A year ago this week, June 26, 2015, the Street Lit Authors Club met for the first time. The SLACers came together with only a minimal plan, advice from every expert I could pester, and a coffee pot borrowed from the ARCH’s break room. I had no idea what I was doing—still can’t claim that I do—but I was convinced that if I did no good, I could certainly do no harm. I didn’t expect anyone to show up, or if they did, for them to care about anything more than the snack table. But lo and behold, people did show up, and they brought with them an appetite for words, language, and a community of encouragement in the midst of hardship. They’ve been showing up ever since, and I’m consistently awestruck to find that I leave the room more nourished than emptied. I am so fortunate to have met everyone who has ever pulled up a chair at the Street Lit table, and what a happy surprise it is to start something with an attitude of “I want to help,” only to find that the effort is not effort at all, and that the help I meant to give flows back even stronger to me. I am so grateful.

I remember the hours after the first meeting more clearly than the meeting itself. I was panicked and nervous that day—as shaky and anxious as when taking the stage at a reading (Oh, the horror!)—but afterward, when I’d made it back home and my jitters had settled, when I got past the “What have I gone and done now” moments and found myself wondering instead what we might do at the next workshop, the rightness of it all hit me. Something awesome had happened in the simple coming together of minds, and it, as though *it* already had a communal life, had been kind enough to include me. So, thank you, all you Street Lit authors, for allowing me to sit at the same table. It’s a privilege I hope to earn and live up to as we keep rolling on. Ya’ll rock!

In a conversation with a book donor recently, I called Street Lit a “one man show.” That’s really kind of stupid of me to say. Sure, I may be the one accountable should we run out of coffee, or if the bookshelf at the ARCH is bare, but when it comes down to it, I can’t even keep track of all the help I’ve had. So many folks have been so generous with their time, their donations of books and funds, their moral support and their experience. The list has gotten out of hand… I’m sure I’ve forgotten folks who deserve a giant hug or a Street Lit fist bump, and I apologize if I missed you, but here’s a quick shot at a thank you note, in slightly sloppy alphabetical order:
 
Before anyone else, thank, thank, thank you to all the amazing Street Lit Authors!
ACC’s Arts & Humanities Dept.
ACC’s Creative Writing Dept.
Annyston Pennington
Austin Peterson
Bekah Anne Preissinger
Beth Sullivan
BookPeople
The Challenger Street Newspaper
Charlotte Gullick
CityLab
Claire Anderson-Ramos
Daily Texan
Daklavyn Markrot (that’s Ian Marcotte’s secret identity, btw.)
Dawn Hollingsworth
Deb Olin Unferth
Eillie Anzilotti
Elizabeth Cullingford
Elizabeth McCracken
Emily Varnell
Everyone (100s of you!) who have helped out on our Crowdrise fundraiser.
Free Minds
Front Steps (especially all the staff who help out every Saturday!)
Gretchen Harries Graham
Half Price Books
Hannah Ford
Heather Thomas
Jackie Dana (BrainstormATX!)
Jennifer Tilton
Jenny Howell
Jené Gutierrez
Joan Gruska Kobayashi
Joanna Drake
Joe O’Connell
John Herndon
Katie Stacy
Katie Walsh
Kay Klotz
Kelly Luce
LaVonne Roberts & Alessandra
Laurie Buchholz
The Liberator
Literary Hub
Mary Frances Rincon
Michael Taeckens
Michele Filgate
Mira Belik
Moses (For our 2 commandments: “Be Cool. Don’t be an Asshole.”)
Natalie Freeberg
Natalie Sharpe
Nick du Mortier
Nick Flynn
Peierls Foundation 
Poets & Writers
Polly Monear
Rachel Zein
Rio Review
Roberto Roldan
Savers
Terry Foundation (and all the Terry Scholars!)
The Alleywriters gang
Tony Cartlidge & KD, too!
UT’s English Dept.
Vivé Griffith
W. Joe Hoppe

Street Lit haiku day -- 
spontaneous outpourings.
​Even failing's fun

        I can't say quite why,
        but haiku became the thing
        We killed it, sometimes...

So, we all ganged up on syllable counts and the fingers flew
and gentle arguments were argued over things like:
"Is it baff-ul-ing? Or baff-ling?"
"It is what we want it to be. We decide!"
"This has an extra syllable, but I like it. I want to keep it."
"Close enough," we said, "until something better comes to mind."
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know!"
"Maybe these are like /puzzles for the mind to solve / Rorschach tests with words?"
"Ready, set, syllablize!" 

We all wrote:

     A borrowed black hat
     may emphasize the background --
     Bad guys wear leather.

and...

     The wall psychotic --
     Wailing pierced the holy land.
     "Out there ... Can you help?"

and then...

        Leonardo, he
        declared the day a contest
        of off-the-cuff verse

Yep, Leonardo Da Vinci E. threw down a five spot for prize money, set himself as the sole judge, and the competition began.

               Concentration ruled.
               Scribbling happened. Head scratching.
               Erasures and sighs...

Niko's entry:

     I write this poem
     Where hopeless men try to sleep,
     Maybe even dream.

Charlie's entry:

     We don't need no education
     I think I'm losing my mind, Roger.
     The Judge is the job.

(Charlie makes his own damn rules!)

Thom's poem:

     Her eyes fixed on him
     Her world collapsed inside her
     His regret ice cold

Josh went cosmic, and where'd that extra syllable come from?:

     The cosmic phallus
     eloquently baffling
     supreme-minded beings

Me, too, on the cosmic page:

     The cosmic exists
     in the thoughts of the human
     shared among us all.

We all counted out...

                  Fives sevens and fives
                  until the word dust settled
                  And the winner is...........

Jenny! with this fine work:

      Living the brushstrokes
      Enhancing the gift of time
      Love breathes into light.

It didn't end there, though. Josh, never one to leave well enough alone, went full mashup on us. After a smoke break / he sputtered, coughed, and revealed / an untitled gem:

A borrowed black hat
May emphasize the background
Bad guys wear leather,
But I don’t know when
Or if, or how, or where to
That I should also,
It seems perhaps not
It always seems like henchmen
Trying to climb up
The wall psychotic --
Wailing pierces the holy land
Out there can you help?
Even a henchman may one day need his god
To climb the pink wall
I wish I were cool
But bad guys don’t listen
To pop-punk music.