When my short story “The Light in the Heart: A Haunting” came out in Bourbon Penn this summer, actor and voiceover artist Kirk Lawrence-Howard reached out to ask my permission to record himself reading it. Kirk had previously read one of my poems on YouTube as part of his ongoing support of Ukraine. He voiced so many poems by Ukrainian writers over the years, helping to garner support for the Ukrainian people. I told him I would be honored.
I never got the chance to share that recording broadly, and then on September 3, 2024, Kirk’s husband Jamie posted that Kirk Lawrence-Howard passed away from complications of Covid that morning.
In the months since his death, I have listened to many of Kirk’s recordings. He had a gift for capturing the heart of powerful words, drawing from his more than 40 years of theatrical performance experience. Many of them are archived here on his YouTube channel, Bespoke Vocals: https://www.youtube.com/@bespokevocals
I wanted to post Kirk’s reading of my haunted house story on Halloween, because this is the day when many of us honor the ancestors, our Beloved Dead who have passed from this life into the Mystery that lies beyond. On this day, as costumed children go off to collect their treats, many of us light candles, review photographs, prepare recipes written in the handwriting of the dead, raise our glasses, tell stories or sit in reflective silence…and remember.
“The Light in the Heart” is a love story at its core, something that Kirk immediately understood and captured so beautifully. I share this recording to honor him in gratitude and remembrance. On this day when we reflect on love that can no longer be held by earthly bodies, we gather with those who remain, and we send that love out into the cracks and shadows of the Unknown.
I love hearing authors read their own work, especially when those authors are good readers. The first time I ever heard a “real live author” read their work was when I was in high school and went to see Anne Rice read in a bookstore in downtown Chicago. It blew my mind that I could actually talk with (well, shyly say hello to) the person who wrote it. That may have been the day authors became real people for me, watching Anne Rice sitting at a table talking to her fans.
I would not be introduced to conventions or fandom for another 20 years, but I did discover Stars Our Destination bookstore in college, which had a schedule of authors coming in to read and sign. Chicago was a frequent stop, and I was finally able to meet a few of my favorite authors in various bookstores around the city.
Today, thanks to the internet, we can watch readings from all over the world—live and recorded—and now I’m delighted to enjoy readings by writer-friends and colleagues who live in other cities and countries. It helps to hold me over until the next time I get to travel or attend a conference, where I can see and hug them in person.
This weekend, Atthis Arts hosted a reading on YouTube, featuring our publisher, Emily Bell, as well as two of the authors and two of the translators from Embroidered Worlds: Fantastic Fiction from Ukraine and the Diaspora:
“The Rainbow Bridge” by Iryna Pasko,
translated by Hanna Leliv
“The Bike Shadow” by Yaryna Katorozh,
translated by Kateryna Darchyk
I was celebrating my birthday with my family when the reading was live on the air, so I watched the entire video the next day, grinning at the screen the entire time.
Translator Kateryna Darchyk hosted and did a wonderful job addressing both English and Ukrainian audiences. The two stories were read in their original Ukrainian by the authors; then Hanna read her translation of “The Rainbow Bridge” and Emily read Kateryna’s translation of “The Bike Shadow.”
It was SO good! Such a joy to listen to the stories read aloud after having read and worked with them while editing the anthology. I invite you to check it out here:
The reading was free, but they were also raising money to help the Hospitallers in Ukraine, a volunteer organization of paramedics founded by Yana Zinkevich at the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine in 2014. The slogan of the Hospitallers is “Заради кожного життя” (“For the sake of every life”).
As we approach the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of February 24, 2022, organizations like the Hospitallers are doing such important work to help the people of Ukraine. You can donate at their website: https://www.hospitallers.life/
The physical books are still in customs in Kyiv on their way to our authors and editors in Ukraine. They have not yet had the chance to hold Embroidered Worlds in their hands, but we are hoping that they soon will.
Thank you once more to everyone who helped us to make and share Embroidered Worlds. As Emily mentioned during the reading, if there are book clubs, libraries, or schools who are interested in reading Embroidered Worlds, they can get in touch with Atthis Arts.
We are asking you to consider “The Embroidered Worlds Funding Campaign” by Valya Dudycz Lupescu and E.D.E. Bell for Best Related Work. This includes our work securing an international grant after the already received grant was rescinded, and our community and culture celebrating crowdfunding campaign at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atthisarts/embroidered-worlds/ featuring guest writers from around the world. Because of the grant requirements, the entire process from the start of crowdfunding through translation, editing, sensitivity reading, typesetting, and production, to full publication was done within eleven weeks starting 01 September 2023. This late-in-the-year release was therefore necessary after previous external delays, but put us in a difficult position for awards visibility.
The website also lists short stories from the collection that are eligible, as well as several other authors, editors, and stories that are eligible and were published by Atthis Arts. I am honored to be in such good company.
I never got the chance to share that recording broadly, and then on September 3, 2024, Kirk’s husband Jamie posted that Kirk Lawrence-Howard passed away from complications of Covid that morning.
