halloween horror reading

In past years, I've often had Halloween parties at my condo, SIXBOX, and I've done readings of my latest horror fiction for my friends. I enjoy doing it, and I was going to miss doing it this year if I didn't, but SIXBOX is kind of a small place — I can only have so many people over at once. I realized I wanted to do a bigger reading somewhere. Somewhere public.

The idea was exciting, but a little intimidating. I'd read in front of strangers before, of course — I've done readings at local science-fiction conventions, but those are in front of audiences who are already there expecting to hear readings from authors, even the occasional author they've never heard of. If I just put out the word that I'd be doing this for Halloween, would anyone show up?

Generally speaking, I'd rather regret doing something than regret not doing it. As I've heard it said, sometimes you gotta do what scares you. I decided that it was worth a try.

I wasn't sure where to try doing it — a library? A goth club on some off-night?

Then it struck me that the Aurafice, a new Internet café that seemed to cater to the goth crowd, had been very visibly supporting local artists, by displaying their art and letting them put up flyers. Well, heck, writing is art, isn't it? Surely they'd support a local horror writer, too. I hoped.

All I needed now was an in. I sent e-mail to the lovely and talented Ann Koi, an artist for Catalyst Studios whose work I'd seen on display at the Aurafice. I'd never met Ann, but she was a fellow member of the Seattle.Gothic mailing list, so I figured she wouldn't mind me asking her who I would talk to about doing a reading.

She told me that the person I needed to talk to was named Paige, and told me when I should drop by to talk to her. “Tell her Ann sent you,” Ann said.

I set out to do that, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Paige wasn't in the first time I dropped by; nor was she in the second time.

I realized that I could have just left a message to have her call me, but I really wanted to talk to her about this in person. For one thing, I simply wanted to make the personal connection — for another, I figured I'd be harder to say “no” to if I was standing right there! So even though the café's Capitol Hill location is a little out of my way, I kept trying.

The third time's a charm, they say, and I must have been charming enough, because when I did finally meet Paige and got to lay out my idea, she loved it.

I'd figured that the direct approach was the best one to take — “Hello, my name is Michael Montoure, Ann Koi from Catalyst Studios said you'd be the person to talk to — I'm a writer, and I'm looking for somewhere to hold a reading of my horror fiction this Halloween, and I'd like to do it here. Would that be possible?” Yes, all one breath — ! All the while forcing myself to be calm and pleasant and to sound professional.

See, while anyone who's met me might laugh at this idea — deep down, I'm really honestly terribly shy. I have a hard time asking anyone for anything. So it had taken some effort simply to work up the nerve. But the worst that could happen was that she'd simply say no, and I've been surprised many times in my life at what you can get simply by asking for it.

But anyway, Paige loved the idea — she couldn't commit to it right away, she would have to clear it with her partner first, but she definitely wanted to be able to do it. She was already asking if I could print up some flyers that I could bring in to promote the event. I nodded, looking around at similar event flyers posted around the place — yeah, I could come up with something.

Our only real point of contention was over the date. She wanted me to do it on Halloween itself — I wanted to do it a little before Halloween. I was worried enough that people might not show up that I didn't want to compete with Halloween parties and other activities. I suggested Saturday, October 23rd, instead. Paige looked a little disappointed about the idea of not doing it on the actual day, but agreed with my reasoning.

I left her my phone number and e-mail address so she could contact me after she had a chance to talk to her partner, smiled and thanked her for her time and consideration, and left thinking, well, so much for that. “I'll call you” is supposed to be the kiss of death, isn't it? I started thinking about where else I could hold the reading so I'd have a fallback plan when she told me no. Or when I never heard from her again.

I got a phone call from her the next day. The answer was yes. I was in.

+   +   +  

Now to promote the event.

First off, of course, I put out some notices electronically — I sent out e-mail to my friends, to the Seattle.Gothic list, and sent out a message to the Bloodletters Announcements List. I even posted a message on a bulletin board I used to frequent, and one on the (now defunct) Northwest Science Fiction Resources Guestbook in case someone there might recognize my name from readings at conventions. That was the fun and easy part. And best of all, the free part.

Now I needed to print up the flyers Paige had asked for. Designing them was easy enough — I played around in CorelDraw until I came up with this design. Good, bold, black design on traditional, Halloweenish orange — should be eye-catching enough. I blew a few bucks at Kinko's Copies and ended up with about 250 quarter-page sized flyers.

I brought some to Paige, and as for the rest — well, those I was going to have to distribute around the area.

Remember how I said I hated having to ask for anything?

Well, take that and multiply it about a dozen times, because I visited at least a dozen stores in the Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle areas, and asked if I could leave flyers there. Bookstores, music stores, a video arcade — anything that looked to me like it would attract the same demographic (I love marketing jargon) as would be likely to attend my reading.

A couple of places told me no, of course — a couple of music stores regretfully informed me that their policy was to only take flyers for music-related events, which seemed only reasonable to me — but the rest took them. It took about a whole solid day trudging around to do this, but I figured it was worth it.

You see, the thing of it was this:

I was nervous about doing this. And if I had only sent out invitations by e-mail, well, that could easily be retracted, couldn't it? I could easily change my mind and back out and send everyone mail letting them know that “something had come up” and I was terribly sorry but I wouldn't be doing the reading after all . . . but if I'd put all these flyers out where just anyone could pick them up — well. That was different; that wasn't so easily taken back. I couldn't back down now. Couldn't disappoint.

The show must go on. One way or another.

