FREE GIFT BAGS FROM BABELAND PLUS FREE WINE AND REFRESHMENTS!

This year’s line up includes Elizabeth Laura Nelson, Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, Nicole Callihan, Karen Ritter, Jezra Kaye and special guests!

So what is an Edgy Mom?

She’s feisty and fun and a little bit zany. She whines to her friends and can be a bit of a martyr. She fantasizes about taking long trips without her children. She lets her kids have dessert before dinner and reheated pizza for breakfast. And she NEVER remembers to bring Cheeros or tissues to the playground. Except when she does and then she feels victorious.

Her kids have seen her fight, yell at her mother, and curse her sister on the phone. They’ve watched her cry. More than once. She’s been know to throw away her children’s old toys and art supplies when they’re not around. And then pretend she doesn’t know where they are when they ask.

And she knows not to miss Edgy Moms on May 10th because it’s gonna be a blast and the wine is free.

Jezra Kaye is the author of the novel, The Tattooed Heart, Rebel Heart, a Civil War romance novella and Kicking: Love Poems. She runs Speech for Success and has been a Fortune 500 speechwriter. Before that, she was a jazz singer and bandleader (she is a proud graduate of New England Conservatory of Music), and supported her jazz habit by working as a secretary,  a house cleaner, an accounts receivable clerk at J.C. Penney’s, a singing waitress, and an  overnight typist at the Brooklyn Supreme Court. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, and is the mother of an adult daughter.

Elizabeth Laura Nelson writes for xoJane. She lives in Brooklyn with two daughters and no dog, in spite of the fact that she promised her girls they’d get one. She writes, bakes, runs half-marathons, and spends many hours underground, getting herself and her children all the places they need to be. She is doing the best she can at any given moment. She’s getting that dog just as soon as she can.

Karen Ritter has spent decades in the advertising trenches, crafting copy for Dunkin’ Donuts and Weight Watchers. Faced with the task of persuading some people to gain weight and others to lose it eventually created a psychic split. Seeking refuge in fiction, Karen has completed one novel, Living With Men, and embarked on a second, The Other Ingrid Bergman. A mother of one, Karen is still traumatized by the autobiographical novel her own mother self-published nearly 35 years ago.

Nicole Callihan writes poems, stories and essays. Her work has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Salt Hill, New York Quarterly, North American Review and cream city review and has been translated into German and Spanish. A finalist for the Iowa Review’s Award for Literary Nonfiction, she was named as Notable Reading for Best American Non-required Reading and awarded Best of the Net 2010 for fiction.

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer is a surfer, a runner, a writer and married to a nice Jewish boy named Seth. They are raising three kids in a big old beach house in Rockaway Beach, New York around the corner from Mildred and Irvin, her darling in-laws. Sounds like a sitcom, doesn’t it? She also runs the Queens Arts Council and is a grantmaker by profession, a writer by confession.

EXPERIENCE Brooklyn Reading Works, the reading series that has been called “The best place to chase fiction with a bit of history” by Conde Nast Traveler.  ”Once a month you can hear writers discuss themes ranging from “Make Mine a Double” – on women and  drinking –  to books by war veterans.”

BRW is a great night out for anyone who wants to be entertained and enlightened by acclaimed and emerging authors, and meet others who enjoy the same.

A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine.

New Location:

TWO MOON ART HOUSE AND CAFE

315 Fourth Avenue between 3rd and 2nd Streets

Brooklyn,  NY 11215

718-499-0460

FREE GIFT BAGS FROM BABELAND PLUS FREE WINE AND REFRESHMENTS!

This year’s line up includes Elizabeth Laura Nelson, Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, Nicole Callihan, Karen Ritter, Jezra Kaye and special guest Michele Madigan Somerville.

So what is an Edgy Mom?

She’s feisty and fun and a little bit zany. She whines to her friends and can be a bit of a martyr. She fantasizes about taking long trips without her children. She lets her kids have dessert before dinner and reheated pizza for breakfast. And she NEVER remembers to bring Cheeros or tissues to the playground. Except when she does and then she feels victorious.

Her kids have seen her fight, yell at her mother, and curse her sister on the phone. They’ve watched her cry. More than once. She’s been know to throw away her children’s old toys and art supplies when they’re not around. And then pretend she doesn’t know where they are when they ask.

