So, I went to the In Flagrante launch last night, as I said I would. I dragged my good friend Devlon along with me too.

It’s just so encouraging to see so many people come out to support this type of writing. Not writing about sex; I mean ground-level indie writing, about and done by people from the community.

To say that William P Tandy, the editor of Smile Hon Your In Baltimore, pulls in a broad range of local writing talent is an understatement. In any of his issues you will find High-Falutin’ Writers (with a capital “W” and an MFA in Creative Writing or Poetry) to street writers who learned much or what they know reading Hunter S. Thompson in thrift-store paperbacks.

Personally, I prefer the latter. But my point, what I see here – and in other Baltimore events, is something that really warms my heart: A community. A community centered around literature that falls outside of the realm of main-stream publishing. I prefer to call it an Indie Lit Community, but you can call it what you like. It doesn’t change the beauty of it one bit.

A story; Not last night, but at a Smile Hon sponsored open mic (yes, this is exactly what im talking about… open mics for literature. They pull this off!) some time ago a young woman, a teenager really – maybe 17 – had come, dressed in the goth-vampire style that the kids are all about these days. She explained that her piece was inspired by the Twilight series.

Now, I tell this story to demonstrate the non-mainstream cred of the community here. Exhibit A) You could feel a collective sigh and eye-roll as the crowd prepared itself for a fan-fic piece on the latest vampire cash cow. This was not surprising.

But exhibit B) The young woman proceeded with an incredible, thoroughly thought-out, researched and constructed argument about why the Twilight series is the biggest, most commercial, most miserably written and imagined piece of crap she had ever read.

The contrast between expectation and outcome of that piece was, of course, striking. But I love that it demonstrated what these gatherings represent: That Tandy, and others here, are providing a place where even the target demographic of mainstream pop literature feels safe rejecting it and tearing it to shreds.

Anyway. Sex. ‘Cause that was the theme of all of the pieces last night. Sex sex sex.

It wasn’t as you might think. It was not erotica. It was some of the most honest, revealing writing I have ever heard read by a group of writers. Gavin Heck’s work stood out, as it often does, for it’s shock-through-raw-honesty, and Timmy Reeds absurdism did not fail to please me just as much as it confused me.

But what struck me was that we were listening to good, imaginative writing by good imaginative writers that, oh by the way, just happened to be about sex. This was a treat and is thanks to both Tandy for his editorial control, as well as the community of writers he has pulled around him.

That you can have a whole evening of sex writing without a moment of cheap smutty erotica, I think, is a sign of good writers.

And, to get back to my initial point, is a sign of a good community of writers.

I know you will want to grab a copy of Smile Hon Your In Flragrante, and I don’t blame you. Find out where, here.