It’s interesting, the immediacy of music, its popularity, its accessibility, and as J. E. suggests, its way of bringing people together, sometimes in large numbers, sometimes in ecstatic dancing. Last night, I did a lot of work to put on a likewise “multicultural” event, located not far from our house, in a neighborhood that is predominantly African American and Native American. So, we brought in Percival Everett, a longtime Graywolf author who is African American, and David Treuer, who is a Minnesota writer and Ojibwe. We pushed pretty hard with the neighborhood to get the word out about the event, sent out hundreds of postcards, partnered with Franklin Art Works, a very nice gallery that features multicultural, contemporary visual artists, and we notified the Native American Center, which is just down the street. We got about twenty-five people there, and the only people who were not white were the two writers reading from their recent novels. The readings were top notch, and it was a fine event, but disappointing in numbers and the kinds of people we were hoping to reach.

I don’t believe literature is “stuffier” than music in terms of content, but it’s perceived to be (sometimes by myself, I admit). I’ve been to readings that produce a similar giddiness that J. E. describes about the concert, but they are rare events. Literature ultimately often has to take place in solitude, in terms of its creation and in terms of its reception, and that’s not a limitation. But it felt like it was last night, when I wish I would have been at the Acoustic Africa concert….

–Shotts