And she knows not to miss Edgy Moms on May 10th because it’s gonna be a blast and the wine is free.

THIS YEAR’S EDGY MOMS:

Jezra Kaye is the author of the novel, The Tattooed Heart, Rebel Heart, a Civil War romance novella and Kicking: Love Poems. She runs Speech for Success and has been a Fortune 500 speechwriter. Before that, she was a jazz singer and bandleader (she is a proud graduate of New England Conservatory of Music), and supported her jazz habit by working as a secretary, a house cleaner, an accounts receivable clerk at J.C. Penney’s, a singing waitress, and an overnight typist at the Brooklyn Supreme Court. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, and is the mother of an adult daughter.

Elizabeth Laura Nelson writes for xoJane. She lives in Brooklyn with two daughters and no dog, in spite of the fact that she promised her girls they’d get one. She writes, bakes, runs half-marathons, and spends many hours underground, getting herself and her children all the places they need to be. She is doing the best she can at any given moment. She’s getting that dog just as soon as she can.

Karen Ritter has spent decades in the advertising trenches, crafting copy for Dunkin’ Donuts and Weight Watchers. Faced with the task of persuading some people to gain weight and others to lose it eventually created a psychic split. Seeking refuge in fiction, Karen has completed one novel, Living With Men, and embarked on a second, The Other Ingrid Bergman. A mother of one, Karen is still traumatized by the autobiographical novel her own mother self-published nearly 35 years ago.

Nicole Callihan writes poems, stories and essays. Her work has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Salt Hill, New York Quarterly, North American Review and cream city review and has been translated into German and Spanish. A finalist for the Iowa Review’s Award for Literary Nonfiction, she was named as Notable Reading for Best American Non-required Reading and awarded Best of the Net 2010 for fiction.

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer is a surfer, a runner, a writer and married to a nice Jewish boy named Seth. They are raising three kids in a big old beach house in Rockaway Beach, New York around the corner from Mildred and Irvin, her darling in-laws. Sounds like a sitcom, doesn’t it? She also runs the Queens Arts Council and is a grantmaker by profession, a writer by confession.

EXPERIENCE Brooklyn Reading Works, the reading series that has been called “The best place to chase fiction with a bit of history” by Conde Nast Traveler. ”Once a month you can hear writers discuss themes ranging from “Make Mine a Double” – on women and drinking – to books by war veterans.”

BRW is a great night out for anyone who wants to be entertained and enlightened by acclaimed and emerging authors, and meet others who enjoy the same.
A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine.

TWO MOON ART HOUSE AND CAFE

315 Fourth Avenue (between 3rd and 2nd Streets)

Brooklyn, NY 11215

718-499-0460

For information and interviews louise_crawford@yahoo.com or 718-288

The Community Bookstore and 3RingPress invite you to celebrate the launch of two new novels, The Tattooed Heart, by Jezra Kaye, and Come From Nowhere, by Ellen Greenfield.  Toast these books and hear excerpts read by the authors, who will be available to sign copies.

At the start of the AIDS epidemic, Gracie—a hard-luck girl with a haunting secret—loses her best friend and lover, Marcus. But just before he dies, Marcus makes her promise to bear a child in his memory. He knows she’ll need someone to live for when he’s gone.  But he can’t know how tough and twisted Gracie’s journey will become. The Tattooed Heart has been called “a wild road trip through the American West, fueled by anger and loss.  Gracie’s is the tough and tender voice you won’t be able to get out of your head.”

Come From Nowhere has been called a love letter to New York City and all of its varied inhabitants.  “The seven characters we meet at the onset of this remarkable novel, each wrapped in her own particular music, are soon to experience the sudden arrival of darkness—New York City’s two-day black out of summer, 1977—and the subsequent transformation of everything.  Written with grace and perceptive intelligence, the narrative that follows is humane, mysterious, tragic, compelling and beautiful.” Chuck Wachtel, author of the novels 3/03, The Gates, and Joe The Engineer.

So I’m starting a new business. It’s called Brooklyn Social Media. Check me out on Facebook and LIKE ME.

If you wanna LIKE ME.

Back in 2004 I was a blogging pioneer. I launched a blog before anyone knew what a blog was. Sure, some people did but most people said, “What’s a blog and why should I care?”

Others thought it was a great way to waste time.

