¡Felicidades! You have a story in a new anthology. As part of the deal, you've agreed to participate in three readings. You have 15 minutes. Every time you've read the piece out loud, it's required 25 to 30 minutes to get all the way through. Prepare an introduction, cut the piece, read.
¡Felicidades! You have a short poem in a new collection. You've been offered 15 minutes at a book signing. The published piece needs a minute, even when you read slowly.
¡Felicidades! Your story in a wonderful anthology will be recorded for blind readers. The editor would like you to read your work yourself, rather than bring in an actor.
!Suerte! You're meeting with an agent or publisher who asks you to read a short sample of your work.
Whatever you do, do it with a purpose. Have a plan, work the plan.
Special thanks to Jose B. Gonzales from Latinostories.com for sharing videos taken at the 2009 National Latino Writers Conference. Here's an opportunity to enjoy Malín Alegria demonstrating memorization in an admirable reading that allows her to infuse the selection with drama, movement, directness; an a todo dar performance. You'll see masterly work holding a book and reading to a large audience as Josefina López and Premio Aztlán awardee Patricia Santana captivate the banquet audience. A tough setting in anyone's book. You'll like the intimacy of the presentations for television by René Colato, Reyna Prado, and Fred Arroyo. |
Audiences can be incredibly forgiving. The only "mortal sin" a reader commits is wasting their time. Always present the "third" reading. The first reading is the one you thought about giving. The second reading consists in the one you actually deliver. The third reading is the stuff you thought of after you sat down.
When authors publish a work, it becomes property of the reader. Readers decide what something means, who a character resembles, the value of a piece. Upon release into the world, your baby no longer belongs to you. Unless you put a voice on it. An effective reading takes your work out of the public's whim, puts the writer in control, and instructs people how to read you.
Reading your own work gives you the opportunity to put the right voice onto your work. For this reason, every invitation to read your stuff to an audience deserves fullest consideration and preparation. Step back from your work. What do you hear? Listen closely, visualize and let the story out…
Pick & Choose. When you have a choice, use the event to showcase the breadth and depth of your work. As you select, consider the time, place, and audience. Do audience analysis: who will attend, why? Lacking information, prepare to present to your ideal listener. Be flexible, best laid plans; does your material fit the room & ambience now? Mid course correction.
Presentation Strategies as diverse as the writing and the reader and the time & place. Here are three, generally:
-- meat & potatoes. basic no frills, wind up and deliver the words, with some restraint. Dialog, key ideas.
-- carne con papas y chile. Toss in a bit of salsa and a homemade tort. Savor dramatic moments, expressive flights of fancy.
-- the aural banquet. Read a todo dar, oral interp, vocal acting.
Personal appearance
Ethos; who do you want to be?
Dress for publicity, coif, glasses, posture. Breath.
Dress for media, e.g. tv solid colors, no white tops, minimize distracting graphics.
Visual aids-you are your best visual aid
Create a reading ambience—your cover, your title, should be legible from back of the room
Photo/video/music; cue it up; tech run-through in advance crucial.
Add-ons: giveouts / take-ones / sales promotion.
Take Control of the Setting - You are "on stage" at all times.
Command your space, “home base”
Electronics-microphone, video/audio recording, photographers
Movement-if stuck w/ lectern, stand to the side
Seating arrangements-empty front row, left/right
Delivering the reading - make a strategic, planned presentation.
Project
Eye contact
Handling ms (book, portfolio, cutting, memory)
Handling laughter, applause
Introductions engage attention, introduce yourself & subject, win audience’s goodwill and cooperation, instructs the audience how to listen.
Onstage all the time, before and after the reading.
Polarize the audience, a good thing.
Preview, let audience know what they're about to experience, how to participate.
Introductions are rituals of public events. It's great when you break expectations, get people involved.
Transitions are the connective tissue of any presentation. These guide the listener's attention, prepare them for upcoming, review what just happened, move into the next segment.
Xsn from preview to the reading itself.
Xsn between numbers, link back look forward
Use silence, movement, eye contact, smiles as transitions. Work-a-day or elements in a whole.
Conclusions release attention, leave audiences with one key thought and a final impression of you and your work.
Linking back to the opening attention grabber or opening remarks provides closure, balance, satisfaction. Consider repeating your name, asking for something.
Bring it to a full stop. (hardware, notes, home base)
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Develop strong repertoire of presentation skills, select what works, implement--do the event, evaluate--what did you like? if you could change one thing?
Too much of a good thing? Too little?
Mirror, loved ones, recording/video or tape. Find opportunities to practice.
Get yourself a coach. ** This suggestion comes from a writer at the conference. ** As a writer's audience grows, a more polished presentation enhances the author's marketability. Every reader, however, can benefit from a disinterested coach. A former speech teacher is an ideal target; we never say "no." Students attending high school or college can seek out the school's forensics team and receive high level training and coaching.
Stage fright, catastrophic consequences. One sure way to overcome it. State / trait. Let yourself go and be someone else; who do you want to be? Never fret crowd size. Reading to an audience is its own reward, for the writer.
Audiences are incredibly forgiving, but also sensitive to the setting. Introductions that distract from the writer's purpose leave the audience thinking about the introductory remarks instead of focusing attention on the immediate experience with the writer's art.
