Artist Initiative

I coordinated a group reading with three other grantees: Rebecca Kanner, Kathleen Glasgow and Alizia Conroy. I asked the Loft Literary Center to donate the performance hall, which they agreed to. We held a reading with nearly 200 attendees. I spoke to several audience members after the event directly engaging with many people about my project. This year, I completed writing a collection of ten short stories that are set in a psychiatric facility in Minneapolis. The bulk of my work has been generating new material, which is a solitary process. I evaluated my progress by tracking my daily word count. I committed to 500 words per day, and accomplished this. Throughout the revision process, my raw material was slowly whittled down to ten short stories, or 150 pages, which I'm now ready to submit for publication. I've made this evaluation through my own assessment, and also with the help of two writing groups I take part in here in Minneapolis. I'm fortunate to have had the input of the following local writers: Dale Gregory Anderson, Andrew Andestic, Eric Braun, Michelle Freeland, Eric Vrooman, and Robert Voedisch. All of these Minnesotans have engaged with my work throughout the year and provided me with critical feedback on how to make improvements. It is their belief, and mine, that these stories will now reach a wider audience as I begin to submit them for publication. My reading gave me evidence that this is likely. Many audience members approached me after the event, wanting to discuss the story that I read, and mental illness in general. I spoke to several nurses, as well as someone with a family member struggling with mental illness. I was surprised by how easy it was to connect with community members. Their enthusiasm confirmed my intuition that this subject matter is timely and necessary.