Community Workshop Fail
So, I have been put in charge of a series of community writing workshops in Newark. Today I have to teach one on establishing a literary community. For anyone who knows me, I am the most reluctant, reclusive person there is. I find it interesting I was tasked with this though. One tries to believe opportunities, even contrary ones, happen for a reason.
At a previous workshop (humor), I gave a prompt that corresponded to something I had read in the local newspaper (back when I read newspapers). A deputy mayor of some kind had died in Paterson or another nearby city, and his obituary was laudatory, celebrating all the great things you would expect someone to say about a dead politico.
A few days later, a letter to the editor arrived from Florida. This man had been the prosecutor who had brought this shyster to justice. It turned out as the prosecutor said, this deputy mayor was not the great person his family would have you believe. He robbed from the pension fund, made no-bid deals that screwed over and irresponsibly hurt lots of people, and was engaged in a bunch of other semi-criminal (political) endeavors.
The two things I love:
That the prosecutor was a prosecutor to the very end.
That all the way from Florida he was still watching the obituaries.
So, as an exercise I sometimes have creative writing classes write a letter to the editor setting the record straight on an inaccurate obituary. Plenty of stories are written about men of god who died with ball gags in their mouths, parents who seemed great on the outside but force-fed their kids Tofu etc.
It’s a lot of fun.
At one community workshop, a man who said he hailed from Haiti, misinterpreted the prompt and told a story about a funeral he actually went to. It was the funeral of a factory manager. People were given the day off work. People were bussed in. There was a huge ceremony.
As everyone was waiting for the funeral to begin one man walked up to the casket, slapped the dead man, and returned to his seat.
People were aghast. They couldn’t believe this would happen. So, they pretended it didn’t.
When asked why he did slapped the dead man at his funeral, the offender said, “I always wanted to do that in life, but he was bigger than me.”
Today, I teach about literary community.
The first thing that happened is someone had me sign a non-disclosure before reading their screenplay.
Oh, community.