I proved them wrong and made them care with Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, a popular hyper-local blog for people who are addicted to where they live. Since 2004, I have posted 14,322 posts on OTBKB.

Soon, OTBKB had awesome reach. Lots of people were reading it. The New York Times, Crains New York, loads of blogs wrote about me. I had a weekly column in the Brooklyn Paper. I was interviewed by Brian Leherer, WNBC, Channel 12. I was recognized on the street. Entrepreneurs, artists and businesses barraged me with information about what they were up to because:

I was viewed as a major INFLUENCER.

In 2005, I was inspired to spread the blogging gospel and I founded the Brooklyn Blogfest, an annual networking event for bloggers and entrepreneurs. For six years I ran that event with passion and LOVE. I look back with pleasure and pride at that large community that came together year after year —and the many people who found each other there and made interesting and creative connections.

Interesting and creative connections: Isn’t that what’s it’s all about?

In 2010, the event was sponsored by Absolut  Vodka, who chose the Brooklyn Blogfest as a perfect launch pad for their new product, Absolut Brooklyn.

Flash forward to 2012: I have decided to share my blogging and social media expertise with those in need. My fees are flexible and affordable. I have resources up the wazoo and if I can’t do it I know who can. AND, I’m offering a free first consultation so get in touch if you’d like my input and ideas.

So why the name? Because Brooklyn is the social media capital of the world. When it comes to blogging, there are more blogs in Brooklyn than anywhere else in the world (statistic from outside.in and Steven Berlin Johnson).

It started in Brooklyn and I tip my hat to this borough and it’s  pioneering influence on blogging and social media.

So here’s my pitch:

Let me help you spread the word about your business, your event, your product, your new book, your non-profit, your…

There are numerous ways I can help you:

–A conversation about goals, strategy and first steps

–Lessons or coaching sessions (i.e. what is all this overwhelming social media stuff anyway and what does it mean for me?)

–Consultation (brainstorming and creative direction)

–BSM can design and/or write a blog or website for you;  Create a Facebook, Google+ or Twitter presence

–BSM can write email newsletters, press releases, copy and advertising

The takeaway: BROOKLYN SOCIAL MEDIA will develop smart, well-directed social media campaigns which build relationships and reach influencers.

Oh yeah. Here’s my  motto:

Quality + Trust + Authenticity = Brooklyn Social Media

Author Marian Fontana knows funny and she is bringing together a great group of comic writers for this night of hilarity with Marian, Don Cummings, Ellen Ferguson, Gianna Messina, Billy Frolick, and Blair Fell.

DON CUMMINGS’ critically acclaimed plays have been produced on both coasts: His play, The Fat of the Land was a semifinalist for the Kaufman & Hart Award for new American comedy. A Good Smoke was a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill theater conference. It had a reading at The Public Theater in New York starring Meryl Streep and Debra Monk and has been optioned for Broadway. Piss Play is about Minorities so it’s Really Important was produced in the Summer Cringe Festival of 2009 where it received the Golden Pineapple award for best play. His latest play, Live Work Space, opens soon in Los Angeles. His collection of nonfiction essays are loosely held together in his yet-to-be-published memoir, Open Trench, named after his blog. He has acted in a lot of plays and been on a lot of sitcoms and writes movies and TV shows. Mr. Cummings is a graduate of Tufts University, The Neighborhood Playhouse and a member of The Dramatists Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theater Writer’s Unit. www.doncummings.net

ELLEN FERGUSON writes the “Diversity in the News” column for McSweeney’s, and her nonfiction has also been published in Diversity Prep, Publisher’s Weekly, and SPY.  Her McSweeney’s column has been widely reprinted online.  Her poetry can be found online on identitytheory and the Brooklyn Reading Works, and in print in Long Island Quarterly.  Before she started teaching English, Satire and Nonfiction in New Jersey and New Hampshire, she worked at The New Yorker Magazine and SPY.

BLAIR FELL has written for the television series Queer As Folk, andthe emmy-award winning Public Television show California Connected.His plays Naked Will, The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun,From The Hip, Bargains and Blood, The Ballad of Little Girl Jesus etal have been performed around the world and have received numerousawards.  He has written charity and award show speeches for hundredsof celebrities, as well as the GLAAD Awards, Vimeo Awards and TheTrevor Project.  Along with writing for a number of pop culturewebsites, he writes a fiction blog called subwaysaints.com and the webseries Burninghabits.com.  His work can also be seen on blairfell.com.

