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Arts & Entertainment

Oral Historians Divulge the Story Behind the Story

Beyond literary readings, Brooklyn Reading Works' series of themed panel discussions stimulates intellectual community.

Behind every story, there is a story.

For those interested in the story-gathering process before words hit the page, a panel discussion on Thursday offers a chance to hear oral historians' first-hand accounts of mining narrative gold.
 
“The Truth and Oral History: The Secret Life of the Interview” brings together six speakers to discuss their diverse story-gathering work as part of a monthly literary series organized by Brooklyn Reading Works.

The evening, which will feature refreshments, wine and a Q&A session, begins at 8 p.m. Thursday at Fifth Avenue's . A donation of $5 is suggested.
 
The panelists will discuss their own work as well as the oral historian’s craft in general. Speakers include Brian Toynes and Luna Ortiz, representatives from Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who have been collecting the stories of individuals with AIDS and Mary Marshall Clark, director of the Columbia University Oral History Office, which gathers first-person accounts of September 11, 2001.
 
“Stories need some help to be heard and live in the world,” panelist John A. Guidry, who curated Thursday’s event, writes in a release. “The conversation will explore the work it takes to make stories interesting and give them legs to stand on.”
 
Speakers will discuss “the processes by which people collect stories and use them to tell stories,” such as first-person interviews, photography, marketing, multimedia, social advocacy and more.
 
Patch columnist and local blogger , who started Brooklyn Reading Works in 2005, said thematic literary events lead attendees to discover new writers and broaden their understanding of a particular genre.
 
“I think we’re all interested in true stories and oral history, so it’s interesting to go behind the scenes and find out how oral histories are created,” she said, “and [discover] how it changes people whose job it is to collect these stories and disseminate them.”
 
In founding Brooklyn Reading Works, Crawford combined her literary interests with a desire to encourage and draw together an intellectual community.
 
Beyond hosting themed panel discussions, Crawford’s organization hands the mike to writers keen to read their work and stages readings of plays. The events have created an “ever expanding circle” of literary types, she said, who fuel increasingly thought-provoking events about art and ideas.
 
Her bottom line, though, is for Brooklyn Reading Works to provide a great night out.
 
“I love to put on a good show, so I want these readings and thematic events to be as entertaining and compelling as possible,” she said.
 
Other upcoming events in the Brooklyn Reading Works series include “Memoirathon” on Feb.17 and “Blarneypalooza” (about Irish literature) on March 17.
 
“Seeing people come again and again to these events is the greatest reward,” Crawford said. “But it’s also about the magic of hearing the written word read aloud.”

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