Another Opportunity for Writers to Share thier Work with Others

Thursday, December 5 was the first meeting of the new campus writing group, The Walls Have Ears. I’ve known about this new group for a couple of weeks now, so by the time Thursday evening came, I was pretty eager to check it out. Of course, I didn’t want to show up early; that would look too eager, or geeky, or something. On the other hand, I didn’t want to show up late and risk a worse blow to my public image (the image that does not exist beyond the reigns of my neurbil.) So, I showed up at precisely 7:00 p.m. and there were two other people there: another work-shopper, like myself, and the creator of the group, Dave Commins.

I sat down at the boardroom table and engaged in some chatter and light thumb-twiddling. A few minutes passed and I began to worry whether or not anyone else was going to show up. I thought that PSC Poets and Writers had advertised enough. People had sounded interested earlier that day. I was getting ready to express my paranoid delusions to Dave when a few more people showed up. Then some more people came. And some more. By quarter after 7:00, we had about twenty writers squeezed around one table. I should have known that if Dave scheduled it, they would come. (ooohhh!)

Moving on, once there was a good-sized group seated and enjoying their complementary cider and doughnuts (courtesy of PSC Poets and Writers, literary and culinary masters of the universe), we began to share our writing. More accurately, after staring at each other in silence for a while, one of the writers caved under the pressure of Dave’s hollow threats of dictatorial supremacy; he threatened to call on us if we didn’t volunteer.

The first piece that we started with was a creative non-fiction piece about a Thanksgiving dinner. The story was structured in such a way that we were able to pass it around our table the same way that the characters within the story passed turkey around their dinner table. I’d say that this experiment was successful. It really animated this particular story, which suited the author, as he had been concerned that his story may have lost some meaning if he had just read it aloud.

This sort of experimental feel lingered throughout the evening. The writers who were able to read in the limited hour that we were together, read in a pretty conventional manner, but had one of them wanted to read standing on their head with red marking pens sticking out of their ears and nose, it would have been warmly received by the group as exactly what was proper for that particular moment.

The structure of this group is non-existent. There are no rules, no conventions, and no expectations. Most importantly there was no competition. In a trade that can be more competitive than Junior Miss beauty pageants, it was a welcomed change. The only rule that bound this group together was an unspoken, universal respect for each other and our work within the writing craft. There was a real comfortable feel in the room at the end of our pilot meeting and I am confident in saying that everyone who was there, if not anything else, had a whole heap of fun. So, if you’re looking for a place to share you writing with an eager, attentive audience, or if you’re looking to get some useful, unorthodox feedback from some of the most talented writers on campus, or if you’re just looking for something to do on Thursdays besides manicuring the guinea pigs, The Walls Have Ears will be meeting again next semester on Thursdays at 7:00 p.m.