The Moth of Hope

Worried about the death of publishing or the public’s diminishing appetite for stories? The Moth offers hope.

Last night, as a Christmas gift to me, my daughter took me into NYC for a Moth storytelling event. The doors opened at 7, and we figured that getting there at 6:30 would assure us of a seat. Wrong. The line outside the Bleecker Street entrance snaked around the corner and all the way down LaGuardia Place to Third Avenue. We stood in line for over an hour, braving the wind, the cold, and an incredibly annoying laugh from one of the women standing behind us. We made it to within a few feet of the entrance of the aptly named “Bitter End” rock club, only to be turned away.

All was not lost. My daughter and I had a nice Thai dinner and got to witness two creative subway begging routines (one played the saxophone and claimed to be a space alien). And the woman behind us in that long, wintry line will undoubtedly one day end up in one of my daughter’s own stories… or mine.