Have we got a tale to tell …

People living in larger cities are often hardpressed to congregate without some communal event (such as sharing ideas in a public forum) to nudge them together. While public readings - a great venue for sharing ideas, if there ever was one - have enjoyed years of popularity abroad (and some years of popularity in Toyko), events in the Kansai where writers can present their work to live audiences have been somewhat sporadic. Things have picked up, however, with the local introduction of US reading event Four Stories. Four Stories is, in the words of founder Tracy Slater, "a salon." "It's a 21st century version of the ‘salon' in the Victorian sense of the word," Slater says. "It's a place where intellectuals and artists can get together to share ideas."

Begun in Boston in September of 2005, Four Stories is a one-evening showcase for four writers to read passages from their work before a local audience. Past readers have included such authors as Michael Lowenthal (Charity Girl), legendary Japanese culture writer Donald Richie (The Inland Sea) and Susan Orlean, whose novel The Orchid Thief was adapted for the Nicholas Cage film Adaptation. The inaugural Four Stories Japan event took place last July, drawing a solid crowd and re-energizing the reading movement in Kansai. "It's not an organization, and not a meet-and-greet event. It's not about networking, although there is a lot of mingle with the authors," Slater says. "It's a community, and I am incredibly satisfied with the results to so far."

Slater, a freelance writer and university instructor, splits her time between Japan (she is married to a local businessman) and the US, and maintains Four Stories events in both countries. "One of the reasons I started Four Stories out here was because I wanted to have a community of writers in Japan like the community I had in Boston," Slater says.

One Four Stories alumni is author and editor Suzanne Kamata (The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan), who took part in the last year's Osaka event. "I always get nervous, but I enjoy readings," Kamata says. "It's nice to hear people laugh in the right places, or just pay attention. When a story of mine is published in a magazine or literary journal, I often get no feedback beyond the editor's comments. It's hard to tell if my work is reaching an audience. During a reading, they're right there.

["I write] because it's fun," Kamata continues. "Also, writing is always a challenge. There is always room for improvement, always something new to try. When you manage to get close to the vision you had in your head, it's very satisfying."

"Not everyone in the audience at Four Stories events is a writer, but I think that quite a few of them are," says Slater, who has taught extensively in prisons ("It's definitely the best work I've ever done"), and is putting the finishing touches on a book about prison activist Stephen Donaldson. "I think it really helps to have a community to be a part of, because it's really hard writing in a vacuum. A big academic social circle makes writing much easier."

"I do [Four Stories] for fun; I get a lot of enjoyment out of it and I think other people do, too," Slater says. "It takes some time and some organization, but it's almost all enjoyable. The writers get free publicity, the audience gets free entertainment; everyone wins."

The next Four Stories event, to be held on March 18th, will take place in Umeda. Admission is free.

Text: Jeff Lo • Photos: Courtsey -Four Stories