Story Club Chicago

Yesterday, I participated at Story Club Chicago. It's an open mic event for writers and readers and people who just enjoy stories and storytelling. I've told one of my stories here before - I read My Father's Camera this past July. It's a perfect environment for storytelling, close quarters, attentive crowd, and good beer.

This time I read I'm a Lucky Guy, Right. I was hesitant to read that story. The tone and style of the writing is perfect for reading, it's really informal, but the content is what I was iffy about. The story is about a crazy sexual fetish, so I didn't know if the MC was going to stand up and say "Stop! TMI". But she didn't. It actually went pretty well. I got a few laughs. I think overall it was well received. The story was pretty easy to follow though.

There were also some good readings from the other open mic folks and the featured presenters did a great job. The girl who puts it all on also read. She's good, she memorizes it, and acts it all out; I picked up on that at my first reading. You can't just read the paper, you gotta add a little drama to it, to keep interest.

So the writing is most important, but I enjoyed brushing up on the important reading and presentation skills - it only gets better.