Every year, Creative Colloquy hosts a literary pub crawl in downtown Tacoma. In 2020, due to the pandemic, CC is bringing the stories to you. This year’s Creative Colloquy Crawlwill be 100% online, all-ages and spread over a whole weekend of literary awesomeness, kicking off with a virtual happy hour on Friday, October 2. You can join in from anywhere to listen to stories by women of color, hear some new urban legends or tune in for our first-ever story time for kids.
If you’re interested in hearing me perform, you’re in luck. My short story “Pyrocene” was selected for inclusion in Creative Colloquy’s seventh annual print anthology. Volume 7 will be available to purchase later this year, but I’ll be reading it during the Volume Seven Sneaky Peeks event on Saturday, October 3 at 2pm Pacific alongside other authors whose work will be featured in the anthology.
Each event is free to attend, but you do need to register in advance to get access to the Zoom link. Learn more about the weekend’s shenanigans and RSVP below:
The Crawl is one of my favorite events of the year and while I will miss the excitement of the in-person events (and frantically running between venues to catch my favorite writers and musicians), but I also think this will be the best Crawl yet. If you couldn’t attend before because you don’t live nearby or because you can’t make it out to a bar on a weeknight or because members of your entourage are under the legal drinking age, I hope you’ll be able to make it to one or more of the virtual readings. Mark your calendar for October 2-4 — and I hope to see you there!
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Jonny Eberle is a writer, photographer, filmmaker in Tacoma, WA. His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Creative Colloquy and Grit City Magazine. Follow him on Twitter and subscribe to the mailing list today for exclusive content delivered to your inbox once a month.
The Avenue in the Rain (1917) by Childe Hassam. Part of the White House’s permanent art collection.
“I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.” – John F. Kennedy
The National Endowment for the Arts (along with its sibling agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities) was established by Congress 1965 as the fulfillment of a Kennedy-era dream to support and encourage the development of American art. It also set out to correct inequity in access for the arts in low income and African American communities and bring the arts out of the ivory towers and to all Americans.
More than 50 years later, though hobbled by decreased funding and dogged by political attacks, the NEA still provides an essential service to our nation. Today, the vast majority of audiences for plays, symphonies, readings and exhibitions are middle/upper class, middle-aged, white, and living in affluent urban communities. And though private funding keeps these cultural meccas alive, struggling artists in rural towns, young people, and minorities are far less likely to have access to money from foundations and wealthy donors to make arts programming possible.
The NEA steps in to level the playing field. In 2016, the NEA helped to provide 23,000 grants in 5,000 communities, which reached every congressional district in the United States. That funding turned into 30,000 concerts, readings, performances and exhibitions that were seen by a staggering 20 million people. The NEA also supports arts education in our schools, with 50% of its education projects located in low income neighborhoods.
The president’s proposed budget aims to eviscerate this important work by completely eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. These cuts are proposed as a way of reigning in a bloated federal government, but these programs are only a drop in the bucket. The NEA accounts for only $148 million, or 0.012% of the total $3.65 trillion federal budget. By contrast, Trump is calling for a $50 billion increase in defense spending. Cutting the NEA is purely symbolic and does nothing to balance the federal budget.
Even from a purely economic point of view, funding the arts makes sense. The arts industry employs 4.7 million people and contributes $698 billion to the U.S. economy (4.3% of GDP). That’s more than the construction, transportation, or warehousing industries and is an excellent investment of our tax dollars.
We must protect our federal arts funding. And we must fight to preserve it from those who see more value in a fighter jet than a one-act play. We must declare loudly that the arts matter and we must do it now—before it is too late.
“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.” – John F. Kennedy.
My newest short story, “Inheritance,” was just published by Creative Colloquy. Two old friends take on a massive project when they renovate an old theatre and run into some unexpected trouble. I’d appreciate it if you’d take a few minutes to read it.
While you’re on CC’s site, you should also check out the stories and poems by Kristen Orlando, Cordell Corbin, Sharon Frame Gay, and Marck T. Wilder.
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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. He can often be found writing, drinking tea, and looking wistfully out windows. If you liked that, join the mailing list.