MARIAN FONTANA has been a writer and performer for over 20 years. Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and most recently in the Guardian and on Salon.com. Her memoir, A Widows Walk published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster, was chosen as the Top Ten Great Reads of 2005 by People magazine and the Washington Post’s Book Raves of 2005. She most recently completedher second memoir, The Middle of the Bed.

Her essays have appeared in the anthologies Money Changes Everything and The Time of My Life for Random House. She is currently collaborating on a musical.

BILLY FROLICK’S screenwriting credits include DreamWorks Animation’s MADAGASCAR.  He has written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and Salon.com, and is the author of four book-length parodies, including The Ditches of Edison County, a national bestseller.

GIANNA MESSINA is a writer, producer and comedian who got her start as a baby model. Her work has appeared in  Dossier and Atlanta Style & Design magazine. She has performed stand-up at the Punchline in Atlanta and at the Metropolitan Room in New York and co-hosted the No Rules radio show with comedian Stu Levine. She is a graduate of Syracuse University Crouse College of Art and the High School for the Performing Arts where she majored in Drama. Gianna lives with her cat Clementine in Brooklyn in order to be closer to good bread and cannoli. She is gluten-free intolerant, enjoys the 3rdperson format of biographies and blogging on giannamessina.com.

In the cozy upstairs room at the Old Stone House, experience the reading series that Conde Nast Traveler called: “The Best Place to Chase Fiction with a Bit of History.

“Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House: Reconstructed from a 1699 Dutch farmhouse that played a key role in the Revolutionary War. Once a month you can hear up-and-coming Brooklyn writers discuss themes ranging from “Make Mine a Double”—on women and drinking—to books by war veterans (336 Third St.; 718-768-3195).”

It’s great night out for anyone who wants to be entertained and enlightened by acclaimed and emerging artists, and meet others who enjoy the same.

The Old Stone House

336 Third Street

718-768-3195 or 718-288-4290 for information and interviews

Between Fifth and Fourth Avenues

Due to construction in the park, enter from the Fourth Avenue side of the house.

Melissa Lopata and her husband Larry have done just that. They left Brooklyn and are living on a farm in Connecticut. Okay, I will admit, I was a bit shocked to hear that these city slickers (and longtime supporters of the Brooklyn Blogfest) have pulled up roots and are doing the Green Acres thing. But then I read the following written by Melissa and I am wholeheartedly intrigued.

Melissa completely changed pace, stopping not only to smell the roses, peaches, pears and apples that she picks daily around her farm when in season, but also re-experiencing the wonders of birth with baby cows, and barn yard kittens, and this spring, building a huge, experimental biodome to grow the family’s food year round. Melissa is also working on becoming a certified organic farmer and Non-GMO food advocate and speaker. She has also set up a painting studio in her house and is re-discovering her artist within.

The good news is that Melissa is coming back to Brooklyn for a visit AND an event. Did I mention that Melissa also runs Momasphere with author Ellen Bari? Momasphere is an organization that produces innovative events and programs for moms of all ages and stages, in and out of the workplace, while also giving back to the community.

Proceeds of their events go to various charities that help women, children and families.  After a busy one year hiatus, Melissa and Ellen plan to continue Momasphere from Brooklyn and Connecticut. They will also provide consulting, niche marketing and event planning services to businesses that want added exposure to the dynamic mom market, as well as customized, targeted in-house programming for their mom employees.

This Thursday in Park Slope, come to Momasphere’s 2012 kick-off event called, appropriately enough, (Re)Discover Your Life Purpose with Anne Baker, certified life and career coach. Baker will share proven exercises, tips and steps in this interactive, two hour workshop to help you make a head start this year to achieving greater success and fulfillment in your life. The event is only $20 and Momasphere’s events are always well run and interesting. Even better, a percentage of the admission fee will go towards benefiting Women In Need, Inc. (WIN), providing New York City’s homeless women and their families with safe, clean housing; support and the skills to become self-reliant.

Best of all, you will walk away from the session with a greater awareness of what will bring more meaning to your life; which life areas to prioritize; and a new and creative approach to setting and achieving goals to live your purpose. Plus, every participant can sign up to receive a complimentary coaching session with Anne Baker.

