How to Read for an Audience

How to Read for an Audience is the first book designed to teach writers how to present their work in public. Short yet packed with information, this indispensable guide advises you how to choose your material, how to prepare, and how to make your bookstore reading or open mic a powerful promotion of your work.

Nervous? Feeling unprepared or overwhelmed? Worry no more! James Navé and Allegra Huston, a performance poet/creativity coach and a novelist/editor, share their decades of combined experience in an easy-to-read guide that will increase both your comfort level and your skill in reading for an audience. You might even come to enjoy it!

"Bursting with outstanding insights and fresh ideas . . . should be required reading for all writers, as well as all creative writing teachers and students. Whether you're a newbie beginner or a well-seasoned pro, this book will make you a better reader and writer."
-Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist and former teacher at Iowa Writers Workshop
"Deft, clear and charming . . . This series promises to immediately fill a tremendous need in the lives of those of who still live and die by the book." -Jonathan Lethem, NYT bestselling novelist and Roy E. Disney '51 Chair in Creative Writing, Pomona College
"James Navé's help is practical, unique and gets to the psychological core. He is encouraging in that most helpful sense: he shows you how to find your courage." - Greg Palast, investigative journalist and NYT bestselling author