They say you are just a dwarf planet; that you are not the largest object beyond Neptune. You were demoted and nearly forgotten. Relegated to a footnote in a science book. A blurry dot in the distant firmament.
I grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, the town where you were first discovered. I went up the hill to Lowell Observatory and stood in the dome where a 23-year-old Clyde Tombaugh first spotted Planet X on a frigid February night. I looked up at that night sky and wondered what it must’ve felt to lay eyes on a brand new planet. Your discovery was a point of pride for our town.
Over the last 85 years, you’ve taken your knocks. Other dwarf planets pushed you out of the spotlight. Today, you finally got some respect. New Horizons, a spacecraft the size of a grand piano rocketed past you, snapping photos and measuring your chemical composition and atmosphere. And whole world saw you snap into focus. No longer a smudge, but a real place.
You may not be as glamorous as Mars or Jupiter, but now that we’ve seen you close up, maybe everyone will remember you and what you once were. You’ll always be a planet to me, Pluto.
Cosmically yours, Jonny
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Jonny Eberle is a former Flagstaffian living in Tacoma, WA. You can find him on Twitter.
It is late at night on the border between the United States and Canada. Three of us are packed into my dusty Honda Pilot. We’ve been on the road for almost three hours from Tacoma and our destination, Vancouver, BC, is still a 40 minute drive away. It’s been a hot day, shattering old records, but the night is cooled by a breeze off the ocean.
“What’s the purpose of your visit to Canada?” the customs agent asks.
“We’re going to the Women’s World Cup Quarterfinals tomorrow,” I respond. So far, so good. No matter how many times I cross an international border, I still get unnerved talking to border security.
“Do you already have tickets?” he asks.
“Yes, we do,” I answer confidently. I’m tired from the drive and hoping he’s exhausted this line of questioning.
“Did USA win its game today?” he asks. I falter and look around at my passengers — my fiancée and her sister. In our hurry to get up to the border, we completely forgot to check the score of our home country’s most important game to date. We have no idea if we’re even still in the tournament we’ve come to watch. Amazingly, we’re allowed to cross into Canada and I’m left to convert kilometers into miles.
Getting Around
We stay with one of Stephanie’s friends from her time in Germany in an apartment just south of downtown. The morning of the match, we finally get a good look around Vancouver. An economic powerhouse, Vancouver truly is a global city.
From the Porsches parked outside luxury clothing boutiques along Granville Street to the snippets of Chinese overheard in a factory-turned-coffee shop in the gentrified Yaletown district, from the glittering skyscrapers to the bicyclists along the Seawall, Vancouver is too vast to see in a single day, even with the help of it’s comprehensive public transportation system. Our car is unnecessary in town (and parking is prohibitively expensive) with the SkyTrain and the bus able to get you just about anywhere within half an hour.
Game Time
There is nothing quite like being in a stadium with 54,000 fans watching a soccer game. The energy is infectious. We climb to the highest bowl to take our seats and bumble our way through “O, Canada.” When traveling abroad, it’s generally best to attempt to blend in, especially when soccer fans are involved.
It is a tense game, with Canada fighting for dear life to stay in the tournament. In the end, a few mistakes seal the fate of the team sporting red jerseys. England will advance to the semi-finals at Canada’s expense. It is a quiet exit from the stadium, except for the rare whooping of the brave England fans sprinkled throughout the crowd. The bus ride back to Oak Street is packed with silent fans holding back their tears.
The Curse
Back at our friend’s apartment, it’s getting to be dinner time. A bag of overpriced popcorn at the stadium isn’t cutting it. Our friend suggests an idea that’s almost American in its simplicity and laziness — we’re ordering out from a great pasta restaurant that delivers. We place our order and wait…and wait…and wait.
Forty-five minutes go by. An hour. There’s no sign of our dinner. The restaurant, about to close, assures us that the driver is on his way. Our new friend, Amanda, captures our desperation and close brush with cannibalism in a wonderful review later on.
A few months before, at a brunch place in Tacoma called Shakabrah, Stephanie, and her sister and I had a similar experience. Our order got lost between the server and the kitchen. We waited over an hour before someone noticed us guzzling packets of raspberry jam. A week later, at a Thai restaurant, the same thing. And now the pasta place. There’s no denying it: the Shakabrah Brunch Curse is real.
