Performance Lab: How to Read for an Audience
A literary reading is a writer’s art opening.
I use acting techniques for non-actors, designed to help you perform your work in public with ease, confidence, and enjoyment.
If you need help now, click here to email me. Let’s connect. My first hour is free on Zoom.
Pro Tip
What fine artist tacks paintings on walls, flips on the overheads, and says, “There they are”?
What jewelry designer scatters bracelets on a rug and says, “Buy one”?
How many writers mumble into the microphone, glance up now and then, and after the show, say, “I just read; I never perform”?
There’s no such thing as just reading. Every reading is a performance.
Every Reading is a Performance
We work one-on-one on whatever you’re standing up to deliver: a TEDx talk, a literary reading, a poetry performance, an ad pitch, a wedding toast.
How it works
Start with a free one-hour evaluation on Zoom. We’ll look at what you’re presenting and whether I can help.
After that, sessions run 90 minutes:
Single session: $165
4 sessions: $150 each ($600)
6 sessions: $125 each ($750)
8 sessions: $115 each ($920)
[Request your free evaluation →] (button links to jamesnave.com/contact)
When you perform your work aloud, you bring out emotional connections and a personal engagement that makes your audience feel you’ve invited them into your home.
I coached Allegra Huston and Jennifer Pickering for their TEDxAsheville talks in March 2026. Click their names; watch their talks.
“Before James Navé coached me, I was terrified by public speaking… By the time my book tour was finished, I was enjoying an experience I once dreaded.”
When we work together, you’ll
Develop and edit your material until it’s sharp, understandable, and stage-ready.
Identify solid reasons for why you say every sentence.
Practice easy-to-learn memorization techniques that will connect you emotionally to your content.
Learn physical strategies that will ground you onstage and give you confidence and ease.
Discover that your head is a speaker that will amplify your voice so everyone can hear you without strain.
Relax on stage while letting your audience look at you.
Practice pausing and using silence to set pace, rhythm, and momentum.
Grow accustomed to dealing with unexpected business happening while you’re on stage.
And much more!
Navé action photos
Book launch: 100 Days at the Story Parlor, Asheville, NC, 2024
National Poetry Slam Championships, Portland, OR, 1996
Performing Ghosts of the Rio Grande at The Bluebird Cafe, Nashville, TN, 2026
Navé on camera at the Black Mountain College Museum, Asheville, NC, 2023
On stage at Creative Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, 2015
Rehearsing at Tad Fettig’s house, Taos, NM, 2024
Navé speaking at TEDxAsheville, 2012
Navé at Adrian Leeds’s Après-Midi gathering, Paris, 2025
Carver & Navé at the Bluebird Café, Nashville, TN
1) Every time you read your work aloud, you’ll spot ways to sharpen it; your voice is your best editing tool.
2) Always ask: Who? What? Where? When? Why?
3) Memorize short stuff like On the Antiquity of Fleas: Adam had em.
4) Free-form dance when you rehearse.
5) Put your hand on your head and hum till you feel your head vibrating. Now, vibrate your head with words instead of a hum.
6) The acting teacher Susan Batson calls intimacy Into Me See.
7) When you’re onstage, pause and look at your index finger for ten full seconds; your audience will lean in and watch you with great anticipation.
8) Anything that happens, no matter how dramatic, include it in your show
Pro Tips
Image design: Jeff Gundlach