Spry Lit’s Inaugural Gala

Well, it’s safe to say we never saw that coming! Sure, we know we have an impassioned, energetic, and altogether brilliant reader base, some very talented friends, and, of course, a host of creatively charged Massachusetts venues at our disposal, but we never would have been able to predict the seamless way in which those things would combine to make our first gala such an incredible event.

The evening didn’t start so promising. It began by both editors leaving work later than planned, followed by monster traffic, dinner at a shady pizza place, a complete deficit of parking in the city of Cambridge, violent, rock-throwing children ambushing innocent cars, frightened drivers, missed connections of where we should meet and set up, and a lot of carrying of belongings from the aforementioned parking spots to the actual gallery.

But once we arrived, nothing else mattered. The gallery attendant was kind and helpful. The food and drinks and raffles fell into place. The people began to arrive, as did the readers who could still attend. Music welcomed our guests into the colorful studio, and people began to grab drinks and make their way to their seats. A husky (or similar breed dog) and two cats (friends–obviously–with the gallery’s owner) even sauntered through the room, making themselves known, and sniffing out the evening’s snacks.

Matty and his guitar welcome the guests to the gala

And then it was time to begin. Music was played; words and laughs and tears were shared; food was eaten; drinks were imbibed, and each moment felt more magical than the last.

Special thank yous go out to our contributors who were either able to attend the event in person (Travis Baker, Krysta Voskowsky, Gail Hosking) or allowed us to read their work (Elizabeth Hilts, Saeide Mirzaei, Angele Ellis). We wish we could have read more from the other contributors who gave us permission to read their poetry or prose, but as they say, time flies when you are having fun, and boy, were we having lots of fun.

Till about to play his accordion for us

We are also forever in debt to the musical performances by Matty Sullivan and also, our guest performance by Till Hasbach (who you’ll learn more about if you stop by the blog tomorrow. Matty was kind enough to open the show and play his guitar through our two intermissions. He kept the atmosphere relaxed, and yet uplifting. Huge, huge thanks, go to Cisco Covino for sharing his captivating, inventive writing during the open mic portion of the evening, and to our intern, Mark-Anthony Lewis, whose surprise attendance–and powerful, on-the-spot reading of Angele Ellis’ piece, “Ashes,”– was a true highlight of the evening. And of course, none of this would have been possible without the aid of our pastry chef Ryan, who baked our evening’s wonderful snacks.

Our thoughts in the coming days have culminated in a series of words like, “unbelievable,” “(so) cool,” “beautiful,” and, well, you know, sheer astonishment. To put it simply, we couldn’t be happier with the way our event turned out, and we couldn’t be more grateful to the people who made it turn out that way. Thank you to each of you.

Check back this week for our feature on Till Hasbach!

-Erin A. Corriveau and Linsey Jayne, Editors