As Marco Logsdon tells it, the fiction showcase Shut Up and Let Me Read  was born between ping and pong. 

During one of his weekly Friday morning table tennis matches at the Luigart Gallery in Lexington’s North Lime neighborhood, Logsdon and his friend and fellow writer Jay Simons were chatting about the plethora of poetry slams, blasts, streams, and contests while bemoaning the lack of short fiction offerings.  

“Everywhere you go it’s a poetry reading. I said to Jay, where’s the fiction? Let’s put something together where people read short fiction. And it was my idea, my irreverent sense of humor to name it what I named it,” Logsdon recalls. Shut Up and Let Me Read (or SUALMR) was born. Contrary to the title, these evenings are not really about telling people to shut up. “It’s a whole concept of encouraging people to shut out the world so you can read, or write, or listen. Be quiet and let people share their stories. Sit back and see what you get from it. Especially if you are a writer, sit back and see what inspires you from coming together and listening to each other for a little while.”

The next event, the fourth in a series that began over a year ago, will feature a seasonal dark theme: speculative, genre, horror, or just plain weird stories. “The first one was in March of 2025, and we were just getting it off the ground. The second was in October of 2025 so we called it Shut Up and Let Me Read in the Dark and gave it a Halloween feel.” 

That theme was popular enough to revive this year. “In April of 2026 we did Reading While the World Ends – which was fun.” Logsdon’s voice resonates with irony, as those pieces ranged from politics to pandemic, with a memorable conclusion. Jay Simons, the final speaker of the night in April, delivered a performance referencing other readers’ stories, a “dramatic monologue.”  Simons got the idea after Logsdon told him about the theme. “I wanted to do something performative, active, and more immersive than what I’d done before. Since I had the advantage of knowing what most people were going to read, and knowing the content of most of their work, I incorporated some of the ideas from those pieces into my own piece in describing potential end-of-the-world scenarios.”

A dozen or so writers share their stories during each SUALMR, as Logsdon invites people with a variety of experience levels and ages to participate. Simons vets each piece and confers with Logsdon. “We try to go with pieces that are in conversation with one another or fit together well. Then we try to group the pieces together in a way that is thematically appropriate.” Logsdon adds, “If I feel like one story could play off another story or is different enough from another story to serve as a complement or counterpoint, I look for that and then schedule the readers that way.”

He describes the format as “two acts which we try to keep between 30 and 40 minutes. Then we have a break with some homemade treats (whatever I feel like making and bringing in that day), then the other half.” The October SUALMR In the Dark edition will feature Logsdon, Simons, John Campbell, Scott Simpson, David Redmiles, and Trevor Tremaine, along with Amanda and Mike Bridges, a duo who will read a story in two separate parts.

The Luigart building itself may have inspired October’s In the Dark theme. Logsdon and his partner Michael Satterly have a knack for finding and restoring unique pieces of Lexington’s architectural history, including a former school building on Second Street. The Luigart building has been many things since it opened in 1850 – a hemp factory, barley mill, music hall, and, in recent years, a near-abandoned shell with a leaky roof. Satterly discovered it in 2017 and asked to store part of his extensive collection of lamps there, and ultimately he and Logsdon saw its potential as an event venue and partnered with a Lexington architect to buy it. 

“At that point, there were so many holes in the roof that one artist paid rent by emptying buckets of water when it rained,” Logsdon says. Now, the rain buckets are no longer needed and the location has become a destination for art exhibits, vintage tag sales, and public and private gatherings, in addition to hosting Logsdon’s literary salon. The building is filled with artist studios and the owners’ collections of art, lamps, and Americana, as well as a unique assemblage of Victorian settees, mid-century modern sofas, and velvet-upholstered chairs, all of which Logsdon uses to create an environment tailored to each event. Visitors to Luigart are greeted by giant Picasso-style busts guarding bathroom entrances, detached doors lining the walls, and  dolls peeking out from unexpected corners. 

Logsdon will create a mood for the October event by displaying art that looks interesting in the low light created by Satterly’s collection of lamps, “a 25-year ongoing thing that kept filling up our house,” Logsdon says. “Finally, I told Michael that there were so many lamps in the house I couldn’t even see them, so he brought them to Luigart. He’s got them set up and wired on dimmers around the space.”

And the dolls? Logsdon laughs, “There was an auction in Harrodsburg and Michael bought over 100 antique dolls because he thought I wanted them. I said to him, what did you do? They come in handy for Halloween decorations. I’ll mummify them for Shut Up and Let Me Read in the Dark and hang them around the space,” adding to the event’s dark Halloween atmosphere. 

Local writer John Campbell has been a popular reader at two prior chapters of SUALMR and will be participating in October. “I have terrible stage fright. Reading in front of a receptive group who is there for the fiction helps. And another part of this is Marco, I like him and what he’s doing. I also like that he’s including some young writers. I like Luigart and I like the salon culture.”

Shut Up and Let Me Read carries on a salon tradition made famous by a 17^th-century French noblewoman who gathered artists, writers, philosophers, scientists, and other renowned intellectuals for discussion in her private salon. Logsdon’s modern interpretation combines an artistic environment, literary readings, music, and food.

Simons participates because “it gives me a chance to share something I’ve written that I enjoy and I think other people might enjoy and it’s motivation to write something new that fits with the theme.”

For Simons, the idea was to “invite a combination of people who have been writers and read their work in public before and people who are newer to writing and newer to the idea of standing up before an audience and reading what they wrote. There’s a lot of variety and a low-pressure environment.”

Campbell says the concept works. “You get to hear emerging writers. You are not necessarily going to get a name you know  –  you might, but the point is you probably will get someone who has an interesting story to tell.”

A large space, eerie art, maybe a piece of gingerbread, and a conversation with a friend or a stranger. A chance to sit and be inspired. Shut Up and Let Me Read in the Dark is certainly a strong contender for Lexington’s spookiest literary salon. 

-0-

Shut Up and Let Me Read in the Dark, October 27, 2026, at the Luigart Gallery, 110 Luigart Court, Lexington, Kentucky. Doors open at 6 p.m. and readings begin at 6:30 p.m. The event is free.

Pamela Perlman is an attorney, author, and active member of the Lexington arts and literary communities.