Live Open-Mic Salon Replay!

In case you missed the wonderful readings from our Friday, December 13

Our last open-mic salon of 2024 was wonderful.

Thanks to all who came and shared work! If you’ve never attended a Writing in the Dark open-mic, the replay will give you a sense of how informal, fun, and inspiring these are.

Also: here’s the collage poem that Billie assembled using scraps of language from the various readings during the salons, which has become a tradition of ours, part of this grand circle of creative energy:

We write about living and writing and writers and offer related exercises, you play with the exercises for the purpose of becoming more human and alive and, sometimes, if you’re lucky, creating beautiful work—but always learning more about this wild and precious language we call ours, and how to make it move on the page, we have parties for you to share your work out loud and as you do we listen for lines and images, catch them as they fall, and create a collage from them. And then we write some more about living and writing, etc. etc. etc. An infinite circle.

Here’s where we spun to this time.

Instructions From My Mother

One foot in the fire, just keep driving; drop into

eternity & let the color of purple consume both feet.

Let strangers create with their bare hands

This, these words: All of you was always yours.

Dream about the tree & wake at springtime;

How long can you hide? Go back 12 Januarys ago—

we knew nothing. Put notes on white napkins,

number them & don’t forget your round-bellied

want, or how you cannot swim forever, or

the heat of these days burning right through

your heart, an unspoken prayer:

I’m ok I’m ok I’m ok

PS Open-mic Salons are a fun, safe and intellectually vibrant literary spaces for paid & founding members to convene. Upgrade/manage your membership any time to join the conversation, or give the gift of WITD to someone who needs it. Thank you for Writing in the Dark together!