Noir at the Bar by Mary Dutta

I recently attended my first Noir at the Bar, a crime fiction event where multiple authors read from their novels, short stories, and works in progress. As the name suggests, the works they shared skewed dark and gritty, and the beverages erred on the side of adult.

These increasingly popular events started in 2008, and have expanded to a number of cities and writer conferences. The details vary. Some cities have a regular schedule, some have pop-up events. The event I attended was actually not at a bar but at a coffee house, albeit one that sold beer and wine for the evening. We had a local TV reporter as emcee and a jazz guitarist for musical entertainment. Other folks do it however works best for them. One thing each version has in common, though, is the fact that when the writers are not at the microphone, they are sitting in the audience, sharing drinks and mingling along with everyone else.

My local Noir at the Bar featured a variety of authors. Some were traditionally published, some worked with small presses, and some were self-published. They read aloud from copies of their books, or printed pages, or their phones. They entertained a diverse audience as well--friends and family of the headlining writers, locals out for a novel Saturday night experience, and fellow authors like me. It was a full house and an appreciative one.

Unlike other artists, like actors and musicians, authors don’t usually have the opportunity to interact with a live audience. And readers don’t usually experience in-person engagement with the writers whose works they enjoy. For both, a reading is a performance. There’s an art to reading aloud, as evidenced by the fact that most audiobooks are narrated by professional voice actors. I’m happy to say that each writer at my local event did justice to their stories with an engaging delivery. My favorite story of the night was read by an author who so completely inhabited her first-person narrator that it was hard to remember that it was fiction (luckily, since this is gritty stuff after all) and not her own life.

It was fun to step outside of my usual cozy mystery circles. I had a great evening, supported a friend, and discovered some new writers. Along the way, I acquired an autographed book and a deep appreciation of the fact that I live in a community so supportive of writers. I feel confident that they’ll turn out to raise a glass and lend an ear if it’s ever my turn to read.

 

Have you ever attended a Noir at the Bar or a similar event?