A Brief Email Interview with Eric Cherry
Monday 3 November is our 15th anniversary party. In honor of this, we cornered our once and future volunteer Eric Cherry (who served as our CEO in between) to share some of his thoughts at having been involved with Twilight Tales through many of our changes.
Following are his answers to our interview questions.
1. This week we celebrate Twilight Tale’s fifteenth anniversary. In your own words tell us how Twilight Tales has grown and changed while you have been involved.
Eric: I walked into Twilight Tales for the first time in April 2002, just as the organization was hosting the World Horror Convention. I threw in as a convention volunteer, then starting coming early every Monday for the show. What’s changed? We were at the Red Lion for most of the years that I’ve been aboard, but now we’re at the Mystic Celt. We were a greater or lesser part of many conventions and bookfairs, we published anthologies and short story collections, and our website took on more dynamic properties.
We’ve been an unofficial, all-volunteer operation. We’ve incorporated, earned not-for-profit status, and we’ve continued thriving due to the efforts of our volunteers. The core crew has changed over time. When I walked in the door, Larry Santoro handled staging, Lisa Rogers-Lowrance did things with books and inventory, Andrea Dubnick managed scheduling and emceeing, and Tina Jens worked with everybody on all manner of things. Tina is on the Board of Directors, and the rest of the core crew is wholly different.
2. What is the biggest accomplishment the group has made?
Eric: There’s no secret that I’m focused on writing production. The biggest accomplishment we’ve made is the standing network of authors who are forever working their butts off to turn out better fiction. How many of the writers who started off writing in a closet are now out and published? More than a couple. How many once thought that a novel was an impossible dream, and are now novelists? I can think of at least four who’ve recently finished their first drafts.
3. What one thing in the group’s history makes you proud or pleased to have been a part of?
Eric: I’m going to side with my above answer: I’m most proud of our authors’ successes. They did all the hard work, certainly, but Twilight Tales — embodied in its regulars — has been a part of their path. There is no higher achievement, in my not-quite-humble opinion.
4. What changes have you seen that make you confident the group will continue to be successful over the years to come?
Eric: It’s the passing of the baton that makes me most confident. I named some of the core crew from back when I first walked in, but that was by no means the end of the crew list. When an all-volunteer meeting came together, twenty people would show up. We’d draw in an easy dozen now, and a goodly number of those weren’t on the roll call in 2002. And how many of the regulars from 2003 or 2004, how many of that volunteer crew, came and went in that time? Plenty.
Yet the show has gone on weekly for all this time. We incorporated, and the show went on. We increased and decreased our convention involvement, our publishing schedules, and even experimented with a suburban presence. And whatever else went on, every Monday night there was a show (unless some #@$%^! holiday got in the way, of course).
There’s a vibrant and active crew now, and they do an amazing job. And when the time comes for a crew shift, they’ll hand the baton along. That’s how it’s always been, and I’m never in doubt it’ll continue.
5. What direction do you hope Twilight Tales takes in the years to come?
Eric: One of my favorite answers to that now is: “That’s not my job.” I’ve been a hanger-on, a volunteer from the fringe to the core, a member of the Board, and CEO. Now, I’m merely a fringe volunteer: I emcee.
What I hope is that the core crew of volunteers does what the core crew has always done: exactly what it thinks would be fun. History suggests the weekly show will continue to be fun, but even the content and shape of that show is mutable.
6. Finally, what one event or incident sticks out in your mind as something everyone should know about Twilight Tales and why its a great place for authors and reader to gather and exchange ideas?
Eric: The open mic is one event that everyone should know about Twilight Tales, and it’s why we’re a great place for authors and readers to gather.
Yes, it’s not one event, unless there’s a cosmic sort of open mic (not unlike Terry Pratchett’s L-Space, but with more noise and alcohol, and fewer bananas). But it’s what I call the front lines of fiction. It’s where the best of what we have and do comes out.
We hope you’ll join us on Monday November 3rd at Mystic Celt (3443 N. Southport) for our 15th anniversary party…with free appetizers, the usual cash bar, and plenty more discussion!
