I had the pleasure of reading two stories today at Luck’s Senior Center. The event was sponsored by The Friends of Luck Library and followed the weekly Senior Citizen lunch. I read two stories, the Mangled Fairy Tales yarn Sinner Ella and the somber I Loved That Bike! Sinner drew lots of laughs and I even got a laugh or two out of the bike story.
Reading for small groups is how I began reading my stories. That led to reading in libraries in Polk County and across the river in Minnesota, for larger groups, on the radio, twice as a fund raiser for St.Croix Festival Theater, and also twice for the classic Old Settlers Picnic. The trick now is getting to be not to repeat a story that someone may have heard before at another venue. However, I have 27 stories out there in print so I may not be at great risk of repeating myself. In any event, today was fun, there were good questions (Are you working on another story right now? [No.] (How do your stories develop?) [Between 3-5 a.m. and usually with the dialogue almost fully formed.] (Do you keep a file of ideas?) [No. I used to but not anymore. I still have a few file folders with ideas but I find I never look at them and so I should purge the file drawer.] I said it was fun, didn’t I?