"Stand on a milkcrate in your backyard": How Spoken Word Can Change Your Writing

If you tell most "serious" writers that you read at spoken word events, they'll probably think you're crazy or a failure.

This week, I found a writer who used storytelling performance as a springboard for her career--a model for us all. All week, we've been talking with Heather O'Neill about her novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals.

Today she tells us how spoken word changed her life. In honor of that, here's decidedly lo-fi video clip of her reading KGB Bar...

Welcome to the final installment of my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing...

Jason Boog:
You've written spoken word pieces for years. How does spoken word style influence your novel? How can performance help a writer? How can a fledgling writer get involved in the spoken word scene?

Heather O'Neill:
Spoken word had a big effect on me as a writer. It's sort of minimized by a lot of people... I was doing it in my early twenties and I remember a lot of older, published writers saying that it was crap and a waste of time.

But it allowed me to develop a voice and a persona as a writer. I was able to see what an audience reacted to in my writing and build on that. It's great for young writers in that respect because they're not ready to be published yet and can go for years developing a style that noone will be interested in.

Spoken word allows you to have an audience early on and is invaluable in that respect.

Spoken word scenes are really easy to be part of and they grow with the littlest effort. All colleges have open mics that you can sign up for.

If you can't find one, you can just stand on a milkcrate in your backyard and read out loud and other kids will start showing up wanting to be part of it, it's infectious.

Note: If serialized interviews drive you batty, check out the whole interview in one place here.

Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

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