On Wednesday, July 15, three authors will gather at New Day Craft as part of The Downtown Writers Jam, Vol. 4: Storytellers (RSVP). In this iteration of the Jam, the authors will tell the audience the stories that inspired their work, and then give a few selected readings. It’s a night of literary narration.
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Meanwhile, meet one of our opening authors for The Jam: Storytellers: Ann Marie Elliott
I began writing at a young age, but fell in love with writing for the stage as a student at DePauw University.
There, I discovered a passion for writing raw, challenged women – largely through my own experiences as a daughter of the church, of divorce, and of psychiatric survival. Growing as a writer has meant digging into the flesh of relationships and coming out bloodied, battered, and learned.
She does not exist on the Web.
At The Downtown Writers Jam
What’s the name of the piece from which your DWJ story comes? Dear Ida: A Play in Two Acts
Give us a hint: What’s your best “behind the scenes” story about? When your soulmate doesn’t exist to you any more than a box full of letters, how to you digest it? How do you devour each and every tendril of ink to make sense of who you were and who you are and how you once died?
Where can people find or buy your work? You can’t.
What should the audience expect from your storytelling at the Downtown Writers Jam? Probably too much honesty. A touch of bitterness. And some unexpected love.
Get to Reading
Best book or long-form writing we should read, but probably haven’t? And why? Ida by Gertrude Stein. Hell, the book challenged me and my ideas of identity enough to name a character – and, through that character, the play – after it.
Though Gertrude’s Ida and my own belong in very different worlds enduring very different crises, they both seek to understand who they are and how they belong in the world. The writing is meaty and cyclical and you could chew on a single phrase until it turned who you are upside down. Even if you hate everything I have to say at the Jam, Read It. She’ll always be better than me, anyway.
