[caption id="attachment_744" align="alignleft" width="131" caption="Kendal Muse, winner of the Lighthouse-Stories on Stage contest"]
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News Alert!
Kendal Muse, a dazzling member of Jessica Roeder’s dazzling Online Fiction Workshop, recently learned that her story, “A Message from the Sarge,” was selected by Stories on Stage to win our collaborative contest. Kendal lives and muses, we assume, in Colorado with her husband and son. Along with the rest of us, she will get to see actress Elgin Kelley (photo below) read her work on stage at Nobody Likes a Smartass, performed at the Jones Theater (Denver Center for the Performing Arts) on Saturday, Sept. 26.
Writers—and, well, people in general—may not agree with the premise “Nobody Likes a Smartass,” but Kendal and 38 other members of the August Lighthouse short story workshops were invited to submit a story that touched in some way on that theme. At the deadline for submission, September 5, I had in my e-mail inbox 25 great short stories written by our members. Our partners for this experiment, the nationally recognized Stories on Stage, were given the unenviable task of deciding which story would be performed along with a lineup of virtuosic pieces from Tobias Wolff, Lorrie Moore, and Flannery O’Connor. SOS Artistic Director Norma Moore ultimately fell for Kendal's "vibrant personal voice."
You'll see what she means with this little preview of "A Message from the Sarge":
We shouldn’t have been there that night. Henry was only ten, still too young for a role in the Christmas pageant, and I had sworn to never be in it again. I had been cast every year since we’d moved to town, once as a bearded wise man and last year as Mary. Mary was the worst. The church leaders didn’t leave you alone when you were Mary, everybody going on about how a Mary was chosen for her beauty and grace, and wasn’t I just thrilled with myself? As if I were the kind of girl who gave a crap about beauty and grace. For such an important role you barely had any lines; you attended rehearsals so you could practice gazing lovingly from your baby to your husband. There is nothing like trying to portray godly love for a plastic baby doll and a kid with pimples and wandering hands that really puts your life into perspective.
Kendal wouldn't have written the story were it not for the contest. “When asked to consider writing a story based around the idea 'nobody likes a smartass,' this story slowly started to piece itself together," she says. "Having an opportunity to workshop it with other writers and then having a place for it to be heard has been a great experience. “
Her instructor, Jessica Roeder, engaged with Kendal's original take on the topic:
"A Message from Sarge" was the first story submitted for workshop this session, alongside the week's reading of O'Connor and Wolff. Kendal's story looks at the smartass the other way around, leaving him where we'd often like to leave him in life, on the periphery. The narrator's voice combines her father's toughness with a teenager's understatement, and she proves herself much smarter than her smartass rival.
[caption id="attachment_745" align="alignleft" width="134" caption="Elgin Kelley will read Lighthouser Kendal Muse's winning story."]
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Come hear the rest of Kendal's story, along with Lorrie Moore’s “You’re Ugly, Too,” Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain,” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” on the September 26, either the 5 or 8 PM shows. For a limited time, $15 discount-rate tickets are available to Lighthouse members by clicking here and entering “lighthouse” as the discount code, or by calling 303.494.0523.
