VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
STEFANO: I’ve had too many strange experiences at readings to choose just one, but here goes: at the Bread Loaf conference last year, a woman read a beautiful poem which ever-so-briefly mentioned (gasp!) small breasts. Immediately post-reading, everyone skedaddled into the dining room for chow time. The woman and I stood at the salad bar heaping romaine onto our plates when a man elbowed in and said (with great enthusiasm, I might add), “My wife has small breasts, so I could really relate to your poem!!” It was so utterly random and weird, and well –how does one reply to such a remark? The poet paused and eventually replied to the effect of, “Uh. Thanks?” And the man disappeared, seemingly pleased with himself for having paid this fine compliment. Maybe that’s a salad bar story and not a reading story, but I’m just saying: it was really fucking strange and consequently, it was really fucking funny.
Karen Stefano is the author of the story collection, The Secret Games of Words. She is Fiction Editor for Connotation Press, and her stories have appeared in The South Carolina Review, Tampa Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Epiphany, Lost In Thought, Metazen, Green Mountains Review, Gloom Cupboard, and elsewhere, Her story, “Seeing,” was nominated for the XXXVIII Pushcart Prize.
Come see Karen read at 3rdSpace in University Heights on Saturday, June 13 at 7:30pm.