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Message from the President / October 2022

04 Nov 2022 4:49 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
It's Dracula: Ballet with a Bite! month in Columbia. I've always been a fan of Halloween. The costumes! The candy! The vampires! Every year I try to talk my kid into dressing like a vampire with me. We could go to Dracula like that. Or watch The Lost Boys. Or hand out candy. Or just sit on the couch sucking back all that extra saliva that fangs generate. 

Halloween is about performing, and we'll have a lot of opportunity to perform this month, with fangs or without.
  • Our Virtual Conference includes Literary Trivia on Friday and a Zoom Open Mic on Saturday. The Petigru Review authors are invited to read in a virtual launch party. Register here.
  • The Pat Conroy Literary Center's Open Mic, of which SCWA is a co-host, features Rock Hill poet Angelo Geter on Oct. 13. Watch live or contact PCLC to join and read.
  • Our Pawley's Island conference includes two "tailgate" workshops (Friday), an Open Mic (Saturday) and a slushfest (Sunday). Sold out!
  • Seven of our Columbia SCWA writers will participate in Flash at the Bar: Halloween Edition on Oct 26. There’s a total of nine readers. While it’s not an SCWA sponsored event, the co-host is SCWA's VP of Membership Raegan Teller. No registration required. Just come out to The Aristocrat in Columbia at 6 p.m. and support our readers.  
Recently, fellow SCWA member Lis Anna-Langston and I were part of Short Story Today, a podcast wherein the voice-actor-host interviews the author and then performs the work. It's a great use of the podcast medium. The popularity of podcasts and audiobooks indicates that performance is an inherent part of our literary craft.
 
Performing your work is a great way to build an audience. It's also a great way to edit. We often hear things in a piece when we read aloud that we wouldn't have seen on the page. Inflection, cadence and tone are more easily heard than read. 
 
Performing your work is not just marketing, it's also fun! When my kid was little, I used to read Skippyjon Jones books and Hollie would beg, "Do the voices, Mom!" We once had the attention of an entire party of adults as I read, "Holy frijoles!" My dad does the best 'Twas the Night Before Christmas rendition ever. You'd think he'd written it himself.
 
Have some ideas for how we can perform our work more often? On a bigger stage? Send them to me kasie@clemsonroad.com. I'd love to add more live performance events to our calendar in 2023.
 
 Kasie Whitener
President, SCWA Board of Directors



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