Made in the Shade

 

There are regular venues for Noir at the Bar other than the Shade Bar in Greenwich Village. I have a lot of excellent personal experience with Yonder in Hillsborough NC, and, knowing some of the people who routinely host these events, I’m sure there are others. No offense to any of them, but there’s something special about Shade.

 

I’m a small town boy who avoids NYC at every opportunity, so my feelings toward Shade aren’t a matter of “Everything is better in the Apple” syndrome. Shade has three things going for it, two of which are crucial.

 

1. The atmosphere. I expected a bigger place; what I found was better. The intimacy of the setting means no one is on the periphery, so distractions are virtually non-existent. This is helped considerably by bartender Laurie Beck, who keeps everyone’s glasses full while never disrupting the performances.

 

2. New York City, for all the things that drive me crazy about it (I’ll delve into that in a future blog), is the epicenter of the American publishing world. The publishers and a significant majority of the agents are here, which attracts authors like hummingbirds to sugar water. Shade can draw a top-notch lineup at the drop of a hat, and routinely does.

 

3. Todd Robinson, aka Big Daddy Thug. The founder of Thuglit, Todd has launched more careers than American Idol. The list of well-known authors who got their first stories published there includes (off the top of my head) S.A. Cosby, Hilary Davidson, Johnny Shaw, Jordan Harper, and many more. (And me, but don’t hold that against him.) Todd needs only to put out the word and he’ll have well-known authors (and me) lined up to read for him; the place and time are secondary.

 

This is where I must confess to having prejudice. The first piece of my writing someone paid money for was a short story titled “Green Gables.” Todd passed at first, but liked it enough to work with me to get it over the hump. There aren’t many who do that these days, especially at venues that receive the quantity of submissions Thuglit did. “Green Gables” was selected for the anthology, Blood, Guts, and Whiskey, where I was flattered to appear with Max Allan Collins, Craig McDonald, Stuart Neville, Hilary Davidson, Kieran Shea, Jedidiah Ayres, Dave Zeltserman, and others. That was when it occurred to me that what I wrote might have an audience. I still have a photocopy of the check on my office wall. (The memo line reads, “Loot.”)

 

So, yeah, to me Shade is the Mecca of Noirs at Bars. I was beyond delighted to read last Sunday night, especially to share the stage with such talents as Big Daddy himself, James Grady, S.A. Cosby, Eryk Pruitt, Rob Hart, Tom Schreck, Rob Creekmore, Erin E. Adams, and Galal Chater. My story was well received, but not even The Beloved Spouse™ and I thought it cracked the top half of what was read that night.

 

The evening was well worth overcoming my New York aversion. You can’t understand what high praise that is until you know what we went through to get there, which is a blog post of its own, probably in a couple of weeks.