In a world full of gate keepers -
Jackie Fender, Joshua Swainston, and William Turbyfill have dispatched the
guard and kicked the gate wide open.
Together they are the team behind
Creative Colloquy (CC), an online literary site that hosts a monthly reading in
Tacoma
’s Opera Ally at the
B Sharp Coffee House (every last Monday of
the month at 7 pm). In addition to the site and the readings, CC has an annual
print literary review and a regular podcast that William hosts called
LiterallyTacoma. CC primarily focuses on short fiction and novel excerpts, but they
also include poetry and other prose.
CC was founded in February of 2014
and their mission is to foster relationships built upon the mutual
admiration of the written word and provide a platform to highlight literary
talent in the South Sound.
This coming Monday May 25th, I
will have the pleasure of emceeing this months reading, along with my fellow
co-founder and co-producer of the
Drunken Telegraph (DT), Megan Sukys.
I don’t know the team at CC all that well.
I have attended a few of the
readings, peruse the site regularly to read what local writers are putting out,
and of course I bought a copy of this last years literary review, Creative
Colloquy - Volume One. Jackie and I have crossed paths in other storytelling
and literary circles.
We were grateful when Jackie
invited the Drunken Telegraph to host the upcoming show and cross promote our
final Drunken Telegraph show of the
season at Studio 3 of the
Broadway Center for the Performing Arts on June 13
at 7:30 pm.
However, beyond my gratitude lies
my admiration for CC and it’s team. Certainly, we share
some things in common - not the least of which is a love for a story well told, albeit our
focus is grounded in the oral tradition and their’s in the written word.
However, my admiration doesn’t end with CC’s fine
work of highlighting and promoting storytellers and writers, and in fact is
highest as it relates to their commitment to build community.
You see it in that one line of
their mission statement - to foster relationships built upon a mutual
admiration of the written word.
CC & DT have that in common -
it’s not just about the stories and the writing - it’s about community and building relationships.
Going back to my opening point, I
grow weary of the self appointed or privilege appointed gate
keepers of the arts here in Tacoma and elsewhere. They never really grow
the arts, they just recycle through the same old manifestations, which rarely
serves more then their out of touch donors and their own egos.
This is why CC is so refreshing.
If you read their publications or
come to a reading you will find the words of established and talented local
writers - as you should. You will also read and hear the words of emerging
writers, of writers who are sharing their work for the first time in a public
forum, and yes, sometimes you might hear or read something that you think is
really bad.
Perhaps that bad writing will
never be any good. Then again, with practice, and with the forum they are
provided through CC, perhaps it will get better, and even become great.
Right now I am reading the book The
Republic of the Imagination: America in Three Books by the author Azar
Nafisi, best known for her book Reading Lolita in Tehran.
Both of Nafisi’s books are about the power, the necessity, and the subversiveness
of literature (and story) to transform peoples lives and to re-imagine and shape
the identify of a generation and even a whole culture.
This is why I think the two most
important words in CC’s mission statement are mutual
admiration.
Too often the gate keeper
approach to things only allows the ones deemed the most talented to get up
close. This isn’t just true in the arts.
I think anyone that has lived in
Tacoma for a while can attest that part of our problem as a city has been the
role of gate keepers who hoard to much of the power within a chosen few
and thus stifle the creative imagination of the masses.
Certainly this isn’t the only issue, but you’d be hard pressed to convince me that it hasn’t been part of the problem.
Not every arts based organization
can be or needs to be as egalitarian as CC. But, every community needs a few
groups like it to create a place not just for the super talented
(whatever that means), but for everyone trying to tell a story.
Luckily CC isn’t the only group that refuses to play a gate keeper
role in Tacoma. We have a lot of community based and in touch artists who are
focused on building community and developing artists, wherever they are at in
their development.
It is true that the tellers of
stories and writers are transformed by the process and practice of sharing
their words and stories. Still, the greatest service of stories and literature
is to the masses. It is to the admirers. The readers and the hearers - whose
imaginations, actions, and trajectory are forever changed by their encounter.
So, I say thank you to Jackie,
Joshua, and William. Thank you for not only highlighting and cultivating the
literary talent and culture of our city, but thank you for building community
and opening your gates to every budding writer and storyteller that risks
sharing their words and story with us.
I invite all of you to come out
and join us this Monday night, right here in the Theater District of downtown
Tacoma
Bring your own stories or just bring your imagination. Bring with you a belief that part
of how we build the strong community we all want, is to build on our already
vibrant arts community, and most importantly take the time to listen to one
another’s stories - perhaps even risking to tell our own.
