By Alison Larabie
The Elgin Street Reading Series, which has helped launch the careers of such writers as Carol Shields and Jane Urquhart, is now coming to a somewhat tragic end.
The series, which has been run by John Metcalf and Brenda Sharpe at the Queen’s Room of the Lieutenant’s Pump on Elgin Street, will hold only two more readings this year before closing down for good due to lack of interest.
In a city that enthusiastically supports larger writers’ festivals, this series, which showcases new or unknown writers, has seen its average audience size shrink to fewer than ten people over its past few seasons.
Neither Metcalf nor Sharpe can put their finger on exactly why people don’t come out to their community literary events any more, while events like writers’ festivals or the storytelling series at Rasputin’s on Bronson Avenue thrive.
Without an audience, Metcalf says he can’t justify bringing writers to Ottawa, especially from any great distance, to face a nearly empty room.
“It’s not that I’m not interested in the writers any more. I’m just tired of being embarrassed,” he says.
The series’ aim has always been to showcase new and young writers who need exposure to the literary market.
But Metcalf says that in recent years only well-established writers have drawn a crowd. Unknowns tend to attract only six to 12 people, he says.
“I have no idea (why people don’t come),” says Metcalf. “What I had hoped was that people would take on trust that if I was bringing in a writer, they would be good. But that leap of faith never happened.”
Sharpe says she is just as disappointed as Metcalf with the audiences in Ottawa. She says the reading public turns up at larger literary festivals, but not smaller events.
“If there’s a whole bunch of people on the bill at a festival, there is sure to be someone you like. But if it’s just one writer, you might go and spend the afternoon and not enjoy it,” she says.
Part of the problem may be that the Elgin Street series has never made an open mic as part of its program. Metcalf says he just wasn’t interested in doing that.
But, he says, this may be why more writers don’t attend — there is no opportunity for them to present their own work.
Sharpe says she agrees that the absence of an open mic loses an audience that poetry readings often attract — a public that wants to share its work as well as hear that of others.
Ruth Bowen is a member of the Ottawa Storytellers, a group of people who tell stories from memory at Rasputin’s every Thursday and Sunday night from January to March.
Bowen says the storytelling sessions consistently attract an audience of 30 or more. She attributes its popularity to people’s awe and admiration of the skill of storytellers.
“People think it’s absolutely incredible that we can do two books of The Odyssey from memory, with no paper in front of us,” she says.
A key part of the storytelling series is Thursday night’s swapping ground.
“It is where all things begin,” says Bowen. “We’re training people to listen, and we’re training tellers. On Thursdays it’s folk tales, literary tales, the latest neighbour on the street incident. It’s shorter stories.”
Bowen also says the venue helps them a lot.
“It’s a friendly, warm environment. If we went to the back room of a library, I don’t think it would be as successful,” she says.
Carol Vanasse, who helps to co-ordinate the National Library’s reading series, says she sees the same audience patterns.
“When we have Carol Shields here, for example, we sell out (a 400-seat auditorium),” she says. But new or lesser-known authors draw very small crowds.
“We’re in Ottawa, people here are more conservative, they don’t go out as much as people in Toronto or Montreal.”
She says Ottawans don’t seem to enjoy going out on weeknights.
“By Thursday night they seem to be ready to go somewhere,” Vanasse says.
The readings at the National Library will be just about the only other place in Ottawa that holds fiction readings after the Elgin Street series ends in December.