by Hannah Kalbrener ’26
I decided to watch a Prairie Lights Bookstore reading/book talk. It was given by Heather Gudenkauf from her book, Everyone is Watching.
I think a really important part of live readings and discussions is that the author is introduced by the main host of the event, partly because it lends credibility and smooths the transition between speakers. And of course most places and events do that, but that doesn’t make it less important. I think it’s especially important when the talk has been taken out of its original context and may be watched as a video on youtube (as the Prairie Lights Bookstore reading I watched was). Because it acts as the cover of a book almost, letting you get acclimated to the situation. Without it, you’re left unfocused and untethered and it’s all up to the main speaker to draw you back in. This makes the introduction a necessary apparatus through which we view the main speaker and their talk. It also enforces the community aspect of a reading or talk by immersing you and creating a conversation between the host and the speakers.
During the introduction of Gudenkauf, they said she was someone who had read for Prairie lights Bookstore events many times in the past and also been an audience member. I think this is an excellent example of Literary Citizenship because it shows the community of authors and readers and how they overlap. How the group comes together to support an author and the author supports others in turn. A reader may not be a writer but a writer is always a reader, writing well necessitates the reading of other’s work. You can’t write in a vacuum and I think embracing this fact and writing in the company of all the traditions and people who came before you is exemplified in the fact that we have public readings and talks from writers.
This reading was specifically meant to be casual, as Gudenkauf says early on. This is another important aspect of the frames we see things the book talks or discussions through: how they’re presented. The casualness or formality of an event affects how the viewer perceives its contents just as the host’s introduction does. Because this talk was casual, Gudenkauf was able to share anecdotes and talk more familiarly, as well as talk directly with audience members. The amount of formality in an event lends itself to different goals. A more formal event can be better at lending credibility to the author/speaker where a less formal event might be better at creating a connection between author/speaker and audience. Because these things can affect our interpretations, I think to be good literary citizens (if a literary citizen can be categorized in such a way) we should try to be aware of the frameworks we view literary things through.
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