I haven't really done much public reading or free-form storytelling in a while. So it was amazing have a chance to do both, pretty much back-to-back over the past few days.

Last Wednesday, my friend Rabih Salloum and I read some of our work in front of a crowd at Bardo. It was an intimate venue, and the complimentary Russian Standard helped ease some initial nerves. In the process of preparing for the reading, I was trying to polish up some of the fiction I'd been working on for a collection of short stories (which could have also doubled as a novella). While I was working on it, I came to the sudden realization, after a couple of years of work, that I actually don't enjoy writing fiction that much, and that I'm probably pretty shit at it. So I took the decision to focus on creative non-fiction, and have been extremely productive since.

Then, this past Monday I told a story for the first time in a The Moth-style format in front of about 100 people at AltCity during the Cliffhangers - Storytelling Nights, organized by Dima Matta, herself an author and creative writing instructor.

They were both great experiences, and I met lots of great people who motivated me to do this kind of thing more often, and dedicate some more time to writing and storytelling in general. All in all, a solid few days.