WORD brought together four authors from four different small presses for a sampling of independent literature. Each author was allotted ten minutes to read from their respective books covering poetry, fiction and experimental prose.
Antoni read from “How to Make Photocopies on the Trinidad & Tobago National Archives,” a narrative written from the perspective of a librarian fiercely defending her private photocopier from the protagonist, “mr robot,” a corruption of “Robert.” The narrative form is of an email written to Robert, in what Antoni terms “Trini-vernacular-cell-phone-text-speak.” He warns that the text itself is difficult read since its written without punctuation marks and with text message abbreviation. He reads it seamlessly, but the written page appears an impossible to decipher lexicon.
The Biology of Luck is a novel with two interlocking narratives, Appel explains. One follows the story of a New York City tour guide who loves a young woman from afar. The other is the imagined story of her life that the tour guide has fantasized. The passage he reads is one of terror, a woman who attracts men who grope her and lock her in bathrooms. He has clean and interesting language, including one phrase describing the people of Park Slope as “pre-suburban,” implying both that they are out of place and will eventually leave.
Growing up in south Florida inspired Kwaitkowski’s writing. He read, from the mixed media novel And Every Day Was Overcast, a short narrative about intentionally marooning rabbits on a small island hoping they would breed and then taken acid. He calls it a coming of age story. The novel includes desolate photographs of Florida, though that description seems redundant. The text is funny, even if in a half-tragic way. He makes insightful analogies, comparing the gel tab of acid with communion wafers.
McEver read poems from Scaring up the Morning. One of the poems followed butterfly migration in the southwest, a poem he explained he did not know how to end until taken a class on Mesoamerican Indians. Another poem, about launching rockets drew inspiration from an actual rocket launch. He spent ten days waiting for the rocket.