A Quick Interview with Dan Misener
Regarding the event - "Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids" at the Victory Cafe, Mirvish Village.
What inspired this event?
I spent this past New Year's at my girlfriend's parents' house in Kingsville, Ontario (the southernmost town in Canada). My girlfriend's mom had been bugging her to clear out some stuff from her old bedroom, so we spent an afternoon rummaging through old boxes and stuff. In one of the boxes, she found her grade school diary. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon taking turns reading it out loud to each other. Some parts of it were really funny, and I realized that it was even funnier because we were reading it aloud. So I made it my New Year's Resolution to start a reading series based on that idea.
How many people attended?
I didn't count heads, but there was standing room only upstairs at the Victory Cafe.
What was your favourite moment?
When the first stranger walked through the door carrying her journal. I was genuinely worried that no one would show up except me and my friends.
When searching through your own journals, what was your favourite sentence/comment from your youth?
I haven't looked through everything my Mom sent me, but so far I like the earliest stuff the best. Probably because I'm nostalgic. Spelling errors intact:
"April 21, 1989 -- A wish I have is to be someone hoo owns A toy store! And I will have to play wihe the toy's to tell the pepel how the toy's werk. We have A toy Dinosaur, And A toy Lion, Oh and A toy flower."
I just think it's so neat to read this stuff. I don't remember writing that, or wanting those things, but here I am, holding these words in my hands, reading them now, with a very strange connection to the little boy who eventually became me. Wild.
Will you do it again?
I would love for this to become a regular thing. My resolution was to start a reading series, but I decided to do a one-off event first to gauge interest. The first one seemed to go over well, so right now, I just booked Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids #2 for Monday, April 30, 2007. Upstairs at the Victory Cafe. Bring friends, OK?
Will you get an overhead projector?
That's a really good idea. So much of my early (age 6) writing is nothing without the accompanying visuals. If I can figure out a way to do it, there'll be a projector at the next one. Although you don't necessarily want to show the text of a journal entry/poem/whatever, because then people could read ahead. And so much of what I like about these readings is in the delivery. I wouldn't want to lose that.