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Spread the Word
by Dr. Rebecca Epstein, July 7, 2005
"I wasn't intending for it to be unique, but apparently it is," says Sally Shore, a spoken-word artist, actress, and producer of the New Short Fiction Series. The monthly literary event, taking place again this Friday at the Beverly Hills Public Library, brings together writers, readers, and performers in a decidedly (shorter-than-a) novel way.
Now in its ninth year, the series features Shore and her "rotating guest cast" of experienced stage and screen actors, presenting four or more short stories by a new or emerging West Coast writer. Rather than the author reading his or her own work, each story is performed aloud and in total by one of the evening's literature-loving thespians. Shore's team this week takes on Take Me With You and other stories, a new collection by Cheryl Alu, an established television writer and a senior editor for hip L.A. literary mag SWINK.
It's no accident that Friday's show is so locally oriented. "There's such a richness to the West Coast literary voice," says Shore, who was born and bred in L.A. and has read voraciously since she was a child. "When [the series] started, it was a convenience issue," she explains of her initial choice to focus on the work of nearby authors. But now she admits her thrill in celebrating writers who didn't "go to the same five prep schools, the same Ivy League universities, and have books with the same [major] publishers." "Enough with the reading of John Updike already!" she says, laughing.
Shore says to think of the late Spalding Gray, and his deftness in combining storytelling with performance, and you'll begin to get a sense of what her shows are like. It's that style that makes these nontraditional readings exciting for both author and audience. Indeed, just as she herself can "only write thank-you notes and grocery lists," the actress is as committed to supporting (if not in fact launching) new writers as she is to the people who read their work. "I think the L.A. literary audience has been neglected," Shore asserts, and she's pleased that her events are no longer drawing just Gen X and Y attendees, but also "older" people. "The series has grown so much," she enthuses. "It's just a blast to do it … and I have the pleasure of working with some of the best writers on the West Coast."
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