It was such a pleasure to read at Reykjavík Poetics' event, Reykjavík Open last night!
This was my first in-person public reading in... perhaps ever. At least in a very long time.
I read a condensed version of a short story with the current working title 'Grief for Others'. I wrote this piece in March one afternoon as I walked home from university through the melting snow. Once the idea came, the story formed itself in a flurry of words. It hasn't yet been published anywhere, but it's out with a few magazines. Fingers are crossed.
Reyjkavík Poetics is a community-created and run project supporting the performance of creative writing in Reykjavík. It welcomes readings from writers at any stage of their career, in any language, any genre, and so on. It's a genuinely open invitation to all voices. In a city where about 20% of the population were born overseas, Reyjkavík Poetics creates an important opportunity for a large part of the community to have a voice and express their work without excluding local authors and voices. It's an extremely welcoming and warm community, and whatever nerves I might have felt soon melted away when people cheered as I took the stage.
I can't thank enough the work of Ewa Marcinek, who has been driving the project since it began a year ago, and to the night's main organiser and host, Gabe Dunsmith. The project is also lucky to receive support from the City of Literature.
As an aside, I was very pleased to be invited by Ewa to join the organising board of Reykjavík Poetics and I'm extremely excited to be involved in the project from June onwards.
Full audio recording of the event is coming. Until then, here's a brief video of the last words.
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