DATE: Thursday, March 22, 2012

TIME: 7:00pm – 9:30pm

PLACE: Park Slope Eye, 682 Union St. (betw. 4th & 5th Ave), Brooklyn, NY. Phone: (347) 560-8393
PRICE: General Admission is $20 online and $30 at the door (cash only at the door)

Space is limited so RSVP by purchasing tickets online. Tickets at the door are cash only and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Wine & snacks will be served. Receive a free Momasphere / Park Slope Eye tote bag for your workshop handouts.

In the Year of the Dragon”, a reading celebration of Asian and Asian-American writers presented by Brooklyn Reading Works at  the Old Stone House on Thursday, March 15th at 8PM.

Hear…

Novelists SUSAN CHOI, CATHERINE CHUNG, SABINA MURRAY, HOONG YEE LEE KRAKAUER, playwright LINDA FAIGAO-HALL and Brooklyn’s Poet Laureate, TINA CHANG.

Curated by...

Novelist Sophia Romero, author of “Always Hiding” (William Morrow) who also blogs as “The Shiksa From Manila”.

Brooklyn Reading Works is on its sixth year and is a monthly thematic reading series  in Brownstone Brooklyn. Last year, “Voices from the East: In the Year of the Rabbit”  featured poet Joanna Sit, playwright Diana Son, and novelists Bino Realuyo, Thad Rutkowski and Ronica Dhar.  There will be a Q&A and mingling with the artists at the end.  The Old Stone House is located at J.J. Byrne Park on 5th avenue between 3rd and 4th streets.

On a frigid Monday in February, I waited for the  Seventh Avenue bus to take me to the Grand Army Plaza subway station. Once on the train, I ran into an acquaintance from my daughter’s elemetary school. I made a point of not telling her that I was on my way to Park Place for my first day of court reporting school.

I felt stealth, a secret agent embarking on a new career .

When I entered the classroom at the New York Career Institute, more than thirty people were already seated and waiting for the teacher to arrive. At 9:30 on the  dot, Miss G, a skinny woman in late middle age with short spiky hair with specks of grey, entered the room.

The teacher!

She had big expressive eyes and bright red lipstick on her lips. Her outfit, I would later learn, was her teaching uniform: a flannel shirt, a wool scarf, grey sweat pants and white tennis shoes. She looked well put together, even stylish. Maybe it was her hair cut, which was neat and well coiffed.

Miss G, in a voice shrill, sharp and clear, directed a question to the classroom of newbies, mostly women in their early twenties and thirties.  ”Why are you here? Nobody comes here without a reason. Rarely do people think of this themselves. They have to be told.”

I was sitting next to M, the grey-haired woman I met at the orientation (“I think you’re in my demographic”). At 63 and 53 respectively, M and I were the two oldest people in the room. As Miss G went around the room, people described aunts who worked as court reporters, friends, and mothers who had done it years ago.

I told the group that I was inspired during jury duty. M mentioned that she looked it up on the Internet.

“It’s the second highest paying job you can get without a college degree.” she told the group.

What’s the first?” someone shouted out.

“Air traffic control,” she said.

The room erupted in laughter. All the faces I would come to know so well blended together that day. There was a man who never came back and a few others we’d never see again. Satisfied with the group’s answers, Miss G addressed the class:

“I am offering you a wonderful, well-paid career. If you work hard and practice and take this vey seriously, there is an opportunity for you here. Don’t squander it. Many people have come through this school. I have seen people who’d never studied before and took to this thing. This was something they were able to do. It has literally saved people’s lives…”

I was moved by the sincerity and passion of her speech. Afterwards, she sent us downstairs in groups to pick up our machines. Most of the class had purchased machines, which wouldn’t be arriving for another couple of months. In the meantime, the school was loaning out what Miss G called clunkers, rusty, old machines used by multitudes before us.

Down in the administration office, there was a room full of clunkers lined up in black canvas bags (not rolling suitcases). I was very excited to receive one and proudly carried it back upstairs. The others were already putting their  machines together. Out of my bag I pulled out the machine itself, the foldable tripod legs, and the awkward metal drawer. Miss G went around the room offering aid to those who needed help. When everyone was set up, she told us to unwrap our first package of steno paper and showed us how to thread it through the machine.

We were ready to go.

