It’s one thing to read a story at home to yourself, but what if you could hear fiction read from the authors who wrote it, placing their inflections in all the right places to properly convey the personality behind a piece? NC State’s Masters of Fine Arts Creative Writing program is hosting such an event. 

Fourteen graduating fiction writers from the MFA program will be reading fiction pieces they have written in an event that is open to the public. The event is being held Wednesday night at the Titmus Theatre in Thompson Hall starting at 6:00 p.m.*

*The Technician originally stated the event started at 7:30 p.m.

“It is part of the writer’s life, no matter how shy they are or how long they spend locked away in a room writing, where they must read what they write to the public,” said Wilton Barnhardt, a creative writing professor with the program. “For many of our students it will be the first time they read their work in front of an audience.”

Barnhardt described the event as a rite of passage for the graduates and that any good writers need to be able to read their work to a crowd in order to promote themselves. 

“You have to practice,” Barnhardt said. “The only way to get good at reading your own work to people is to read it to people.”

Barnhardt said that, of the 14 graduates planning to read at the event, seven are graduating fiction writers and seven are graduating poets. For the fiction writers, Barnhardt said that the five minutes allocated to each reader might prove difficult. Taking time to explain the context behind a passage in a novel takes up time so Barnhardt recommends the graduates to read from their short fiction works. 

Barnhardt related this time constraint to an exercise the graduating class recently worked where students had to write flash fiction. Flash fiction is a type of fiction where a story begins and ends in only 1,200 words. 

“You write it out the length you want it to be, and you’re horrified that it’s 2,000 words so you start cutting and cutting and cutting,” Barnhardt said. “It’s almost like a game or puzzle, seeing what is really necessary and what isn’t. It’s very therapeutic because you realize that you can cut half of what you write, and I’m almost horrified at seeing how much I can cut in my own work without making any difference in the content.”

Barnhardt said that stories like these are particularly perfect for the reading and that some graduates will read their flash pieces but that he thinks many will come with new work to surprise and entertain their colleagues and professors.  

“It’s exciting to share your work with people, especially because, despite the fact that we spend two years together, we don’t always know what everyone is writing,” said Julie Steinbacher, an MFA creative writing graduate who will be reading at the event. “I write realist fiction. With realist fiction, you’re in a setting that people would have read before and recognize as opposed to a science fiction or fantasy piece that might be confusing. Given the time limit, I have to sit down and see what work I can cut down enough to fit, but that will also be an enjoyable piece to be heard and still make sense.” 

Steinbacher and fellow graduate Samuel Piccone both said that they expect a lot of variety in the readings.

 “I’ll probably pick stuff that my friends haven’t heard or that might be lucky enough to get published,” Piccone said. “This is kind of a fun sort of thing for us. It might be fun to bring in the wackiest stuff or the stuff that you didn’t bring in and have been working on in secret.”

The only way to get good at reading your own work to people is to read it to people.”