Apology Intro (Barbara Hernandez) No one knows those butterflies are dive bombing your stomach, and although you may feel the front row can hear your knees knocking, stagefright will not be obvious unless you make an issue of it. Barbara Hernandez impresses the audience with the gentle power of her strong words and her sincere reading. Stagefright is good, use the adrenaline it courses through your body to add energy to your reading. Rehearsal eliminates the number one source of stagefright--lack of self-confidence. |
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False Start Intro (Mario Suarez) Although you're aware of everything you considered doing, you're the only one in your audience who cares. The audience is here to listen to what you read. Mario Suarez is among the finest essayists in United States literature. His sympathetic persona and refined voice win him a lot of tolerance from the audience. Nonetheless, his audience is better served by letting them focus on the substance Mario discusses after the false start. |
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Two Introductions (E.A. Mares) If there's an Emcee for the reading, give that person biographical and philosophical material, like that E.A. Mares launches his reading with. He pauses a bit--good--then introduces his first reading. After reading the piece(s), he "rewinds" the intro to add material he omitted. No one knows what you left out, and the reading would have been just as effective without the "oh, I forgot". Compare E. A. Mares' introductory tone with Marcela Trujillo. Do Mares and Trujillo have the same audience in mind, compared to te other introductions? |
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Lengthy Introduction (Alurista) As the opening performer, Alurista opens by acknowledging the cultural context his work and that of the festival artists. Compare Omar Salinas' approach to this. While a speaker wins goodwill by adding immediacy to the event, such messages work more effectively when succinct. |
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| Discussion - Every introduction has three purposes. 1. Get attention. 2. Announce the subject. 3. Win goodwill. Presenters accomplish all manner of result beyond these three. After reviewing the following, assess their accomplishment of the three purposes. What additional results did the moment produce? Based on what you experience, will you be likely to buy the book and have it signed? | |
| Enrique La Madrid | |
| Rolando Hinojosa-Smith | |
| Juan Contreras | |
| Lynne Romero | |
| Marcela Trujillo | |
| Olivia Castellano | |
| Ron Arias | |
| Veronica Cunningham | |
| Intro pointers. Alejandro Murguia | |
Keep in mind the old rule of thumb: tell 'em what you're going to say. Say it. Tell 'em what you said. While the opening is crucial to holding an audience's attention, your close is your audience's most recent memory about you and your work. This is the final moment to achieve your goals with this reading. At this point in the reading you need to minimize distractions, you want all eyes and ears concentrating on your writing purpose. Make sure you put your best out there for gente to remember.
"Thank you" falls flat as the final words; thank them for listening by giving a superb reading. Finish the work then stop. Eye contact--thank them with your eyes--then get off stage. Remember, too, that finishing is a physical act; act purposively.
What do you notice about the way these writers end their talk? Is this the way you want to go, too? This final impression helps sell books. Do you think they remember your name?
| E.A. Mares | |
| Enrique La Madrid | |
| Rolando Hinojosa-Smith | |
| Juan Contreras | |
| Lynne Romero | |
| Marcela Trujillo | |
| Olivia Castellano | |
| Ron Arias | |
| Veronica Cunningham | |
Reading Styles - Finding a balance between the character of the work and the writer's purpose.
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Tomás Rivera, "meat & potatoes". Words alone have power, so he allows the disinterested narrator's voice to carry that understated power. Is it enough to make the narrator's point? The writer's? Vocal variety: the introduction has the same voice as the narration. Here is where you may wish to offer some separation from you, the author, to the persona and mood of the piece. |
| Emotional involvement. Why not, if it fits the piece? Does it meet the audience's needs? | |
Another issue: to read, or memorize. Antonio G. Ortiz doesn't have a choice. |
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Lynn Romero appears to extemporize, but not so. She presents with the confidence of knowing her own work intimately. Just as you do. |
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Another issue: Handling text. Get that text off the table! Prepare a reading copy, use large font size, support the sheets with a portfolio. |
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| Hold the book or manuscript in your hand. Page flipping can lead to unexpected results, like audiences counting pages. | |
Key transitions: from the introduction to the reading; internal transitions (signposts) from piece to piece; from the reading to the end of the presentation.
| Internal transition. Omar Salinas tells the audience how to listen to the next piece. | |
Transitions can be work-a-day expressions simply moving along from piece to piece. "the next one, the next one..." Enrique LaMadrid |
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Note these work-a-day transitions, giving titled pieces their own space. Note the "signpost" transition signalling the impending conclusion. Juan Gomez-Quiñones |
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Ricardo Sánchez strings together a continuous narrative linking the poems within a story line of its own, and establishing a personal connection with the audience. |
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Audio Book. Not a special case but same choices. Look at the text before listening, then follow along. Where does your inner ear pause, emphasize, add variety? Can you free yourself from the recording and read it aloud in your own fashion? Does this reading meet, or surpass, your expectations? Introduction. Challenges of Parenting: Pleasures, Paradoxes, Pitfalls. As a parent, what a joy it was to wake up in the morning feeling confident that all interactions with my child would be positive and rewarding; that I knew what was needed to develop an emotionally healthy child and how to provide it; that no matter what came up during the day, my behavior would be consistent and positive, and that I would rarely feel overwhelmed, frustrated, out-of-control or at a loss to know what to do. Further, what a pleasure it was to go to sleep knowing that most of the time I had done the right things that day, and I had little or no anxiety or guilt about anything. It was also reassuring to know that if my behavior was "off," I'd be able to recognize it quickly and take corrective action. How fortunate, too, that my wife and I were in agreement about parenting philosophy and practices and that we would discuss how we were doing on a regular basis, not just when some problem arose. |
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Videos © 2008, University of Southern California. Used with permission.
Audio © 2008, NMI. Recording produced by Read! Raza. Reading by Carolyn Zeller.
Update from USC: Special Collections and Doheny Library have begun sharing readings from the 1973 Festival de Flor Y Canto.
http://dotsx.usc.edu/newsblog/index.php/main/comments/flor_y_canto_clip_2/
http://dotsx.usc.edu/newsblog/index.php/main/comments/flor_y_canto_clip_1/