Upcoming appearances

On Saturday, May 31, I’ll be speaking at the Barnes & Noble at the Buckland Hills Mall in Manchester, CT at 2:00 PM. My agent will be with me, so if you have any questions for her, I’m sure that we could pester her with a few.

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That same evening, Speak Up will be at Sedgwick Middle School in West Hartford, CT for a charity storytelling show. I’ll be telling a story about my high school days along with seven other brilliant storytellers.

Proceeds from the event help to send four middle school students to London this summer to compete in an international literature competition. Three are my former students, so I am thrilled to be able to help them

Tickers can be purchased here.

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On Saturday, June 7, I’ll be teaching a workshop on publishing at the Mark Twain House. I’ll be discussing the path that a book travels from the first words written on the page to its first appearance in a bookshop. Including in the workshop will be the sale of the book, the author-editor relationship, the complexities of publicity and marketing, the finances of publishing and much more. Perfect for the curious reader or the fledgling writer.

Call: (860) 280-3130 for more information & ticketing or click here for tickets.

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On Monday, June 30, I’ll be attending a Moth StorySLAM at The Bitter End in New York hoping to tell a story if the tote bag is kind. The theme of the night is Money.
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On Saturday, July 5, I’ll be performing in The Liar Show at the Cornelia Street Café in New York.

At each show, four performers tell short personal stories, but  one of the storytellers is making it all up. The audience then interrogates the cast and exposes the liar to win a fabulous prize.

Information on the show and ticketing can be found here.

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On Saturday, July 19, Speak Up returns to Real Art Ways. The theme of the show is Who’s the Boss? Tickets are not yet available, but mark your calendars. It is sure to be an excellent show!________________________________

On Monday, July 21, I’ll be competing in a Moth GrandSLAM at The Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

Tickets not yet available.

My English degree finally pays off.

In 1999 I graduated from Trinity College with a Bachelor’s degree in English. Though I’m quite certain that my years of study have contributed to my success as a teacher and a writer, it’s always been difficult to pinpoint exactly how.

An English degree teaches you to read, write and think, but you could already do this before you arrived at school.

College just improved upon those skills. Hopefully. But as far as identifying the moments in your life when those skills specifically acquired in the college classroom were utilized, it’s been impossible.  

Until Saturday night.

Literary Death Match came to Hartford on Saturday night, and after participating as a contestant and losing twice, I served as one of the three judges this time around, along with writer and performer Elna Baker and picture book author Bob Shea. 

I was tapped to be the judge of literary merit.

This meant that I had to comment on the work of the four competing writers by comparing and contrasting their work to other famous works of literature and  commenting on their literary prowess, while also being kind and amusing. 

It was harder than I thought.

Somehow, I managed to make references to Vonnegut, Shakespeare, Saramago, Roth, Updike and Vonnegut's fictional science fiction writer Kilgore Trout.

I was going to make a reference to Virginia Woolf as well, but I decided to keep my vitriol for this author in check in case there were fans in the audience.

It was the first time in my life that I felt my English degree being put to it’s full use. I felt myself flexing my literary muscles in a way I never have before, and damn it, it felt good.

Four years of intense study and thousands of dollars in student loans finally paid off in this literary game show.

Totally worth it.