On Thursday evening, filmmaker Geoff Story and author Scott Alexander Hess hosted a vibrant queer literary salon at Story’s celebrated LaSalle Park home. The gathering, attended by an intergenerational mix of writers and readers, followed the New York-based Hess’s appearance at Left Bank Books, where he read from his latest novel, Drought.
November 2022 Riverfront Times cover story about Barbara Clark, Geoff Story, and the house that brought them together.
The evening’s lineup featured five writers, including Jeff Copeland, author of Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn; Paul Woodruff; Benjamin Winkler; and Tim Wilhelm, the current occupant of Story’s third floor.
Wilhelm, 32, captivated the crowd with reflections on his global travels and the friendships forged along the way.
“I was born and raised in south St. Louis County in 1992, but my adolescent interest in French led me to spend three years studying and living in Lyon and Poitiers between ages twenty and twenty-five,” Wilhelm said. “That period of travel and exposure to the world—and the new friends I made—was life-altering.
“In both the classroom and my free time, I’ve always loved reading and admired those who write. A stint as college newspaper editor at SLU, several creative writing projects in college, and a growing personal reading list have increasingly nudged me toward a number of what I consider promising false starts. Now I live on Geoff Story’s third floor! My recent experiences teaching at Priory High School and renewed travel in South America and Europe have fostered the conviction that I might be ready to write something of greater length and personal meaning. Hopefully this evening with all of you is the catalyst for something new.”
Benjamin Winkler reads to the guests. Photo credit: Paul Woodruff.
Story’s home was featured in a 2022 Riverfront Times cover story I wrote about his unlikely friendship with longtime media mogul Barbara Clark, founder of St. Louis Home magazine. Clark, who once owned and restored the LaSalle Park property, now lives in a historic home overlooking the Mississippi in picturesque Elsah, Illinois. That RFT piece has since disappeared from the web after the publication was sold for scrap—I plan to republish it soon.
Clark, who was in attendance, noted that she, like Story, rents out her upper floor. “This is the third tenant in a row who did not want anyone to know where he was,” she said with a smile. Quoting Elsah’s motto, “Escape to Elsah,” she added that it’s a place people go to heal and regroup.
With its rich, eclectic décor, ambient lighting and historic charm, Story’s home proved the ideal setting for such a literary evening. After the readings concluded, guests lingered into the night, swapping stories in intimate clusters throughout the house.
