December 17, 2025
The five readers of tonight's Writers Read.  Photo taken by Charlie.



For the past 4 years Writers Read has highlighted the staff of LAVA Center in December.  Tonight we got to do it again to a very nice audience of friends and the entire staff, not just those of us who read.

Tonight was the first time Matthew has ever read his fiction aloud.  He's writing a novel and read a piece of it, an entirely different culture, an entirely different country, and an entirely different century.  

Skyler ran the front and did all of the take down.  He'd baked bread.  Clara baked cookies.  We had mulled cider and seltzer, a few little snacks, and quite a good reading.  We are an interesting  collection of voices and we are so supportive of one another; we blend well.

The other thing is that Writers Read has great audiences.  I was pretty informal tonight, but the audience was attentive.  They laughed at Venessa's writing, they made appropriate noises showing us they heard what was said, funny, poignant, lovely, or nostalgic.  I always feel they are another reader in the group.  


I don't know why I didn't get a photo of Clara in the audience.  I got everyone else.  It was a nice group tonight and several people who I shoot frequently, but I must have been trying to get others. So no Clara, but I include a photo she took of the cookies coming out of  the oven.  
The town is totally lit up at this poiint.  Tonight I found it quite pretty.   In some ways it looks like someone stole Santa's sled, flew it through town splattering tubes of neon colored glitter over everything.  


I don't think I read any brand new work tonight, but I'll post one I don't think has been on my blog

An Hour To

 

breath in the earth

to listen to her heart beat.

 

An hour to

exhale the edgy

nervous twitching

of the day’s buildup.

 

An hour to

listen to her breath

smell her floor

soil, leaves.

 

An hour

 

to listen to the stillness.

to the penetrating yellow throated vireo

the excited trill of Kingfisher

a sudden honk of the Canada Goose.

 

And above her

clouds meander

in clumps or scattered

loneliness.

 

An hour

to wonder if

or when.

 

To watch

a silent deer graze

a grey squirrel move along

a beaver swim seamlessly.

 

Wood ducks appear inconsequential.

There’s that goose’s honk again

Heron stalks frogs.

They’ve been doing it

since before the time of man.

 

Hello Kingfisher.

 

 

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