Catharsis FTW

Last night was incredible.  I got to watch what art is for.

———- Forwarded message ———-
Date: Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 7:52 AM
Subject: commuting

Hi Elena,

I attended Stories on Stage last night even though it was Friday night and it required a 30-minute drive and I was leaving daughters at home who I’d barely seen all day because I was on deadline for my magazine and  . . . and . . . and . . .

. . . I’m so glad I did. Your short story, Commuting, has hung with me in a wonderful, inspiring way. Weird to say, given that it made half the room cry, including the actress who read it, but that’s just proof that it got under other people’s skin as much as it did mine. I did not cry, but I had a few moments of feeling intensely sick to my stomach, and it had nothing to do with the bones crunching and viscera the narrator’s childhood cat involved herself with under the bed. It was the narrator’s despair and the nothingness that comes with signing on for something so hollowing, so undermining. You don’t have to have engaged in adultery to know that stripped-by-layers devastation.

Thank you for a beautiful, rich story. I’m headed off to the Squaw Valley writers conference next weekend (my first one, as a fiction newbie) and part of the reason I set aside all my busy-life crap last night to go listen to stories was because I wanted the inspiration, the spark in the ass before I go plunk myself in the middle of almost 100 sure-to-be-better writers than me. So thank you for that, too. Your book is on my fall reading list!

Seriously, I can die now.  And I even made a little money selling a few books!  Yo G, I be droppin’ Hamiltons like I be Aaron Burr.

Thank you so much to Bonnie Antonini for a fabulous reading, and Valerie Fioravanti + the Stories on Stage crew for putting it together!