PorchLight Winter Newsletter: A Programming Survey, Writing Consultants + PorchLight Recommends

Dear friends of PorchLight,

We’ve slowed down our events this January, offering just the usuals, The Free Gen ( a wonderful evening with a film inspired prompt from poet Anna Morrison) and this Saturday, The Long Project Check-in. Those with projects brewing who need a new perspective, a little community, or accountability, join us from 1-2:30.

Behind the scenes, on the other hand, we’ve been busy.

Our programming teams are strategizing ways to promote and enhance our current offerings, and looking forward to planning a new roster of classes for the Spring. But we need your input. What kinds of writing classes and formats are you interested in? Who would you like to see read at PorchLight? How about a survey?  It’s quick. We promise! We would love to hear from you! Please follow the link here.

And something new.

 

We’re thrilled to start working with professional writing consultants, coaches, and editors. If you're looking for closer reads, one-on-one manuscript development, accountability coaching, help with query letters, or help re-working academic writing for a general audience, we’ve got you covered. Check out the profiles of our new consultants, Britanny Borghi, Jennifer New, Katie Runde and Nicole VanderLinden here.

 

PorchLight Recommends

 

Does the art in this city get better as the weather gets worse? I just saw, I think, my favorite Riverside production to date. “A Case for the Existence of God,” is a quietly riveting experience. Directed by Adam Knight, and adapted from U of I grad and MacArthur recipient, Samuel D. Hunter, the play traces the course of an unlikely friendship between two men. The first man, Keith, is an economically and educationally privileged, gay black man, trying to adopt the child he's fostering; the other is Ryan, a working class, slightly unstable, formerly popular guy, going through a divorce and fighting for partial custody of his daughter. The friendship starts at their day care drop off, when Keith offers his services to Ryan as a loan consultant. The friendship develops through a quick succession of scenes, moments in their friendship that reveal ironic reversals in social status (we find out, for example, that the two men went to the same high school, though Keith had been invisible to Ryan except for the day he made fun of his shirt).

Something about winter makes me crave introspection, and I loved watching these characters’ inner struggles and surprising histories come to light as they interacted on stage. I also appreciated the play's lack of typical bromance tropes (bromance as in two men bonding over attractions to or escapes from women). This play dealt with sturdier stuff: existential crisis, loss, and grief, yet it was funny and hopeful, thanks to the deft and sensitive performances of Scot West and Barrington Vaxter, as the two leads. "The Case for the Existence of God," is playing through February 4th at Riverside Theater. Don’t miss it!

 

OK, one final note here. We want you to send us your recommendations for literary art. Did you just read something you really loved? Did you encounter a fantastically written screen play or adaptation? Have you fallen in love with a book by a local poet? Send us a paragraph, or a few lines describing why you are loving what you are loving this winter, and we will try to include it in our next PorchLight Recommends!