Loopy for Literature?
Interview with The Inner Loop, a literary reading series in DC.
The literary scene in DC is as exciting as ever. Bookstores are popping up again — East City Bookshop on Pennsylvania Avenue is a recent favorite. July’s DC Zinefest will highlight exciting small-press work. And one of the most exciting resources for local writers just turned three years old.
The Inner Loop is a monthly literary series. In events at Colony Club, Shaw’s Tavern, Petworth Citizen and more, they’ve given new and experienced writers a place to hone their craft and share their work with a small but earnest audience. Their website is a boon to DMV literati — note their helpful list of community resources, which includes links to small presses, quarterlies, venues and workshops.
I recently joined their third anniversary, replete with live poetry, readings of short fiction, visual art for sale, and plentiful National Bohemian. The event was convivial, and I left not only with a poem about iguanas dedicated to me — you had to be there — but also with a sense of inspiration and community.
To learn more about The Inner Loop, I emailed with Rachel Coonce and Courtney Sexton, who’ve shepherded this community from formation to its three-year anniversary.
Their next reading is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 20th, at Colony Club.
Congratulations on the three year anniversary. When did you know you’d built something worth continuing?
TIL: We were blown away by the immediate support of the community at our very first event in April 2014. 75 audience members showed up to what was then the Petworth Citizen’s Reading Room to listen to an incredibly talented group of readers. The whole thing was better than we had dreamed. Right then we knew this could really be something. In fact, many of the people who were there that very first night are still active in our community.
What kind of literature scene does DC have? Do you find it a satisfying place to live as a writer?
TIL: The literature scene in DC is incredibly diverse. Many of the active, driven writers here juggle their passion for writing with their day jobs in more traditional sectors. We have a constant flow of people from all over the world coming through the city for work or internships or school, and that brings writers with different backgrounds and unique perspectives to the community. Finally, we have several well-regarded MFA and creative writing programs in the area with awarded faculty who draw serious writing students to the community. The result is an incredibly satisfying atmosphere in which to write, especially because these writers are so supportive and generous to one another.
Add to that the juxtaposition of “high” and “low” art within the city, and how can you help but be motivated? We have world-class cultural resources at our disposal (I mean, you can just walk into the Library of Congress), but just as inspiring are the poems in “Street Sense”, the Little Free Libraries, neighborhood projects like Literary Hill Fest and Mount Pleasant Poetry Project… we could go on and on.
How and why did The Inner Loop get started in DC?
TIL: Rachel and I had both lived in DC before meeting during our MFA program at Sarah Lawrence. A few years later, we both found ourselves back in DC and feeling a bit lost without the close-knit family of writers we had grown accustomed to having. We were also both feeling uninspired in our daily work and not writing nearly as much as we wanted to be.
Rachel approached me in February 2014 with the idea to start a series. We didn’t know what to expect because we hadn’t yet been able to tap into the writing community here, and weren’t sure it existed. Lo and behold, it certainly did. It was just a bit fractured. Once we realized it was here, we made it our goal to bring the disparate facets together. It was kind of a selfish endeavor, really.
There was an essay, and then a collection, a couple years ago called “MFA vs NYC,” which seemed to suggest a binary choice between monkish communities where writers write for other writers, and pluralistic cities where writing is part of a tapestry of creative endeavors in urban community. How does The Inner Loop engage that binary?
TIL: The problem of writers writing for other writers is an interesting one. Many writers strive to be published in literary magazines that the general public doesn’t read, and writers themselves admit even they don’t read. Publications in those same magazines, often run by MFA programs or MFA alums, can usher a writer into teaching at the same MFA programs, and the cycle continues. This cycle makes it very difficult to foster innovation in creative writing. And this is where the urban community can be of help. At The Inner Loop, we offer a space where, not just other writers, but the entire community can come — free of charge — to see what their local writers are up to, and those writers can see what the community thinks of what they’re doing.
In a city like this, “how can you help but be motivated?”
Our focus on bringing the words off the page and into physical neighborhood spaces where people feel comfortable erases perceived boundaries that hamper engagement. Additionally, we invite writers from any background to submit to read with us, so writers are exposed to the art coming from different MFA programs and from those choosing not to pursue an MFA. In this way, new influences can be introduced to the system, and innovation can thrive.
Quick Hits with The Inner Loop
Summer read you can’t wait to sit down with.
Rachel Coonce: The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway (action-packed, apocalyptic beauty)
Courtney Sexton: Samantha Irby’s We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. ’cause “bitches gotta eat.”
Favorite place to write in the city.
RC: Any of the lovely little parks along the Potomac.
CS: Montrose Park, Ebenezers Coffeehouse, the Congressional Cemetery.
Courtney, if Rachel went to prison, what would it be for? Rachel, if Courtney went to prison, what would it be for?
RC: Courtney would go to prison for bringing a pocket knife to a private tour of the Capitol Building, and refusing to give it up, because she needs it for knife fights with would-be attackers, Michael-Jackson-Bad style. ← I mean, I didn’t refuse to give it up…
CS: Rachel would go to prison for running an underground banned-book smuggling operation into prisons — the upside being she’d have plenty to read once she got there.
RC: SO TRUE!