+   +   +  

Throughout all this, I was also trying to finish a new story. This was harder than it might sound. I had just started a new job, so finding the time was difficult. Also, I hadn't written much lately — 1999 was a bad year for me, in terms of how productive my writing had been — and so I was a little out of practice at trying to make myself write something to deadline.

But it was important to me to have something new written — I always had a new story for Halloween, and besides, there were going to be friends at this who had heard or read all of the other material I was going to be bringing, and I wanted it to be worth their while to come, and that meant a new story. (At least, as far as I was concerned, it did.) So I kept writing.

I did a little more on-line promotion — namely, I made a new splash page for Bloodletters to promote the event, in the same style as the print flyer. Paige must have liked it, because the next time I stopped by the Aurafice, I found that she'd made that the default start page on the web browsers on all the computers!

I was starting to get some good responses from people on the Seattle.Gothic list, too. My friend Josh, whom I didn't know well at the time, asked if I could bring printed copies for him of the stories I was going to read so that he could enjoy the reading, too. (Josh is hearing-impaired.) Anquinette, someone else I've gotten to know a little better since the reading, sent me mail asking if I could save one of the printed flyers for her as a souvenir, since she'd given hers away — and by the way, how big was the Aurafice, since she'd be attending with a friend's birthday party in tow . . . ?

Now I was starting to get really nervous. There were two possibilities I was afraid of:

I tried not to worry about it — too much — and worried instead about not finishing my new story in time, which was a fear I could at least do something about. And, as it turned out, I finished my story the night before the reading — at the Aurafice, actually, sitting at one of their computers. They didn't want to let me pay for the time for my computer rental, since I was the artiste, but I insisted — as I explained, knowing that I was writing under the gun, paying for my time spent writing by the hour, it forced me to be fast and efficient. I thrive under deadline pressure. I handed them the money and walked out, feeling like I could really do this.

+   +   +  

The night of my reading was miserable. The weather, I mean. Typical Seattle rain. And so traffic, of course, was miserable as well.

My friend Riff had offered to give me a ride. We were already running a little late, because getting prepped for this had taken longer than I thought it would, naturally — getting dressed, printing up copies of stories for Josh and myself, all the last minute details. I spent the whole car ride with every muscle in my body taut, deathly afraid that we'd be late and people would be annoyed. Or would leave.

I should have more faith in Riff's driving ability — he got me there in plenty of time, and then volunteered to run to the grocery store and get me a couple of bottles of water so I would have something to drink during the reading, to keep my throat from getting completely trashed.

I had a couple of neat surprises waiting for me when I arrived:

My friend Cat Nilan had brought me a rose. I was completely charmed. It was the first time I'd ever been given a rose before a performance, and it made me feel like a real artist, and it made me feel like a superstar. I still have it — I've dried it, and I'm never giving it up.

Best of all — my sister Cheryl and my brother-in-law Bill were there! They live miles away in Olympia, and I knew they knew about the reading — they're on my Announcements List — but I had no idea they'd come, and they hadn't breathed a word of it to me so they could surprise me. Well, they certainly did! It was wonderful to see them there.

Unfortunately, the person I didn't see there was Paige. She'd been so looking forward to it, but some last-minute personal business had come up, and I had to start without her. (I was happy to notice later, as I was reading my last story, that she had slipped in at some point, so she didn't miss the entire thing.)

To my delight, it was neither too crowded nor too empty. A few old friends, several new ones, a couple of strangers, not many; my flyers didn't seem to have had much effect, but that was all right.

I had enough people to scare.

Doing the actual reading went very well. It was a little awkward turning the pages and holding a water bottle — I made a mental note to come up with somewhere to put the water down, next time, but hopefully it didn't look too awkward. It was nice to be standing, for a change — I usually do my readings seated, and doing it this way felt like being back on the stage for drama in college, a feeling I'd missed. I just kept telling myself the same things: Relax. Breathe. Slow down. Enunciate. Make eye contact. Relax.

So how did it go over?

I'll let Josh answer that question. He posted this great review to the Seattle.Gothic list, which I've asked for his permission to share with you here:

Sounds like I did well enough. (The first story Josh mentions, by the way, is “The Leak”, a story I sold to Gothic.Net.)

+   +   +  

I'm really glad I did this. Writing, it's often said, can be a very lonely pastime — it's good to get out and make contact with people like this, see how my words affect them.

But mainly, it was a good way to remind myself how much power is in my own hands. I don't need anyone's permission to call myself a writer; I don't need a three-book contract and a publicity agent to get attention as a writer. This may be a small start — but it's good to remember that I can take control of my own public voice, that I can make myself be heard.

And I suppose that's also what I'm doing right now.

+   +   +  

I've gone on to do two other readings at the Aurafice, as well as continuing to do readings at conventions. One of the Aurafice readings was for Convergence 6, the annual net.goth convention — it was a lot of fun to play to such a packed house.

I'm probably going to continue to do readings at Aurafice as long as they'll have me. There's been some talk of doing this as a monthly(!) event, bringing in other writers as well.

Whenever I next do a reading — you'll find out about it here.

+   +   +  

Here's something neat.

Before my second reading at Aurafice, I was approached by a cameraman for a new website, VRSeattle. They were taking 3D photographs of various Seattle locations to put on their site as panoramic Quicktime images, and they wanted to include the Aurafice on their site; would I mind if they took pictures during my reading?

No -- no, I wouldn't mind at all!

Just click on the picture below to visit the VRSeattle page for my reading, and if you have Quicktime on your computer, you can see what one of my readings was like.