The beauty of the Hugo House’s annual literary series is that each event exposes Seattle audiences to new work by local and national writers. Each event has a theme to inspire the writers (Mother Knows Best, for example), there’s food, plenty of wine and booze, and live music. I don’t know of another reading series in the country that offers all of this. The authors even teach writing classes at the House after the reading.
The 2010-2011 series closed last month with Born in the U.S.A, featuring, among others, a reading by Victor LaValle. It was the funniest reading I’ve attended in the past year. If you weren’t able to attend, Hugo House finally has LaValle’s piece up on their blog. Here’s how it begins:
When I was three years-old my mother tried to kill me. Really, she was trying to kill herself, but I happened to be in her arms at the time. She jumped in front of a subway train. If I’m telling you this I must have survived, right? I used to think so too, but now I’m not so sure.
It’s funny, the kind of thoughts that come to you in line at the post office.
Read the whole thing here.
that was awesome. thanks.