The fun of Brooklyn Reading Works is that I never know how it’s going to go, or who’s going to show. It’s always a bit of an adventure.
Last night’s reading was serendipitious fun. The authors were great. We had a small, extremely friendly crowd. We even auctioned off a signed copy of one of the books. Judd Lear Silverman, playwright and author was in attendance. He has his own blog and he wrote up a nice piece about last evening, which I include here. JUDD LEAR SILVERMAN’S BLOG IS being added to my BROOKLYN BLOGS TO KNOW ABOUT list on the right side of this blog. I want to personally thank Judd for such such a great post – OTBKB
There’s
nothing quite like hearing an author read from their own work — except
perhaps listening to composers playing their own compositions! It’s not
that all writers are brilliant actors–some are quite into performing,
while others are rather self-effacing and still others downright
disappear when reading in public. But in hearing well-chosen words
emanating directly from their original source, you get an emotional
connection combined with a sense of the inspiration that brought the
author (and you) to this very location, this point in time. It becomes
a uniquely intimate moment — not unlike the times when your folks
would read you a bedtime story and you would share a common enjoyment
of an image, a phrase, or maybe just a moment together.
Brooklyn Reading Works, curated by Louise Crawford (Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn),
provides just such a pleasure. The series takes place on a regular
basis at the Old Stone House on 5th Avenue, a charming historic
landmark building which provides a cozy atmosphere for an intimate
evening by the hearth. (The Old Stone House is located in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Street in Park Slope. To learn more information, visit http://www.theoldstonehouse.org.)
Last night, the first second reading of the season featured Richard Grayson, author of 
AND TO THINK THAT HE KISSED HIM ON LORIMER STREET, and Leora Skolkin-Smith, author of EDGES: O ISRAEL, O PALESTINE.
Grayson, who has lived all over the country but is a Brooklyn native,
read from his book about the dearly departed cinemas that once graced
the borough–and his particular connection with each. It was a clever
organization of
nostalgia, cherishing the locations and experiences of movie-going as a
way of tracking his own personal history. When reading from his work, Grayson was never flashy, but his shy asides and self-deprecating humor made for a gentle and amusing trip down the Brooklyn boulevard of time travel.
Skolkin-Smith also dealt in the intermingling of location and personal history, reading a chapter from EDGES that recalled a trip with her Israeli-born mother to
Jerusalem in 1963, when (under Jordanian rule) Jews were not welcome in the Holy City. Frightening, tantalizing and seductive, it was
a beautiful piece of writing — no doubt a pleasure to read on one’s
own, but the pleasure here was surely heightened by the sensitivity and
emotional recall Skolkin-Smith brought to the evening. (It is the sign
of a good reading that the moment you’ve heard a selection, you run out
and buy a copy of the book!)
Crawford,
who also served as the "Alistaire Cooke" of the evening, assured us
that many more such excellent evenings lay ahead in the coming months,
featuring such authors as Elissa Schappell, Ilene Starger, Darcy Steinke. (Light refreshments are served as part of the literary soiree. At $5, the evening is quite a bargain!)
For more information and a schedule of events, go to http://www.brooklynreadingworks.com. As for Richard Grayson and Leora Skolkin-Smith,
visit their web sites to find out more about their writing. (Just click
on their names here–or else look for their books on Amazon.)