Miss G showed us where to rest our fingers on the black keys. We learned a few letters: the two  S’s and the two T’s.

“If the letter is on the left side of the keyboard it’s called ‘initial’ and if it’s on the right side it’s called ‘final,’”she instructed us.

The initial S is hit by the left pinky on the far left of the keyboard (see diagram, above). The final S is hit by the right pinky on the right side of the keyboard (but don’t hit the D and Z by mistake). Sitting at her desk at the front of the room, Miss G began to drill us in a voice something between an army sergeant and a stern piano teacher.

“Initial S, final  S, initial S, final S, initial S..”

“Use the pinky,” she yelled out if she spotted someone who was using their ring finger instead of the pinkie.

“Initial T, final T, initial T, final T, initial T…”

Miss G drilled us for the rest of the class period, keeping an eagle eye out for fingering mistakes. A young woman, who had failed the class previously and was taking it again, sat near Miss G. She wore Pink brand sweat pants, hoodie, and expensive Nike sneakers and used the wrong fingering.

“I told you, use the correct fingers,” Miss G admonished her.

M approached the fingerings with great seriousness, she seemed to be struggling.  That first day I felt surprisingly calm. I enjoyed pressing the keys down as Miss G shouted out the letters. It was a satisfying sensation that reminded me of playing  an instrument. I hadn’t used my pinkies that  way since playing the  guitar. I liked the way it felt.  I almost wished the machine made a musical sound.

The time passed quickly. Before I knew it, it was noon and the class was winding down.

“The party’s over,” Miss G. said to the class. “Go home and practice.”

I was sure I would, and I knew I’d be back the next day.

To be continued…

This is the 5th installment of an on-going series about my experience training to be a court reporter.

There is a long and interesting history of written and machine shorthand. There is even a permanent exhibition, The Gallery of Shorthand: The Evolution of a Timeless Profession, in the Alfonse M. D’Amato Federal Courthouse in Central Islip, Long Island.

Now that sounds like a very worthwhile excursion, doesn’t it?

In lieu of making the trek out to the Richard Meier designed Islip courthouse, I  was able to gather quite a few nifty historical tidbits from their interesting website.

In Ancient Rome there were scribes, individuals responsible for transcribing minutes of the Roman Senate. Before 63 BC they wrote from memory and these transcripts were sometimes published.

In 63 BC, Cicero, the great orator of Rome, developed Tironian Notes, the very  first system of short writing. To save time, this system used letters to represent common words, and left out letters, usually vowels, that weren’t necessary. Sometimes initials or other parts of several words were joined.  Speed was achieved by rarely removing the hand from the wax tablet.

In 59 BC, Emperor Julius Caesar sought to eliminate the secrecy of Senate deliberations, and ordered that they be recorded using Tironian Notes.

Hail Ceasar.

Apparently some Tironean Shorthand is still used in contemporary shorthand such as abbreviating by using only the first letters of common phrases (am, pm, USA).

During the middle ages, shorthand was outlawed because it was  viewed as crytography or secret writing, and therefore inherently evil. Despite the prohibition, monks were allowed to use shorthand to write. And that’s a good thing. Much of what we know about the intellectual and religious history of that time we know form these shorthand writing monks.

But I digress. Machine shorthand, as taught at the New York Career Institute, is what we are interested in here.

We have Miles M. Bartholemew to thank for the invention of the first English-language stenography machine in 1879. That precursor to today’s steno machine utilized dot/dash codes to form one letter at a time. It makes me think of Morse Code. 150 words per minute was the top speed you could reach on this machine. Apparently vowels were eliminated and words were written as phonetic abbreviations.

In 1866,  George Kerr Anderson designed the first word-at-a-stroke shorthand machine called. The Anderson Shorthand Typewriter. It used printed letters  instead of codes and was capable of fast writing speeds.

In 1911, the Ireland Stenotype Shorthand Machine was invented by Ward Stone Ireland. This steno innovator spent six years analyzing the arrangement of letters and sounds in the English language. He’s responsible for the chorded method and the ” two-row, tripartite key arrangement of initial consonants, final consonants, and middle vowels” that those of us who have studied Steno know and love. This groundbreaking system allowed” the greatest output with the fewest strokes.”

Indeed, that is the essence of steno: the greatest output with the fewest strokes. Make THAT your mantra.

