DONALD J. BINGLE

Summer is not only convention season--I am a regular panelist on writing topics at both Origins and GenCon--but it is also the season for outdoor cafe' readings and open microphone nights at local coffee shops and art galleries, which means that I have more readings scheduled than other times of the year. That's fine. I like reading and some people tell me that I do a good job of them. (Of course, most of those people are my friends, so their judgment is already suspect.) A

I do plenty of readings at writing and genre conventions, book signings, local author nights, and the like of excerpts from my books or short stories. You can find two of my readings online: Seasons Critiquings at http://vimeo.com/57106257; and Someday at http://vimeo.com/63190661. I think I do a pretty good job at readings and I like the opportunity to add pauses and inflection to the bare words to make them even more dramatic. But I never felt that I was up to the task of