This last weekend, I was invited to be a featured reader with the Patron Saints of Influence, a live reading series based in Santa Rosa, California. About once a quarter, the Patron Saints of Influence selects a deceased writer — such as James Baldwin, Octavia E. Butler, or Oscar Wilde — who made an impact on the literary world, and in our collective consciousness. Writers and readers from around California gather to honor this “patron saint” of the literary arts, and to share our own work on stage before a live audience.

This was the first time I had done a live reading in ten years, and I was so nervous! I had decided to read an excerpt from “Angel Man,” which is in my short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About the Apocalypse. For weeks leading up to the event, I had worked on my excerpt — editing, tweaking, practicing. I recorded myself on a microphone, I woke up early to practice, I read in front of family members. Even standing in a room by myself, rehearsing my script, I could feel myself disassociate from my body. My vision narrowed to a tiny pinhole as I stared down at the black letters on the white page. The sounds coming out of my mouth weren’t even comprehensible.

Why was I so nervous?

Because like many writers and creators, I had forgotten that the whole point of art is to make a connection with somebody. To tell the story of your heart. To reach across time and space and share a dream with somebody. To bring people into your world — into your skin — so that they feel what you feel and understand why you think what you do. Through this understanding we can collectively create a more compassionate world.

This is why artists make art: we make stuff because it is in our nature to be makers. To deny that would be to turn away from the inner light that makes life feel like it’s worth living.

Not all the art is meant to be shared. (Sometimes we just need to make something for ourselves, for the quiet, private joy of discovery without having the pressure of needing to please anybody.)

But if a piece is meant to be shared with others, then it takes a tremendous amount of courage to throw the doors open wide, stand out on the balcony and declare ourselves to the bigger world. 

“Hello world!” is every blogger’s first post.

We writers are an introverted lot. We are often alone when we write, and alone when we read. Now that online publishing is so easy, we are often alone when share our work. We sit alone in darkened rooms and hit “Publish,” and imagine a rainbow puff of glitter happening somewhere in the world as an anonymous reader has their minds blown by our genius.

In the age of digital publishing, there are a lot of walls we can put up between ourselves and our readers.

So what happens when you step away from the computer, and stand on stage for a live reading — knees shaking, hands trembling, voice squealing feedback from the microphone. The feeling of blood pulsing adrenaline in your neck.

You push down that feeling of terror and smile at the crowd, barely visible beyond the lights. You find one person whose face you recognize and hold onto their image. You look down at your words, and begin.

You read awkwardly at first, but then you start to find your rhythm. You read a funny part in your story, and then you hear real, live laughter in the audience beyond. The lights are too bright to see who it was, but you heard it nonetheless. You made a connection. The joke landed just the way you’d hoped it would. This brings you confidence. Energy! Exhilaration!

You continue reading, feeling bolder now. You slow down in some parts, pause to smile and squint blindly at the audience. You can’t see them, but you know they see you. They are with you now. You can feel them, everybody, breathing and thinking in a rhythm. A whole room of people riding the wave of emotion, up and down. You have written a roller-coaster and everyone is riding it with you. You are the driver of this stage-coach and they trust you, they strain to hear you, they want to hear what you have to say. You own this stage.

You reach the end of your story. You close your manuscript. The room is silent a moment and you can hear a collective sigh as they process those last words, its sound hanging in the air like a musical note. Then they are clapping, and cheering. Maybe someone whistles.

You get off stage and you are surrounded by people patting your back and shaking your hand. High fives all around. You were anonymous to all these people just a moment ago, but now they know a little something about you. They know your story. They heard your words. You bridged the gap between your inner world and theirs. You forged a connection, a spark of electricity sizzled across space.

This is why I think art will never die, even in an age of mass-media and AI-Generated content.

In the beginning — before Google and before Gutenberg — we were oral storytellers. At the heart of it, we are still seeking that face-to-face connection. The perfectly articulated thought that is both surprising and exact. The guffaw of laughter. The hum of recognition. The tears of empathy. These things are timeless and transcendent.

And I think that in our fascination over our digital lives, we forgot that what really feeds us is the real world. The world of senses and sweat. The world where we can see a person’s face without a mask or a screen. The world where we can feel the heat of someone’s body as you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

In any case, when I look online these days I see mostly toxicity. I see algorithms promoting conflict because that gets the most engagement. I see bots trolling bots. I see click-bait headlines fishing for emotional engagement. I see advertisements telling you that you can solve your loneliness and existential dread with a mass-produced slogan on a sweatshirt. “Make Grape-juice Grape Again!”

So it felt good to find myself in a room, at a pre-appointed time and place, with a bunch of other people who just wanted to share our little stories and feel a little connection. To cheer each other on, as we contemplated the works of Octavia E. Butler, and how the solution to much of what ails us in the modern world is putting down our screens, looking another human in the face, and saying “Thank you for sharing that. I hear you.”

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