A Reading with Kelly Foster

If you’re a Good Letters reader in the Seattle era, blogger emerita Kelly Foster, now Image’s 2012-2013 Milton Fellow in Creative Nonfiction, will be reading her work at the Seattle Pacific Art Center Gallery on Friday, February 8, 2013, at 7 pm. Find out more event details here, and go here to sign up for our local events list and receive occasional updates on arts and faith events in the Seattle area.

An excerpt from “Blood Roses,” an essay by Kelly Foster:

“He doesn’t leave. But I must. I must go back to my cabin, and I must go alone. I close the door behind me on the way out, and I count out the minutes until dinner without even realizing I am counting them. Fifteen. Fifteen minutes in which I will not be seeing him and he will not be seeing me and we will not be listening to music. And that will be the measure I use to measure time for the next two months of camp. Thirty minutes till I see him. Thirty minutes since I saw him. Fifteen minutes until dinner.

I close the door behind me in my cabin and try not to be too restless, try not to feel as though I am invisible. The first thing I notice as I catch a glimpse of myself (still visible) in the mirror is that the brown scrunchie has slipped and my hair is falling down and the rose in my hair doesn’t look cute, it looks ridiculous. I prick the back of my ear pulling it out, and the stem gets stuck in my hair as it falls in tangled curls down around my shoulders. My eyes are too big. My nose is too big. My teeth are gappy and strange. My hair kinks in humidity. My face is too round. I am twenty pounds overweight. Maybe I am ridiculous. Maybe. Maybe. But I am the girl who listened to Tori Amos in Devin’s cabin. And I will see him in fifteen minutes at dinner, and we will sit together over Salisbury Steaks the size of playing cards, and rehydrated potatoes.

And for that length of time, he will make me visible.”

Hear Kelly read her work on Friday, February 8. Find out more here, and go here to make sure you receive word of Seattle-area Image events.