Perch Pub on Tuesday, December 11 was like some kind of awesome literary buffet! Or like a ridiculous literary Long Island iced tea! Or like, maybe it was like, an anthology that doesn’t exist! Tamara Oakman, Debra Leigh Scott, and Warren Longmire brought their best to the table (well, ok, there wasn’t a table there was just a mic—that didn’t work, but it was ok, we rolled with it and these writers showed us that you don’t have to be quiet and shy to be…brilliant.
Debra Leigh Scott read from her novel “Other Likely Stories.” We were so thrown and blown that we had procured a copy and started in on it later that night—no lie—it had to be done.
Warren Longmire wow’ed the crowd, especially his I.T. work buddies, who had heard rumors of the other side of Warren and had to see it to believe it, and Warren made believers out of us all by the end of his reading time.
As if all of that weren’t enough, Tamara Oakman closed the show with multiple genres and disciplines, starting off with a collaborative piece performed with singer and publisher Angela Bey. Oakman read a poem, “end” about parental abuse; the song sang between the stanzas was a lullaby, a song of hope. Tamara read more poems from her collection, “Snatched. and then ended her set with an autobiographical fiction piece, “Death Drive” about domestic violence.
Sometimes, magic just happens.