The food finally arrives. The driver doesn’t even have a good excuse. We dig in anyway. Smoked salmon fettuccine never tasted so sweet.
Return to American Soil
The next day, we head south to the country of our birth — a place in the midst of historical events where the Supreme Court had just ruled that gay marriage is finally legal and a hate crime was fueling a conversation about the symbolism of the Confederate Battle Flag.
Our crossing into the United States takes five times as long as the crossing into Canada. Cars line up alongside the Peace Arch, waiting for their turn to go. We watch as Homeland Security walks up and down the rows of cars checking for drugs hidden in in the nooks and crannies of each passing automobile.
I am reminded that ours is a nation of paranoia. A nation of “never again.” And I wonder how we are seen from the outside; how the world regards an America that is so terrified of external threats. But I also remember that we are a country that can change. We are a people who debate and advocate for change. Someday, this crossing will look much different; this country will move on to new issues.
We leave the Great North behind and make a beeline for the nearest rest stop. I can’t help but look at the U.S. differently. That’s what travel does to you. Even a short journey outside the bubble of our everyday experience shifts our point of view just a bit. And maybe we return with renewed vigor for facing the challenges ahead.
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Jonny Eberle is a writer and traveler based in Tacoma, WA. You can follow him on Twitter.
Last week, my heart sank when I heard on my drive to work that several staff of the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo had been killed in a brutal attack in Paris. Journalists and cartoonists — artists like me — had been silenced for their work. The sad news came just weeks after a satirical movie, The Interview, was pulled from theatrical distribution after Sony Pictures was hacked and threatened.
In both instances, violent people took out their frustrations on art. As a medium, satire comments on the news, on the things that are wrong with the world. But now, satire is the news. Rarely is art so wrapped up in ideological struggles. And the fact that hackers and assassins have chosen to turn their sights on artists deeply worries me.
I don’t agree with the decision made by the staff of Charlie Hebdo to print offensive cartoon depictions of the prophet Mohammed. I don’t think I would ever want to watch The Interview. This isn’t about the quality or merit of the expression, but the freedom to express whatever you want.
What worries me even more than the senseless acts of violence perpetrated against artists is the effect it could have on others. When a dark cloud of terror hangs over creators for ideas that may offend, they may censor themselves. I don’t want to live in that kind of world.
We have to be better. We cannot stand for censorship. Art is the mirror of society. Without its pointed commentary, we would never confront our imperfect world. We must continue to question governments, religious institutions and systems of power. We must continue to create. Above all, we must support those who risk their lives to write, paint, speak or draw around the world.
Je suis Charlie.
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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. His name isn’t really Charlie. You can follow him on Twitter.
This weekend, a carefully orchestrated plan came together and I emerged forever changed. It started with an innocent pancake breakfast and a walk on the beach at low tide. Then, I asked my girlfriend, Stephanie, to marry me.
I did it the old fashioned way, with a ring. People have given rings to symbolize their engagement since the time of the Roman Empire, exchanging bands bearing the image of two hands clasped together. In 1477, an archduke gave his beloved the first known diamond engagement ring, starting the modern love affair with shiny carbon stones.
Five hundred years later, I continued the tradition — saving my freelance writing money, kneeling down amid the pebbles and barnacles and holding out a shimmering diamond ring. A friend in a nearby kayak snapped photos. I asked a question. She said yes (and literally snatched the ring from my hand before hauling me to my feet).
As we walked around the bend, Stephanie’s family was cheering for us and popping the cork on a bottle of champagne. I breathed a sigh of relief, not because I was worried about her saying no, not because I was worried that some part of the plan would fail (What if she doesn’t want pancakes? What if she doesn’t want to walk on the beach? What if she recognizes the kayaker?), and not because I was worried about the future.
I sighed because I finally feel like I’m in the right place. It’s the same feeling I get while reading a great book when I know I’m close to the end of a chapter. I can feel this chapter drawing to a close and I’m ready to start the next one. For months now, I’ve felt like I’m at the end of this chapter, with all signs pointing toward the next page.
