Steven Ostrowski is a fiction writer and poet who teaches at Central Connecticut State University. His work appears in numerous journals, including Raritan, Madison Review, Literary Orphans, Sleet, and Wisconsin Review. He has published chapbooks with Bright Hill Press and Finishing Line Press.
I appreciate your finding narrative authority and authenticity in Eliot’s performance scene in chapter one. I do play guitar—badly—and sing—really badly—and write songs, some of which I think aren’t so bad. I have played and sung a few times in my life in front of small audiences, but mostly I’ve simply fantasized– in startling detail, mind you– about being this very cool, very enigmatic, slightly physically spastic but powerful singer-songwriter who’s up there all alone on the stage with his guitar in a small cone of light, making people pay attention because some mysterious combination of words and music mesmerizes them, even changes their consciousness. Like I said, it’s a long-running fantasy of mine. Likely to stay that, too.
