RECAP: "Spirits with the Spirits"

Friday night's "Spirits with the Spirits" event was a spirited event indeed!

What started as small, planned WriteOn Joliet presence turned into a BryonySeries/B.L.O.C.K.S. takeover when my WriteOn counterpart got caught at work and couldn't make it.

By then, even I debated about coming out, since I wasn't feeling the best, was really dragging, and we would be hanging out in the cold in front of Black Cat Curiosities for four hours (not including setting up and tearing down).

Well, our plans went awry. But the event did not.

The event went really, really well.

We did an edited three-part reading of the BryonySeries version of "Stingy Jack," with Cindy as Satan, Rebekah as Jack, and me as Owen/narrator every fifteen minutes or so for the entire event.

Three times Cindy and Rebekah walked away for food and came back empty-handed because the lines were so long (they finally came back at 8 p.m. with food - and we were fortified in the meantime with hot drinks Timothy and Daniel had brought from Jitters).

So during those times, I read all three parts myself.

We read very, very loudly (our best outside voices) to attract (successfully) people to our table. Sometimes we read to one person. Sometimes we read to a small group.

At one point, we had a dozen people listening to the story (that group had two in costume).

And thanks to Cindy and Rebekah (who wore a sweatshirt that said "black cat"), we also had a dozen candy-filled, Cindy-crocheted pumpkins with slips of paper inside.

Most slips had a fun quote from a BryonySeries book.

But four slips contained "Jack's soul."

Anyone who drew a "soul" could take home his or her BryonySeries book of their choice, thanks to Cindy's co-workers, who sponsored the giveaways.

When we ran out of pumpkins, I slipped some "souls" into our BryonySeries Mystery Gift Quotes. So anyone who listened to a reading could take a gift quote to keep. The one drawing a soul - well, you know.

We also gave books to two homeless people, who both really wanted the books.

Rebekah also gave away one of our diners and our lantern with a book to a homeless man who wanted both (and seriously looked like he needed both).

We passed out flyers to WriteOn Joliet'a anthology release party froim 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 4 at the Joliet Public Libray, 150 N. Ottawa St. in Joliet. (See what I did there?).

And we sold three books online the next day.

We also made certain any passersby checked out the vintage store, and everyone we noticed left smiling (and some had made purchases, too).

I learned the owner loves Gothic/19th Century fiction. So as a "thank you," I gifted her all five volumes of the BryonySeries prequel "Before The Blood."

So approximately twenty books found new homes, thanks to "Spirits with the Spirits."

Finally, Cindy's own "black cat" Stella hung out with us for the night. If the books, the store, and the entertainment wasn't enough to grab people's attention, the kitten certainly did.

We cannot wait for next year!