I don’t normally use my blog for this kind of post, but I think it is important that my voice be heard about Storied Nights: an Evening of Spoken Word, a venue in Livermore that brings the art of writing into the cultural event called Art Happens. It started in May 2013 with me as the host.

Here is my story.

I had tried for years to provide a venue that would recognize prose writers. Livermore had a poet laureate, but the founding and succeeding laureates would give at most lip service to the art of prose, claiming it to be an inferior cousin to poetry. I never did understand this. I am in the camp of poet Marianne Moore who said that an attempt to differentiate prose from poetry was a “wart on so much happiness.”

For eight years, I hosted Saturday Salons at Fourth Street Studio, where poetry and prose happily co-existed. I had to close Fourth Street Studio in 2011 because I could no longer afford to keep it open. I called it Livermore’s Literary Arts Center.

Once I closed it, I began a quest to find a venue that would elevate the art of story on par with poetry. In addition to the bi-monthly poetry readings, the poet laureate created another venue—one that would be part of the downtown Art Happens (similar to an Art Walk). It was poetry only. It would not accommodate prose.

I sought advice from Len Alexander, who was then the Executive Director of Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center (LVPAC). We met for coffee several times to discuss bringing story to Art Happens. It was clear to me that it needed a sponsor, I could not do it as an individual. He said he would see what he could do.

Time passed. Tom and I took a walkabout that took us to Sequim, Washington. Economics and time-of-our-life changes intersected and we decided it was time to sell our house in Livermore and head to the great North West.

The week we returned, over coffee, Len told me that he had found a venue and LVPAC wanted to sponsor Storied Nights: An Evening of Spoken Words. The first event would be in May. I told him my news that we would be leaving, but that I could definitely organize and host the first event (perhaps the June event as well) and that I would find someone to run with it after I left.

And that is how I came to ask the current host if she wanted to take over where I left off. She was not the first person I talked to because earlier in 2013 when I asked if she was interested in working with me to find a venue, she said she didn’t have the time. I was grateful that the timing was right for her to step in and take it over.

Much to my dismay, from the beginning, she began to rewrite history, claiming that the Chair of the Commission for the Arts, rather than I, had asked her to host this new series, and implied that she would be launching the series. I do not to this day understand why one would do that, essentially scrubbing me from the picture.

I worked hard for ten years to establish a venue for writers in Livermore. Besides hosting the Salons, I published five anthologies, organized release parties for each, and produced several Unusual Evenings of Spoken Words. I had to swim upstream—and I will never understand this either—because there was an unspoken rule that there was not room for both poetry and prose in Livermore.

The current host was the right choice to take over Storied Nights. She ran with it, made it her own, and from what I can see on Facebook, it is thriving. She is starting an open mic night in the tradition of Saturday Salons and continuing the quest to open a literary arts center to replace Fourth Street Studio.

I don’t know whether she doesn’t understand the value of what was given to her—a series with a venue in place, a pretty robust email list, and a built in community of writers to select from for readings—or if she is choosing to ignore how my efforts led to the series.

In our final coffee meeting before I left Livermore Len Alexander gave me a framed copy of the poster for the event that launched the series and told me the series was my legacy.

My biggest frustrations during my time in Livermore was a cultural undercurrent that held that there was not enough to go around—not enough talent, not enough skill, not enough enough. More than once, my contributions were implemented but I was denied credit for them, even though there was documentation that backed up my contributions.

I am absolutely baffled as to why diminishing another is somehow necessary for one’s success. I am also hurt by this.

I have gone back and forth as to whether or not I should write about this—or more accurately whether I should publish what I write. If you are seeing this, I made the decision to publish it—not to settle scores, but because I think it is important that artists get their due, and that they stand up for themselves when it is denied them.

I also hope by posting this, I can show that the notion that you have to diminish and demean others to elevate yourself is, to quote Marianne Moore, “a wart on so much happiness.”