seat filled around the small white tables. We all drank tea to our heart's content and most of us had a delicious mini-quiche to start the evening. Peggy's yummy cupcakes came out after the reading.

The full essay, "Objects of My Attention," takes 41 minutes to read. I am pleased to say I read the whole piece, making it through even the most emotional bits. It's not easy to do; I get better with practice. The guests came from Peggy's and my personal networks, and since they came willingly--even for the heavy topic of the death of a child--I felt I could ask for serious input. The big question I need advice on: if I have to omit parts for later readings, what parts should I definitely keep?

Literary Evening at the Cornwall Tearoom, Bad Wimpfen
Monday, May 12, 2014 

In a few weeks, I will give a reading as a fellowship winner during the Writers at Work conference (for Utah folks: Thursday, June 5, 7:30-9:30 pm at Alta Lodge--open to the public). As one of four readers that evening, I need to select a 20-minute portion of my essay to read. It's an iterative, six-part piece, and cutting it for a shorter reading is not an obvious task. I could, of course, read the first 20 minutes and stop there. But what reads best for an audience? How do I best represent the piece?

Using a response sheet for comments and ratings of "definitely read/maybe read/skip," the group engaged in lively, thoughtful discussion. Not everyone agreed, of course, on what's the most essential, but a consensus emerged. If you were there last night, this will make sense to you. With tiny cuts in the longer selected sections and skipping the first third of the final section, I can bring it down to 20 minutes: I. Tie-dye, III. Grime, and VI. (abridged) Clarity. Listeners can read the full piece to get the Rain, the Gauze, and the Glass. I anticipate the publication in Quarterly West sometime in the fall.

Thank you to everyone who came last night and listened so attentively. I'm very moved that you open yourselves to this story and to my writing.

I feel so lucky that I re-encountered Peggy Fehily about a year and a half ago. When I started teaching at the DHBW in Heilbronn (Cooperative University of Baden-Württemberg, where I teach Business English), I reconnected with Keith Hanna, whom I recognized as a teaching colleague from the late 1980s in Stuttgart. And Keith told me that Peggy, another colleague from way back then, had just opened up a tearoom not far from Heilbronn.

But that's not all. As we were closing shop yesterday evening, Peggy said she had books on her shelf by Melanie Rae Thon, the professor under whose guidance I had developed large parts of this essay. Peggy said she'd noticed the name in the interview I did for Writers at Work. I was genuinely surprised. Melanie has published for years and won numerous awards, but I don't often run into people who know the name, let alone remember reading Iona Moon in the 1990s. Looking at Peggy and absorbing this lovely information, I could hear the cosmic chimes all around us.

My only regret: when I began asking permission to take a group photo, I got involved in conversation. When I thought of it again, it was too late. Next time.