Interview with Charlie Anders, impresario of the Writers with Drinks literary readings series

San Francisco writer Charlie Anders has been organizing and MCing the spoken word event Writers With Drinks for over five years. The series, which takes place on the second Saturday of the month at the Make Out Room on 22nd St. near Mission, attracts a standing-room-only audience of over 100, mostly people in their 20s and 30s, to hear novelists, poets, comedians, and non-fiction writers read from their work.

Anders, a tall, slender woman with a shy demeanor, transforms on stage into a scattershot comic whose introductions of writers tend toward the fantastic and veer off into uncharted comic territory. She says, "It's easy to be funny when you're caffeinated and everybody else is drunk."

Anders is also the author of the novel Choir Boy (Soft Skull Press, 2005), about an boy whose career as a star falsetto is threatened by adolescence.

 

 
Q. How long has WWD been going, and how many writers have you had in that time?

A. In April it'll be five years. Maybe 150-200 writers over that time.

 
Q. So how did the Writers With Drinks series end up in a bar?

A. I always liked the idea of doing a spoken word show in a bar -- it's less stuffy, more freewheeling. If people like one of the readings, they can get drunk and get it tattooed on their butt -- or on their back if it's a longer piece.

 
Q. The series has been at the Make Out Room on 22nd St. for more than two years. How did you find the right bar?

A. The number one piece of advice for finding a venue for a spoken word show -- try to find a rock venue, a place that has music. It's a better space, usually they'll have a good sound system. When I saw the Make Out Room I could tell they were the best -- the atmosphere, the location, the fact that it was disabled-accessible -- that was important. Café du Nord, where the series started, was the most inaccessible place imaginable -- even for people who aren't disabled it's hard to get around in.

The thing I always wanted to do with WWD -- my attitude was always "start early, be done early." My offer to the management was, you can have our event, and afterward you can have your main event. We'll be out whenever you want. Actually the Make Out Room DJ doesn't start til 10 on Saturdays, so we go from 7:30 to 9:30.

 
Q. Still, a Saturday night in a popular bar, it's not a usual time to have a spoken word event.

A. I got that time slot by being low risk. That's good to do if you're starting a show. I've seen a lot of shows die because they took on a risky time slot and they couldn't get a big enough crowd fast enough to justify the time slot.

Another rule I would suggest for word evenings: don't pay for the venue. They'll make enough money on drinks. And if you're doing it at a time when they'd normally be empty, they'll be happy. Never put yourself in a position where you might lose money.

 
Q. The Writers with Drinks readings are a benefit for Other Magazine?

A. Yeah, that was one of the reasons we started Other Magazine, so we could have something to do a benefit for. At first it was a benefit for Anything That Moves, but they went under. And we wanted it to be for something. Annalee [Newitz] came up with the basic idea of Other Magazine.

 
Q. Which is?

A. It's a general interest magazine like the New Yorker or Harpers, but aimed at an alternative readership that don't see themselves represented in the mainstream media -- the New Outcasts, people who are too queer or too nerdy or too other to be represented in the mainstream media.

 
Q. Is that also true of the writers who appear at WWD?

A. At WWD, there's no particular kind of writer, not even "other." Other (Magazine) is about rejecting categories; at WWD we experience the categories and put them up next to each other.

 
Q. You book four to six writers in each show month after month. That's a lot of writers -- how do you find them?

A. I'm constantly looking for writers to participate. I'll spend hours Googling. I also spend hours -- any time I receive an email announcement about a spoken word event or a reading, I'll save the email. And sometimes get recommendations from friends.

 
Q. What's your motivation for doing this? What do you get out of it?

A. I think it's fun. I really enjoy trying to break down these artificial divisions between different types of writing. It's like a mashup. It's fun to show how these different genres are the same and different. It's like collage.

 
Q. One of the most entertaining aspects of each evening is the introductions you give to each writer. The introductions are usually about half actual facts and half stuff that's completely made up. Are these completely spontaneous, or do you think about them in advance?

A. I try to be spontaneous; I'll think about them for 15 minutes a day.

 
Q. But how do you come up with all that funny made-up stuff?

A. I'm not making anything up about them, I'm revealing the truer truth about them. Nobody has ever been offended.

 
Q. Do you have any history doing standup or improv comedy?

A. No. I was MCing events for Comet magazine -- that's where I started being kind of loopy.

I think it was a good thing when I decided to no longer drink during the show. Once I had a couple of drinks and started off on this whole thing about how the audience had to love me. I thought it was funny, but the audience didn't, so much. I thought okay, maybe I should not drink. I'm on caffeine and everybody else is on alcohol. It's easy to be funny when you're caffeinated and everybody else is drunk.

 
Q. How do you fit your WWD work into your career as a writer?

A. Reading your stuff aloud allows you to see how dumb it is, and talking a lot allows you to see what works and what doesn't. Sometimes people don't realize I'm a writer, they think I'm just this mental patient that was let out. I hit them on the forehead with my book to make them see I'm a writer.

I just finished a second novel. A couple of people are critiquing it, and I'm hoping to sell that someplace. Meanwhile my novel Choir Boy has been translated into Italian.

 
Q. Who are some of the biggest names you've had, and how do you get them?

A. Lauren Slater, Vendela Vida, Andrew Sean Greer, Karen Joy Fowler -- we just had Peter Beagle. I get them mostly by email begging. The longer I've been doing it, the easier it is to get people.

 
Q. Do people now make WWD a stop on their book tours?

A. I'd love to have publishers put their writers on book tours in our series.

The next Writers with Drinks, on Dec. 10 at the Make Out Room (map), features Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club, Beth Lisick, author of Everybody Into the Pool, and Terry Bisson, author of Bears Discover Fire. For more information, see www.writerswithdrinks.com.