How to Give a Reading at an Open Mic

Five Tips for Giving a Memorable Reading Performance

Before the pandemic, my ideal Friday night was going to an open mic and performing one of my pieces for a small crowd of writers and readers. After a reading, people often come up to me and ask how they can improve their own performances. A lot of people assume that the key is rote practice or natural-born charisma. But the reality is that there are actually five concrete steps I take to ensure that my readings are captivating and memorable. For this month’s AMA, we’re going to break down how you can use these steps to enhance your own public readings.

First, let’s take a look at a reading I gave at the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. This poem was originally published in Third Wednesday Vol. IX, No. 4 (2016). I’ve included the poem’s text below as well.

“Good Shit” by Kat Lewis

I love the smell of shit.

Not any kind of shit, but horseshit.

That’s the good kind of shit.

It’s the shit that steeped the air when I was five,

and running paddock to paddock in rain boots that fit like boats.

It reminds me of the time I tripped on the third porch step,

and rammed black splinters into the heels of my palms.

It was there when I stood on that same goddamn step

with an almost-born chick in my hands,

and asked you where the soul

goes if it never got to breathe.

August baked the scent into my hair

while I mucked every stall twice 

after your funeral, and watched

the rooster trample his children

with red eyes wide with cruel pride.

The dogs, Trouble and Maker, 

always smelled like horseshit 

when they came into the house at night. 

The smell faded from the carpet

the day Trouble never came back,

but it stayed in the pasture with Maker

as she stood in the tall, dead grass, 

sun-blinded eyes waiting and knowing.

When I was in college, the single, most important class I took was Performing Fiction and Poetry with David Yezzi. The class was essentially public speaking for writers, and Yezzi taught us the concrete steps we needed to take to prepare, introduce, and perform our work for an audience. This post will demonstrate how I applied my takeaways from this class to the performance above.

5 Tips for Giving a Memorable Reading Performance

1. The performance starts the second you set foot on stage.

For the first week of our class, we did not read a single word from our work. Yezzi had each of us take turns walking on stage, and he stopped us to correct our postures, gaits, and how we greeted the audience with a smile.

At most public events (especially ones for awkward, introverted writers!), the audience is inherently nervous. For the most part, the average person doesn’t want to experience secondhand embarrassment by seeing a public event take a turn for the worse. As a result, the best thing a writer can do is take the stage and put the audience at ease. When we confidently walk onto the stage, look directly at the audience, and smile, this reassures the audience we know what we’re doing and the event won’t go off the rails. The audience is more likely to pay closer attention to our performances if they’re relaxed, and it’s so much easier to perform to people who are attentive and listening.

Yezzi held our class in the Merrick Barn theater at Hopkins, so we could practice walking on and smiling at our audience with stage lights in our faces. Since most people don’t have easy access to a stage for practice, I recommend practicing in front of a mirror to remind yourself to stand tall, smile, and relax because you know what you're doing.

Kat performing at the Merrick Barn in 2015

Once at the podium or mic, take your time to get your microphone and papers or tablet situated before speaking to the audience. If you address the audience while you’re fumbling to find your first piece, it wrecks the credibility you’ve built with your confident walk-on. I recommend reading off of paper or a tablet because I personally think it looks more professional than a smartphone. If you read from paper, do not staple or paperclip your pages. Page turns are easier (and quieter!) if the papers are not attached.

2. Practice your self-introduction

A common issue I see during open mics is that writers have flawlessly practiced reading their piece, but they ramble through their introduction and lose the audience’s trust and attention before they even begin reading. For this reason, it’s so important to memorize and practice your self-introduction beforehand. A great self-introduction has four key parts: