DISPATCH: A Night with Joyland Editions, "My Personal Information Age"

Mia Risher attends Joyland Editions' party for the publication of Information Age, the new novella by Cora Lewis, while processing her sexuality and avoiding her ex's friends.

The morning before Joyland Editions’ party celebrating Cora Lewis’ debut novella Information Age, I broke things off with perhaps the last man I’ll ever see as I finally came to terms with the fact that I’m probably a lesbian. So when I walked inside Public Records and saw all of his friends crowded around the concrete bar, I knew the evening would be eventful one way or another, regardless of the reception of the groundbreaking publisher and title.

X, if you’re reading this, that’s the honest reason I had to end things so vaguely. It really has nothing to do with you (you’re so great!).

Standing in the packed, un-airconditioned room, carefully avoiding eye contact with X’s friends, I wondered how the rest of the night would play out. I hoped I could circumvent them all evening, dreaming there would be enough pre-planned talks and readings to keep us all busy. Usually, I love a short reading [a sentiment echoed by everyone I have ever talked to about the ideal amount of time someone should read at this type of party (7 minutes tops)], but standing there, fanning myself profusely, I prayed for a two-hour extravaganza filled with enough material to write a sharp dispatch without having to hang around after. Later, I learned that they originally HAD planned a much longer reading, but cut it down at the dress rehearsal during the eleventh hour. People just can’t pay attention for that long.

When publisher, founder, and editor Michelle Lyn King took the mic, a wave of relief passed over me. Up on stage, she welcomed the crowd and thanked editor Madeleine Crum and the rest of the team for all their hard work over the previous months, her joy(land) and enthusiasm about the book, and the upcoming night. She then announced that Cora herself would not be reading that evening, but instead she’d be turning the mic over to five actors to share different sections of the book. If you want to hear Cora herself, Michelle noted, head to Unnameable Books on July 22nd.

At the time, I didn’t think much of Michelle’s use of the word “actors.” I was too focused on where the friends might be standing. But after hearing the five women read with engaging and seamless tones, I began to wonder about Michelle’s choices. When I asked bookseller and writer Conor Hultman what he thought, he mused, “Aren’t we all actors, in a way?” My writer friend Hannah Berman noted that everyone there was probably “acting,” in a sense, and the two women standing with us nodded solemnly and knowingly. I feel like no one really knew if the term was some sort of social commentary or just semantics.

Later, when I asked Michelle one-on-one to clarify, her answer was straightforward. Writers often don’t know how to read, she stated, a sentiment I myself have written about in my piece on Triangle House Review’s readingless party in May. And we are not alone in noticing this; at pretty much every literary event I attend someone notes, usually to let a reader off the hook, that just because someone is a good writer does not mean they know how to share their work aloud to a room of judgmental onlookers. So, inspired by a memory of a reading at Symphony Space years prior, Michelle decided to hire people whose professional job is to bring emotion and depth to the written page. She wanted to give the words the stage they deserve.

When I spoke to actor Michelle Moriarty about her experience (they were paid $50, I believe), it became clear that she lent the text the attention and care that a writer alone might not know to do when sharing aloud. In her hours of prep, Michelle read through the entire book first to make sure she was reading with the right tone and inflections. In the section she read, the phrase “then boyfriend” was present, and Michelle knew to emphasize the word “boyfriend” rather than “then” to suggest that the couple doesn’t break up but instead gets married later on in the story. It’s this type of detail that makes me think Michelle Lyn King’s choice to hire actors is brilliant.

Also, Information Age itself is made up of snippets, vignettes, and spare moments. It’s not a collage, as noted in an interview with The Creative Independent, but it is a collection of fragments of sorts. The format of the reading of various scenes (carefully selected to ensure cohesion) from throughout the project really paralleled and complemented its structure, another major success.

The rest of the night post-reading passed similarly seamlessly. The $5 ticket granted attendees a free drink and I ordered their apricot vodka, which I drank on top of the other free drink Michelle jokingly gave me in return for the promise that I would not write a scathing review (haha). The space was packed and everyone seemed to be in a celebratory mood. Conor noted he’s always happy whenever there’s a new force bringing books into the world, and Joyland Editions is definitely one to be reckoned with. Everyone who I talked to about the novella itself had nothing but praise to sing.

I did end up spending a significant amount of my night talking to X’s friends, the whole time wondering if they knew what had gone down that morning. It turns out that one of them actually designs for Joyland Editions, and the man probably would have been there to celebrate his work if I hadn’t ended my text inviting him to go to this very event, but just as friends. Again, sorry, X, I wish you’d been there!

At one point while talking to this friend, I saw, over his shoulder, the silhouette of a woman I’d gone on one Hinge date with six months earlier. We’d spent a winter afternoon wandering the Brooklyn Museum before she moved away and we became penpals of sorts. She’d actually texted me a few weeks ago, for the first time since February, somehow sensing that I just so happened to be visiting her hometown. So we’d recently reconnected. Standing in Public Records’ backyard, our eyes met and recognition flashed across both our faces. I felt my body being pulled toward her. As we caught up, my suspicion that I am indeed a lesbian was only further solidified.

So, regardless of whether or not Joyland Editions is happy with how the event went for them (I’m pretty certain they are), they can rest easy knowing that they helped someone get one step closer to figuring out their sexuality. And if that isn’t a success for a Brooklyn literary event, I’m not sure what is.