This Friday, October 1, in Old Town Alexandria at the historic Lyceum museum, I will join seven other readers and artists on stage for As Was Written – an evening of poetry, prose and song.

JMD and I at the March 2010 As Was Written event

I’ve taken a break until October from freelance work to organize this event that I co-founded with my friend, John-Mark Davidson, nearly three years ago.

The most fun – besides the actual show itself – is setting the line-up of talent. JMD and I bounce around to open mic nights in D.C. and Virginia in search of local artists, and we thing this week’s show features one of our best line-ups yet.

We have local DC-area readers, as well as performers flying in from California and Washington State. Some will read poetry, some prose, and two – Stacy Clark andThe Heligoats – will sing. Each person will perform their own original work – a requirement for taking to the AWW stage.

Once the show ends, I can resume freelance web work again. Until then, I will likely be editing, re-writing and re-editing my piece* for the event. As I like to say each time I sit down to edit my own writing before these events, “The self-loathing is high in this one.” I mean it just as any writer does who is their own toughest critic – write, edit, do better, rewrite, edit, perform.

This will be the fifth reading event we’ve held, and each time the excitement is just as high. The event has been sold out for the last two months, so we have a large audience looking for a great show. Hopefully we will be able to deliver – all signs indicate toward just that.

See you (or not) Friday night at 8:30pm!

*I will be posting the piece I read on here the week after the show, for your reading pleasure or torture, depending on your taste and/or my talent. :)