The afternoon of the orientation for new students, maybe sixty of us were herded into a third floor classroom at the New York Career Institute. I looked around at the people sitting in folding chairs. Most looked only a few years older than my  19-year-old son.

There were white girls, black girls, hispanic  girls, Orthodox Jewish girls, and even a few Orthodox men wearing yamulkes (I later learned that court reporting is quite popular among the Orthodox). The average age was probably 25 but there were a few scattered middle-agers, as well.

I was heartened when I noticed one women with short, grey hair and made a note to speak to her after the orientation.  I struck up a conversation with the young African-American woman sitting next to me. She told me she studied steno in high school. “It was very difficult,” she said.

People sat in groups of two or three, friends from home, from high school. I eyed a table of cookies, donuts and soda but didn’t dare get up. No one did. Everyone seemed nervous, eager for the meeting to begin. I studied the stenotype machine at the front of the classroom. With its black keys, it looked more like a piano than a computer or typewriter keyboard .

When Mr. G, a short Hispanic man, who runs the court reporting program, came into the classroom, the crowd quieted down.

“Are there any paralegal or medical students in the room?” he called out.

Ten or fifteen people raised their hands. He told them to go to another classroom for a separate orientation meeting.

“Now that they’re out of here. Is everyone here registered for court reporting?” he said. There was a chorus of yeses.

“Court reporting is a great career. I did it for 18 years,” he told the group. “You can make a lot of money as a court reporter whether you decide to freelance or work in a court. But it takes a lot of work. Be prepared to practice  two hours every day. Every day. Alright, I’ll give you Sunday off. But you must practice for two hours, six days a week.”

I was starting to stress out. Two hours a day? That seemed like an awful lot of time to devote to that little machine. I was still in denial about how much time and practice it would take to reach the required speed of 220 words per minute. How hard could it be?

I’m not sure if this happened or if I imagined it but I think Mr. G lifted up the stenography machine and hugged it to his chest.  I am certain, however, that he said the following.

“I love this machine. I loved this machine from the minute I saw it. This machine gave me a life, a profession.’

My first thought: I will never love that machine. I was sure of it.

After the meeting I went up to Mr. G with a question:

“I’m a really fast typist, will that help me in court reporting?”

“Not really,” Mr. G told me. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

After that discouraging interchange with Mr. G, I sought out the woman with short grey hair.

“I think we’re in the same demographic,” I said cheerily.

“I don’t know about that. I think I’m a little older than you,” she said. “I’m 63.”

“Okay, you are a little bit older. So what did you think?”

The grey haired woman, who turned out to be smart and friendly, told me that she was excited. She’d been laid off from a development job at a major non-profit and was game for something new.

“I love school,” she said. “I have two master’s degrees. I love to study.”

“But aren’t you worried about learning to type that fast?” I said. “And the textbook. All this stenography. It looks like  gibberish.”

Anxiety was seeping out of me. I needed a reality check.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” the grey haired woman said. We exchanged phone numbers and decided to stay in touch.

For me, the orientation was actually disorienting. Afterwards, my doubts returned with a vengence. Leafing through Therory for Court Reporting Volume 1, the text book for the beginner class, I became unhinged. Why is ate spelled AEUT? Why is sew spelled SWE? Why is will you be HRUB? I wondered to myself.

This is silly, this is crazy. The book’s introduction wasn’t much help :

“The greatess of this keyboard lies in its simplicity. The four fingers of the left hand control all of the beginning consonants by striking two, three, and sometimes four keys at a time…”

What the hell was I getting into? My anxiety turned into full fledged panic. When I got home I was on the verge of tears.

“I’m not going back there. It was a terrible idea,” I told my husband.

He heard me out and didn’t try to change my mind. Just a few weeks before, he seemed shocked when I decided to become a court reporter in the first place. He’d gotten used to the idea, but I don’t think he was really sold on it. The next day, a Friday, I cried to a friend over coffee at Sweet Melissa’s that I had made a terrible mistake.

“Maybe I should learn digital video editing instead,” I remember telling her. I had been a film and video editor in a former career. At least it was  creative.

By Sunday night, I was feeling calmer and a thought floated into my mind. Why don’t I just try it? If this thing is really so wrong for me it’ll be obvious at the first class. If I don’t go, I’ll never know.

I slept soundly that night for the first time in days…

To be continued…