Revisting a Celebration of Life, Loss, and Love

April 16, 2009

by Neil Kahn

Though a week stale, I want to recap the incredible evening hosted by Cafe Caffeine celebrating Stricken: The 5,000 Stages of Grief on Thursday, April 9.

Our wonderful co-editor Katherine Tanney emceed the event, introducing local Stricken writers and a staple of local creatives who read aloud from essays written by out-of-towners. Playwright C. Denby Swanson kick-started the emotional evening, reading from Los Angeles author Rachel Resnick’s essay “Touch Me.” To follow, our own Owen Egerton, diverging from his typically hilarious prose, shared an excerpt from “Holiest of Times,” a heartwarming account juxtaposing the recent birth of his daughter with the death of his grandfather — at the time, the youngest and the oldest in the family. Local actress Amanda Poston shared from Mylene Dressler’s “Flying Dutchman,” and Victoria Hendricks left the audience teary eyed and wet faced, sharing a letter written to her first husband who she lost to cancer twenty one years ago. And, true to expectations, performance artist and poet David Jewell entertained with his interpretation of author Jim Krusoe’s “Memorial - for L.H.”

Sandy Silver shifted the mood, speaking without a mic, sharing memories of her son Chris, to whom Stricken is dedicated, and offering bits of advice for helping others in grief. Leslie Belt, local filmmaker and funny person, read aloud from Amy Friedman’s essay of unconventional love, “New Year’s Day,” and to follow David Zuniga, the first westerner ordained a priest in the largest lineage of Korean Zen, spoke on life and death from a Buddhist perspective. Dalton senior editor, poet, and author Ric Williams shared the heart-wrenching epigraph he contributed to the book, and in closing, Katherine Tanney brought the audience to simultaneous bouts of laughter and tears as she read from her essay, “The End of Grief,” a re-telling of the last conversation she and her mother shared before her mother’s death.

Thank you to everyone who read and attended! You made this such a special and moving evening.

View photos of the event here

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