1/18/2007

Bestselling author, Lolly Winston, reading, from her own anthology of stories, Happiness Sold Separately at the Rickshaw Stop's once-a-month reading series, Inside Storytime, hosted by James Warner. Here's James, collecting $3 - $10 donations at the door inside of a copy of the journal, Story Quarterly, which may be doing a reading at the Rickshaw stop in the near future.... James was convinced that the Rickshaw stop is the best place for a reading and we debated Rickshaw versus The Makeout Room, where Charlie Anders hosts Writers with Drinks, though this month she's doing it at the Rickshaw....

Anyway, back to the point. The theme of the reading was Battle of the Sexes and Lolly Winston read a story about a couple she eavesdropped on once and had written a story about. She described them as the type that fights in a way that other people take up tennis (I think that's what she said).

When I had the chance to talk to her after the reading I should have asked her what her sources of inspiration were and her favorite books (or at least about her eight years boogie boarding in Hawaii), but her brother was also there and we somehow got into a conversation with him to try to guess our accents. He correctly dubbed one of our friends as being from Massachusetts and incorrectly guessed I was from Connecticut (where he and his sister are from also). I did go to college there, but went back west directly after graduation...the accent may have been the only thing to stick.

The secret to his sister's success he said was perseverance...though she laughed and attributed it to credit card debt.

In the background is creativity coach, Ivory Madison, who told a story in the voice of a woman who'd just been released from prison and went by the name, Mad Dog. She explained how she killed a poet laureate for using ostentatious language (premeditated, with a gun) and voiced her jealousy about how, as she was released from prison the same day as Martha Stewart, she got no press coverage, not even from her local newspaper, though the editor did knit her rainbow mittens while she was doing time. She was so much in character that my sister was convinced the story was true.... at least that's what she claimed, anyway.