I was fifteen when in the span of five minutes, two teachers complimented my writing. One suggested I might make a good writer. This got me wondering: what do writers do? They must write of course, but write what? College found me as editor-in-chief of my campus newspaper, then author of a popular satirical column. But the novel was my true love. Novels not only told stories but offered insights into human psychology and the human condition.
Flash forward. I move to Denver. Acknowledging my knack for writing humor, I join a radio theater comedy troupe. There I gain experience acting. Meanwhile, I write short stories, experimenting with POV and story structure, practice for starting my first novel.
To improve my skill with language, I dabble in poetry. Fate steps in. I befriend two fellow poet/performers. We begin performing poetry, adding music, theater, dance, the kitchen sink. Audiences as well as the local press love us. I develop a reputation as a performance poet.
Still writing fiction, I opt to blur the line between poetry and prose. My short stories, now finding their way into literary magazines, become more lyrical. I become one third of a critically-acclaimed performance art trio called Jafrika. I quit my day job.
Now living by my creative wits, I find time to work on that novel. But all things must pass. Jafrika disbands. Eventually I assemble an elastic band of poets/musicians, calling ourselves Art Compost & amp; the Word Mechanics. Now in its 25th year, AC & amp; WM invites fellow poets and musicians to join a weekly poetry and music jam at the Pearl, formerly the Mercury Café.
In 2012, I assemble my poetry performance pieces into a collected work, A Black Odyssey. In 2020, I release my first novel. The Perfect Stranger is a Kafkaesque satire in which I give myself permission to do every crazy thing with language I can think of: puns, misspellings, malapropism, you name it.
Most recently, Buster Bodhi Press offered to publish my creative non-fiction hybrid, The Reluctant Messiah. Part fiction, part poetry, part Socratic-style dialogues, this novella examines the nature of reality -- specifically how the stories humans tell themselves shape their behavior.
What do these three works share in common? Insights into human psychology and the human condition. That's what we writers do. www.wagingart.com