Reading for the Blind

By Anne Chudobiak

I spent some time online this week, researching “how to give a good reading”—a literary reading, that is. Not palms or some similarly forward-looking medium. No psychic centres, no higher selves. But, like any “good” writer, I found myself instantly distracted by the proliferation of online mystics, people like Hedera, Demonesse and DarkChild who gather in cyberspace to debate the finer points of reading the future (“Enya as background music at a tarot reading: yay or nay?”). I had to filter them out, though (-tarot, -palms). They were too disheartening. I still harbour a childhood wish for there to be magic in the world. Would people with psychic powers really need to communicate via computers? I think not.

The ensuing results were not noticeably improved:

“Arrive at your reading venue early. Burn incense or, even better, burn a sacrificial issue of Poetry. Call down the gods and goddesses of your choice. Get used to the room. Of course it will sound different when it is full of people -- still, you can listen to the room as you walk through it. How alive or dead is the echo?”

Clearly, I would have to filter out the poets as well.

That’s when my results started to get truly interesting. I found Mary Robinette Kowal, a puppeteer whose childhood struggle with a speech impediment had ironically graced her with perfect diction thanks to years of therapy. She read competitively in college (Interpretive Reading was a branch of the debating team), and went on to do radio theatre and to record audio books.

Her Reading Aloud site is full of tips for the newbie. Worried that your audience can't distinguish between characters in a long stretch of dialogue? Give them a physical “sign-post” by focusing on a different point on the back wall for different voices. A slight shift in your visual focus will provide your listeners with the cue they need to follow along.

Kowal says lots of other useful stuff as well, but I don’t have time to summarize or even integrate any of it, because I spent too much time this week reading about psychic energies—curse you, DarkChild!—and now I barely have time to review the story I'm supposed to read aloud tomorrow. As usual, I will have to put my faith in the stars. Wish me luck.