This weekend, I turned the page and dove into the next adventure in my — our — ongoing story.
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Jonny Eberle is a newly engaged writer living in Tacoma, WA. When he isn’t basking in happiness, spending quality time with his fiancée or thinking about planning next summer’s festivities, you can generally find him among disreputable company on Twitter.
It feels great to have my writing reach a larger audience, like hitting a grand slam while eating a pizza; like I’ve climbed to the mountaintop secret writing club, been accepted and received a jacket with my name embroidered on it. I’m certain that fame, fortune and lucrative book deals are in the mail as we speak.
This is the first time one of my stories has been published and I’m very proud of it. While you’re over on Creative Colloquy’s site, check out the other stories. CC is an awesome literary website that publishes new work by South Sound writers every two weeks. Once a month, they also host a reading and open mic night in Tacoma.
This month, I’ll be one of the featured writers. If you’re in the Seattle-Tacoma area, come down to the B Sharp Coffee House on Monday, July 28 at 7:00 pm. I be reading my short story alongside other talented storytellers. Come support local writers and artists!
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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. You just read all about his new story, but did you know that he also has a Twitter feed? Once you’re done reading, you should follow him on Twitter and tweet him your thoughts. Thanks for reading!
We need to do something about gun violence. This week, a student opened fire in a high school outside of Portland, Oregon, killing one student and injuring a teacher. It would be shocking enough if the Oregon tragedy was an isolated outburst of violence, but it isn’t. It’s the fourth multiple shooting in the United States in the last six days and the 74th school shooting since the Newtown massacre of 2012.
A lot of good articles have already been written about every angle of this epidemic. We’ve blamed the lack of mental healthcare in our country, cyberbullying, video games and the availability of guns, but I think writers have a role to play, too.
Let me begin with a disclaimer: While I do make an effort to focus this blog on writing and not my opinions on current events, I think it’s important that we examine the way we talk about acts of violence. As writers, readers and storytellers, we have an enormous amount of power to shape public perception of these events, whether you’re a reporter, a columnist, a blogger or someone who shares their thoughts on social media. The words we use in our telling and retelling of these tragedies and details we include has an impact.
It all begins with the 24-hour news cycle. The instant a shot rings out across a college campus, the news hits websites and news feeds around the world. Our hunger for information drives reporters to go beyond the play-by-play of the shooting. We uncover the shady details of the shooter’s home life, his demons, his Facebook rants, how his kills rank against past shooters. We pick apart his methods and motivations. And in the eyes of some would-be shooter, the perpetrator of these crimes becomes a larger-than-life figure. The shooter becomes a cultural icon that overshadows the victims and the community. It may make for juicier cover stories, but it could be perpetuating the cycle of violence.
To be fair, the evidence that the media contributes to copycat shootings is mostly anecdotal. We don’t really know what drives a person to commit mass murder. According to Dr. Alex Mesoudi of Durham University, it is difficult to pinpoint a single trigger for mass shootings, but it is possible that media coverage itself encourages people who are merely troubled to get their 15 minutes of fame on the national stage. In a 2013 article, Dr. Mesoudi writes:
“Despite the confidence of many of these commentators in their views, empirical research into mass shootings is far less conclusive, and points to a confluence of factors. The availability of guns surely plays a role, as indicated by the sudden drop in mass shootings in Australia following a ban on semi-automatic shotguns and rifles. But while the availability of guns is necessary, it is surely not sufficient. Some perpetrators may suffer from some form of mental illness such as antisocial personality disorder, but the frequency of psychosis or severe mental illness amongst mass shooters is surprisingly rare. The effects of violence in movies, television and video games continues to be studied and debated: violent video games can trigger aggressive behaviour in a laboratory setting, but whether this extends to real-life cases of mass shootings is uncertain.
One potential cause of mass shootings that receives little attention in the mass media, however, is the mass media themselves. It may be that, simply by devoting continual, non-stop coverage to these events, the media may be encouraging ‘copycat’ mass shootings.”
