CalArts MFA candidate Colleen Hur

I cannot handle cold weather and, apparently, neither can Los Angeles. It was 55 degrees on the second Saturday of April, and I begged for a heater. Having a reading outside with winds straight from the mouth of Satan was not ideal. A heater. That should work.

Next Words is a transition. A reading series that features new work from the CalArts MFA Writing program. It’s the moment where all of our innovation, ambition, and experimental spirits come together as they are introduced to the community outside of CalArts. We the editors-slash-curators call Next Words “an exposure, a nebula, a metamorphosis. A constellation of words in flux—cleaving, becoming. We exit and enter at the same time.”

Stories Books & Café graciously hosted the third event on their outdoor patio in Echo Park. Independent or not, small or big, every bookstore has its own story, and Stories features a wealth of new and used books, as well as organic and fair trade coffee and espresso. I am not a coffee snob by any means—I like my Starbucks, my Coffee Bean, and my Silverlake coffee—and all I know is either way, where there is good coffee, there are good books. Et voilà, Stories. But perhaps this is also so much more than that, which is why the curators of this reading series chose this space to showcase the students; Stories supports local writers.

I chose my seat wisely, so I sat in the middle, only a few chairs away from the sole heater, my leather jacket zipped all the way to the top as I kept the time. (Yes, as an editor and curator of Next Words, I had certain responsibilities.)

Four writers, four different voices, ten minutes each. Jen Hutton—a writer, critic, artist, and translator from Toronto. Patrick Benjamin—an Associate Editor for Black Clock with a superbly-kept beard from Southern California. Colleen Hur, a YA writer from South Korea who had me in tears of laughter as she sped through her reading. And Peter Nichols—a wonk who is particularly proud of an interactive sculpture of his titled “Love in a time of Necrophilia.” I cannot take credit for these descriptions (well, not all of them anyway), as they were provided by the readers.

Faculty, former, current and prospective CalArts students, as well as the Los Angeles reading elite came out regardless of the weather. While I might be a sissy when it comes to cold weather—it does make my nose feel like an anchor and my chest like a cheese grater—I fully supported the outdoor patio reading. The turnout was incredible, and I fully consider my Saturday night to have been a success.

Los Angeles isn’t really home, but while my European habits might be made fun of and teased, these are the moments when I—you, we, writers—experience something other than the solitary and lonely act of writing. Stories, Next Words, the art of reading in front of a great crowd is an intimate act where the microphone amplifies the words and searches to enter ears and worlds. As seen on that Saturday, at 7PM, writers came together and for one moment, they were part of something greater.

By Eleni Demetriou
an Associate Editor for Black Clock and an MFA Writing candidate at CalArts.