People go to readings to be entertained. Sometimes, event organizers forget this, believing instead that the most important quality of a group reading is quantity. Last week, I attended two readings packed with local talent: Kate Lebo hosted a debut party for her new chapbook, A Commonplace Book of Pie, at the Hugo House on Wednesday, and the Off Hours Reading Series threw its summer reading at Sole Repair on Thursday. Both readings were entirely worth the recommendations The Stranger gave them in our readings calendar.
Lebo led a series of pie-related readings (her book is a kind of pie-themed horoscope: If you like vanilla custard pie, you like horses; if you prefer pumpkin, you're a great lover) from authors including Jennifer Borges Foster, Brian McGuigan, and David Lasky. Borges Foster and McGuigan shared biographical pie stories (hers involved being stranded with an army of kindergartners stuck in a bar during a snowstorm; his had to do with shoplifting a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pie—"Filled with Vanilla Puddin' Power!"—from a convenience store). Lasky told a clever story accompanied by hand-drawn comic panels projected on a screen about a young man who joins a grunge band (they're named Fuckblast; they don't get anywhere) and then marries a woman who only bakes perfect apple pies. Soon, he's fantasizing about "burying his face in the pies" of his female coworkers.
Off Hours was a fine introduction to local poets. Ian Sherman read several wonderful, raw poems about topics including his Uncle Jimmy's "strange desires," the history of dogs and Soviet space travel, and krakens ("Imagine what those tentacles could do to a face!"). Don Mee Choi (whose The Morning News Is Exciting! is probably the best poetry debut from a Seattle author this year) read in a clipped, calm tone about a corpse found with a Coke bottle shoved into the vagina and an umbrella inserted into the anus.
Both readings were worth the audience's time, even though each clocked in at well over two hours (and, to be fair, compared to many other readings I've attended, they were positively breezy). But organizers of future readings should be advised that "worth the audience's time" is not the ideal goal when putting a reading together. Group readings should run no longer than one hour and 20 minutes, shooting ideally for the hour mark. It goes without saying that all the readers should have practiced their pieces to the brink of nausea in the weeks before the show, trimming material liberally all the while. And, really: no intermissions, please. After an overlong first half, your audience can be forgiven for fantasizing about fleeing the scene halfway through. The goal, as with any showbiz pursuit, should be to leave them wanting more. That way, people will be more inclined to stick around after the show and get down to what really matters: the drinking. 
