The Barbershop Reading Series

When you create something from scratch – a restaurant, a clothing shop, a reading series – and flip over the OPEN sign on the front door, you run the risk of the worst thing happening: nobody shows.

On reading nights, once a month, I get to the babershop around five, kiss Joe hello, then descend to the basement, where I putter around for a while, opening bottles of wine so they breathe a little, dusting off chairs, filling the plastic bins with soda, beer, and ice. At six the barbershop closes, Joe helps me move a few things around, and then he takes off to shower at home, while I run up and down the stairs for the next hour and a half, lugging chairs and refreshments, until my t-shirt is sticking to my skin, and I sit down for a minute with a bottle of water, surveying the transformation.

Four months in, I still unlock the door with trepidation. Maybe this will be the month, I think, that nobody shows. And fifteen minutes before eight, when only five people have walked through the door, the kernel of fear swells. But somehow, over the next fifteen minutes, the entire place fills up, every chair taken, people standing in the back of the shop, holding plastic cups of wine, chatting and waiting for the show.

This month, at 8:15, only one of my scheduled readers had arrived, and I thought about hyperventilating, visualizing having to IMPROVISE, a skill that I generally avoid putting to use at all costs, out of consideration for onlookers. But at 8:16 the other readers arrived, and our night began in earnest.

Katie Crouch completely won over the crowd with a hilarious excerpt about the travails of dating, from her debut novel, GIRLS IN TRUCKS. Kemble Scott read a provocative slice of his new novel, THE SOWER, a scene that took place only a block away, just up Market Street, with local landmarks Sweet Inspirations and Beck’s Motor Lodge as backdrops. And Wolf Larsen’s amazingly beautiful voice once again had the entire room holding its breath. I’m proud of them and grateful that they shared their talents at the Barbershop.

Every month local musician Michael Mullen helps me out with sound and music, and local writer Helene Wecker brings homemade cupcakes to share, and various folks chip in helping us clean up.

All my worries aside, the Barbershop seems to have taken on a life of its own. Every month the performers and the crowd create a potent energy that is beyond gratifying to experience. Thanks to everyone who has walked through that front door.