Emerald Coast Storytellers – Open Mic Night

I realize how lucky I am to be able to visit the Emerald Coast of the Florida panhandle whenever I want. Sure, it’s thanks to my in-laws, but luckily they adore me, last time I checked. I married into the Rubinstein clan of Philly, PA. The second time around. Lauren, Chris, Pam, and Ed—they’re fun!

I’ll spare you their origin story (and mine), but they’re sometimes residents of a second-story condo in the heart of old Seagrove off historic Highway 30A—a highway that nearly runs between Panama City and Destin, FL. It came at the loss of an historic home in Harvey Cedars, NJ, on the bay side of the Jersey Shore. In the end, I feel like the trade-off has paid copious dividends.

Zero thanks to me, we’ve been hanging out at Sago Sands 202, on and off, for nearly a decade. In ten annums, we’ve made a dozen lifetime’s worth of memories at this funky joynt. That’s how 30A rolls! I’m beyond blessed to periodically escape to it’s spectacular paradise. One sunny day on the beaches of 30A is worth pretty much a dozen in America’s Siberia (aka the greater western Minnesota suburbs). It took me a spell to figure that out, but I know it now, well. My birthday IS 3/2, for Odin’s sake! #pisces #duh #moron

Coaxing a 50/50 Swedish/Norwegian 100% purebred Viking to become a beach person might be the hot wifey’s greatest accomplishment. And she’s plenty fucking accomplished!

Anyway, we’re a bit envious of the “30A community,” because we’re not down there all the time. It’s hard to become a community fixture when you are on-site less than 30 calendar days every year. Yet, we try. So, when an opportunity presented itself, I threw myself at it.

Emerald Cost Storytellers is…well…why don’t they tell you…

Emerald Coast Storytellers is a creative writers group based in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida that seeks to provide uniquely curated, live storytelling events revolving around the written and spoken word. Their mission is to help locals and visitors alike discover, foster, and reignite their creative passions – both on and off the page. 

Anyway, I’ve been stalking them for about a year. Then, like an opportunity dropped from the heavens, they were hosting an open mic night during a beach week with the afore mentioned fam. So, I shot them an inquiry. I got this response…

Hey Blake, we’d love to have you! You’re on the list. Each reader has five minutes up at the mic and we’ll introduce you with a short bio. Is this bio from your website good to pull from?

Dang! I honestly didn’t think it would be that easy. It went like this…

Though Kristi and Ali totally tricked me! They told me I was going 3rd. I was in mid sip of an Aperol Spritz—’cause I fancy—when they called me up as the 2nd reader. Ha!

Though I’m INTJ, and pretty severely—I’ve taken the MBTI twice in two decades, scoring nearly identically on the INTJ scale both times—I daylight as a corporate American. INTJs are known as “The Architect.” Of what, I can’t begin to imagine. But I can blather, and blather, and blather…

I spent the entire summer of 2017 explaining to nearly 500 of my fellow energy industry employees how the transition from Oracle’s Content Server to Microsoft’s SharePoint was gonna go down. As excruciating as that sounds, it’s just the tip of the iceberg of my corporate American speaking resume. I’ve done multiple industry conference presentations, I’ve done webinars for hundreds, and I’m the proverbial go-to emcee each time our department hosts the IT Division Meeting. My atrocious speaking voce aside, I can dazzle a crowd of 10-10,000 as well as any TEDx’er who ever TEDx’ed. Hence, nerves were not at issue on this evening.

Emotions were.

This (bloated) novel is about the fraught relationship between fathers and sons. Specifically, sons desperately trying to sidestep their father’s perceived astray footsteps. Thankfully, my ol’ man is 85 and kicking like the proverbial mule. My novel, Finding Fidelity, is a work of pure fiction. But like any clean, mean, pristine fictional work, there’s a lot of altered realty baked in at every step.

I’m just glad I got to share this tidbit. The kool kidz at Emerald Coast Storytellers were nice enough post my story on their website. You can read it here.

Thanks Kristi and Ali for dreaming up and ultimately creating such a wonderous vehicle for creatives to share their creative output. I think so much of the toil that creatives endure goes underground. Which is an utter bummer (and waste). We need much more art, not less!

I’d be remiss (and dumb) (and dumber) if I didn’t call out my hot wifey Lauren (she did the vid). Though her own artistic prowess dwarfs mine—as does she as she’s 6’1 barefoot and I’m 6’1 in cowboy boots—she’s never boastful and endlessly supportive.

More importantly, her inspiration vaulted me back onto this journey when we resumed our journey that fateful afternoon in the Orlando airport. Without her, I’d have never written this novel, much less the other two, much less all the novels I will eventually write.

You can have plenty of fun in this lifetime, but it’s infinitely more rewarding with a partner in crime (and every fucking other thing). “My wife” is the least interesting of her titles. She’s: “Yes, chef!”, “Chief Design Officer”, “picker of EVERY paint color”, “wine buyer”, “dog mom extraordinaire”, “mixer of metaphors”, and “the only person I sit with naked in any huge bathtub at any Airbnb (literally) anywhere on earth”. Without her, this would all be impossible and pointless; I’d just write dark disgruntled shit that no one would care to read.

She made me love the beach, really love the beach. If for only that, she has my eternal gratitude. She’s perfect (most days 😉

Here’s to more Emerald Coast Storytellers events in the near future—Cheers!

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© 2024 – ∞ B. Charles Donley