We all want to read our work in front of an audience, right? To make it a positive experience, there are a few things to remember. The first is to practice! Print out your piece and read it out loud. Read it in front of a mirror, read it to your animals, read it to anyone who will listen. The second thing is to time yourself and get your story well within the allotted time. This is a mantra of the TWS Reading Series: never, ever go over time! As you read, remember to take a deep breath and slow down. It’s difficult to listen to someone who is reading at warp speed. Try to look at your audience and engage with them–this is supposed to be fun. Practice, breathe, read clearly and slowly…and sign up to read at an upcoming TWS reading!

Post by 2011’s intrepid TWS Reading Series hostesses Esmeralda Cabral and Jennifer Irvine (TWS 2010, x 2).

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Rhythmic cadences captivate readers. Reading work aloud allows writers to hear what a live audience hears and what a reader “hears” internally. Hearing your work makes it easy to eliminate rhythmic glitches, clunky structures and unwanted repetitions that are invisible to the writer’s eye.

Reading before an audience develops confidence, and performance benefits the writer, who can gauge the effect of the work on the audience. A writer who has memorized the beginning and end of the performance piece and thoroughly practiced the reading ahead of time can look up to assess audience response, and vary pacing and emphasis accordingly.

Post by Carol Tulpar, a student of The Writer’s Studio. Carol acknowledges Brian Payton for this advice.
Image: Annabel Lyon and Timothy Taylor, both local writers, after reading their work at the Write on Bowen festival. Photo by Alison Bate.

1. Practice reading your work aloud in your normal voice for a few minutes for 7 to 10 days. Find the natural rhythm of each piece and the words you want to emphasize. Practice alternate pieces.

2. Buy a folder with plastic pages you can slip your writing into so you won’t be left with a pile of unwieldy pages. You can easily flip through to select what to read for the event.

3. Relax and have fun! People respond to someone who is happy to read his or her work, and it is a privilege to do so.

4. Seek and accept opportunities to read your work. We each carry stories from different communities, so it is important to take those stories back to those communities.

By Meg Torwl of Integrial Media. Photo: Meg Torwl of The Writer’s Studio reads her work. Courtesy of Meg Torwl.