I have just had my first experience co-curating a literary stage at a major festival! We had 24 performers in 7 performances, interactive writing exercises, a writers’ workshop and contest giveaways. It was busy! And we successfully managed to draw large crowds, competing with the singing, dancing and varied entertainment programmed on the other Masala!Mehndi!Masti! stages.
Although I’ve organized many of my own readings, I truly got a first hand taste for what it means to organize something way bigger, and to be on the other side of the writer/curator table. I vow to be much more patient with curators when they take awhile to get back to me or when some kind of technical glitch interferes with a reading!
So now that MMM is done for this year, I’m back to my own writing. I’ve started sending out my second novel to early readers to get feedback, and then the next step is to do more revisions and then seek an agent. Wish me luck!