For two centuries, the salon was a popular social institution. Often held in boudoirs, parlors, or coffee shops, the salon gave citizens opportunities to debate (politely), share ideas, and read and discuss literature of the day.
On Saturday night InkK, a local arts and literary initiative, again brought the historic salon back to life with a night of mingling and reading at the Center on the Common.
Laura Vilain, Lauren Slater, and Sarah Connolly, founders of InkK, modeled their literary initiative after Four Stories, a popular Cambridge organization. The theme of Saturday’s event was “Spirit Rising: Tales of Renewal and Recovery” and featured readings by four authors. Attendees dined on Chef Paul Correnty’s soup and crusty hunks of bread, and sampled home-brewed beer provided by Laura’s husband, Mark Vilain.
Surrounded by low café tables and clusters of chairs, Laura Vilain stepped to the microphone and smiled. “It’s been a vision of mine to bring a lot of people together,” she said, adding that InkK is now supported in part by a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant.
Tehila Lieberman, winner of the 2012 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction for her collection “Venus in the Afternoon,” began the evening with a reading of a short story titled “Waltz on East 6th St.” The three-part story details the relationship between a Jewish mother and daughter, complicated by the mother’s reluctance to speak of her experience in World War II.
Next up was poet Evan Warren, a 2006 Bromfield graduate and winner of the Joseph P. Clancy Award, who is currently living in Brooklyn and finishing his degree at Marymount College. He began, “Perhaps I was unaware and too jaded when I left this town, but my God—this town, the arts, what growth! It’s incredible to see everyone gathered here—” he said, his eyes glancing around the gallery, “in what used to be the old children’s library.”
When asked by an audience member to compare the influence on his poetry of his small hometown and his new location in New York City, he responded, with a grin, “There is a contrast between two extremes.”
Cambridge resident Karen Propp, author of the memoirs “In Sickness & In Health” and “The Pregnancy Project,” was next to the stage. She added to the atmosphere of casual camaraderie saying, “It’s so nice to be in this company. Evan’s last poem—wow—blew the top of my head off.” She read from a nonfiction piece published in Lilith Magazine about the Hakoah Vienna women’s swim team, which turned out to be an unplanned, but fitting, parallel to Tehila Lieberman’s piece.
The final reader was Harvard resident and InkK co-founder Lauren Slater. Her work has appeared eight times in the Best American Series, and she is the author of “$60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals,” “Welcome to My Country,” “Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir,” “Opening Skinner’s Box,” and “Blue Beyond Blue.” Her current project is a cover story for National Geographic about people who keep wild animals as pets.
Slater read a story from “Blue Beyond Blue,” a book of fairy tales, she explained, that “became perverse.” Slater enchanted the audience with her take on Snow White seen from the Queen’s perspective. The Queen calls the Grimm Brothers’ version “no better than a tabloid,” and details the birth of Snow White and the challenges of her daughter’s adolescence.
Slater’s perspective mixes modern rhetoric with traditional storytelling, challenges the role of females in fairy tales, and is both funny and touching. She is working with InkK to provide local writing resources and seminars.
“People are hungering for local artistic outlets,” Laura Vilain says. “We’re here.”
Another InkK literary night is scheduled for May. You can find out more information at www.inkk.me.