It’s easy to get caught up in our curiosity. We all want to understand the motivations that cause our neighbors to become senseless killers. That curiosity is a natural impulse, but we should be aware that sensational coverage of a shooting can send the wrong message to the segment of Americans who might idolize murderers.
We shouldn’t give these people the spotlight. As tempting as it is to tease out the background of a killer, we need to resist that temptation. We’re telling a dangerous story; one that can be twisted to support a desire to cause harm. It can even lead to further bloodshed. When we write about shootings or talk about them with friends, we need to change the way we talk about them. The other day, my girlfriend and I were talking about the paranoia and ideology that motivated the murder of two police officers and a bystander in Las Vegas this weekend. And I realized that I don’t actually have any desire to know who these men were and why they felt the need to gun down three people in cold blood.
The shootings that are rocking this nation should not serve the shooters. We should remember the victims. We should recognize the heroes. We should push our elected officials to pass good legislation. We should change the way people get access to guns. We should build an infrastructure for mental healthcare. We should have a national conversation about violence. We should teach our boys and young men that slaughter is unacceptable. But we should do it without throwing fuel on the fire.
In Canada, the Sun News Network is doing exactly this. Following a recent multiple shooting, the network chose not to report the shooter’s name or show his picture. In an editorial defending the decision they wrote: “It’s easy to report on the life of the killer, to scour his deranged Facebook page, to speculate about motive, but doing so could actually encourage the perception that his heinous acts are somehow justified. We will not help give this killer his blaze of glory.”
We are a long way from addressing violence in this country. There are many causes and there will be many solutions to gradually chip away at the phenomenon until it only exists in memory. Maybe the first step is changing the story we tell. Maybe the first step is to take away the blaze of glory.
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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. Please share this with your friends. Let’s start a discussion. You can comment below or on Twitter. Thanks for reading.
I was just starting to write freelance articles on foreign affairs and conflict areas when the full scope of the NSA’s domestic spying program came to light. We learned that the government is tapping into smartphone data, breaking online encryption and gathering data from emails, phone calls and financial transactions. The NSA effectively has all of us under surveillance. You never know who might be listening in on your phone call or reading your email. Each new leak gave me pause.
I worried that I might be under the microscope because of what I was writing. My articles cover the restless areas of the world that are so crucial to United States foreign policy, including detailed reports on the Syrian civil war, drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Egyptian coup and terrorism in North Africa. My articles are strictly news — not manifestos or opinions — and I stand by my words as a journalist. I report facts, using the best news sources as my guide. But even so, I couldn’t help but wonder if my work had attracted attention because of the subject matter.
We live in the age of Big Data, where the little snippets of information (from cell phone conversations, Google searches and email exchanges) add up to form a complete picture of our views, our habits and our preferences. No one can escape the net our governments are casting.
This has caused a lot of concern in the writing community. According to the PEN American Center, 73% of writing professionals surveyed said they had “never been as worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are today.” Significant numbers had curtailed their activities on social media or avoided discussing certain topics on the phone or via email. Sixteen percent said they had even avoided writing or speaking about a certain topic.
When surveillance is so widespread, it is easy to fall into self-censorship. We want to fly under the radar rather than challenge the infringement on our rights. The framers of the Constitution knew how important a free press was to a democracy — so important, they protected it in the First Amendment. But now, I feel that freedom eroding away.
Censorship is subtle, beginning with the smallest of ideas: That you’re being watched. That worries me, because we need the freedom to write. We need the freedom to report the truth and encourage civil discourse on controversial issues.
I’ve started to carefully consider what I say in emails and text messages and questioned the security of my cloud storage since I heard about the Snowden leaks. I will not be deterred from writing. I hope journalists and editors everywhere will not be deterred from providing their vital service to the public. And I hope normal citizens will not be scared into silence.
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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. He writes on foreign relations for Grey Cell. You can follow him on Twitter, but kindly requests that you don’t spy on his email correspondence.
Five hundred years later, I continued the tradition — saving my freelance writing money, kneeling down amid the pebbles and barnacles and holding out a shimmering diamond ring. A friend in a nearby kayak snapped photos. I asked a question. She said yes (and literally snatched the ring from my hand before hauling me to my feet).
J.W. Eberle 