On the back patio of Veni Vidi Vici, roughly 40 people gathered to listen to the storytelling and spoken word show Fresno Writers Live as a part of the 2026 Rogue Performance Festival.  

Presented by Fresno State’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing, five writers were curated by the editors of the San Joaquin Review to give readings of their poetry and prose on Feb. 28. Their names are Deborah Mechele Bento, Mel Hamilton, Emerald Hope Medrano, Jacquelyn Mejia and Steven Sandage.  

The group of five came together to see what they could do and what would feel special, and they landed on the idea of all of them responding to the same writing prompt: write about all the beds you’ve ever slept in. 

While they began in the same place, the writers went on to tell five completely unique stories.

“When you get a writing prompt, the diversity of creativity is just awe inspiring,” Bento said. 

Jefferson Beavers, a communications specialist for the English Department at Fresno State, first spoke to the audience to thank them all for their patronage, and introduced each writer before they spoke. 

Sandage was the first to share his work that night, reading aloud his work titled “I Romantize Beds.” In this writing, Sandage reflected on his memories that came from sleeping in different beds throughout his childhood, from the compliance that was demanded in the beds of group homes, to the lice he tried his best to pick out of his motel bed. 

The last bed Sandage recalled was a trundle bed he slept on when he was 5 years old. Despite the dust and old perfume that filled his room, he slept deeply there, a sleep that felt like forgiveness. 

“That’s the thing about beds,” Sandage said. “People think that’s where you’re safest. Some of us learn early that a bed is just another place where things happen to you.” 

Mejia was the next writer who shared their work. Throughout their writing titled “If Love Could Save You, You’d Live Forever,” Mejia compared their time with their grandmother to the life of a caterpillar. 

Their grandmother’s love for her family was as bright and as vibrant as any caterpillar. Despite the dull grays of her hospital bed and her chrysalis slowly wrapping around her lungs, Mejia’s grandmother still filled the room with her love. As her wooden chrysalis was lowered into the ground, Mejia finally understood the beauty of butterflies, whose weird bug faces once haunted them. 

“[Butterflies] all flutter around you and lift you from the bed and take you to the sky voyage with the rest of the flying beauties, waiting to greet you again,” Mejia said. “If only we could send the same love to you that you tended to us in our lives. I’m sure you’d live forever.” 

The third writing that was shared was “Scarred and Tainted” by Hamilton. In her piece, she described her experience of hiding in cramped closets in order to sleep safely. At the age of 5, her mom found a new husband; however, Hamilton did not feel safe sleeping around him.  

“I loved my mattress, I just didn’t like what happened when I closed my eyes,” Hamilton said. “I would wake up to the pale, thin man watching me, undressing me with his eyes.” 

When they moved when Hamilton was 12, it was still happening. However, Hamilton was the oldest of six kids, and her responsibilities drove her to compartmentalize her trauma so she could stay strong for her family. 

“My days blurred with more scars and tainted memories of helping my family,” Hamilton said. “I learned to turn everything in my mind off. I had to be strong.” 

In their new home, Hamilton’s favorite place to sleep was in her mom’s walk-in closet behind some objects where she would never be found. 

Hamilton took up working in order to escape being at home, sleeping in the plastic chairs in the breakroom. Here, she met her partner, someone she felt comfortable enough sharing her experiences with. At 17, her mom shared that her husband had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, and Hamilton felt hope that things would change. 

“I forced myself to cry when in reality it was my sign of hope, that everything was changing in my favor,” Hamilton said. “The bed no longer tainted gray anymore, it looked whiter than ever. That small feeling of comfort washed over me.”

It wasn’t until his death that things were finally over. As Hamilton sobbed into her partner’s shoulder, they were the first person to tell her that she didn’t have to be strong anymore. 

“That was enough for him to keep holding me,” Hamilton said. “That peaceful memory of him in my bed for the first time. I’m not afraid to sleep anymore. I’m just afraid that all these memories will bubble up randomly. I don’t have to be afraid of my mattress.” 

Medrano followed with a reading of his work titled, “All the Dreams I Never Had.” His work  followed his experience with an assignment given to him by his therapist: to keep a tally of how many nightmares he had, to get a sense of how bad his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was.

After half a year of repeated nightmares, Medrano stopped keeping track of them. The repetition of panic as he awoke gasping for air, the pain of waking up to him thrashing against a wall, drove him to become jealous of his friends’ peaceful dreams, and an overwhelming fear of what he would experience when he fell asleep. 

“The bed does what it can for me, holds still, stays with me and my crashing until morning,” Medrano said. 

To close out the show, Bento shared her writing titled, “Warm Cookies and Cold Sheets.” Cookies were passed throughout the audience, mirroring the beginning of her story as she shared bringing coffee and a dozen cookies to her therapy appointment. At this appointment, the main topic of conversation was how, after 18 years, her first love called her. 

While having dinner with a mutual friend, who was secretly playing matchmaker, Bento’s first love and ex-husband joined the two of them for dinner, to Bento’s surprise. They all shared a slice of cheesecake before the mutual friend left to get some rest before an early morning the next day, and the two of them were left alone. Soon after that, the lights came up, and they realized that the restaurant had begun to close, with the two of them being the only guests left. 

This led to Bento suggesting that the two of them go to her ex-husband’s apartment to feed his cat, but her therapist did wonder if she had any ulterior motives. 

“I didn’t want the night to end,” Bento said. “I was sure it would be another 18 years. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.” 

As they drank wine and thumbed through photo albums, one thing led to another, and in that moment, Bento revealed that she felt she had gotten her life back. When her therapist asked which life, she had no answer. 

Bento reflected on all the beds she slept on. The twin bed she shared with her grandmother, the water bed of a creepy ex-boyfriend in high school and the luxury offered by hotel beds. Yet at 19, the bed of her first love all those years ago was the only bed to come close to the warmth she felt when sharing a bed with her grandmother. 

For eight years, the two of them shared many beds before they shared a goodbye in the bed of a Motel 6, and went their separate ways. Bento eventually got married to someone else, but their bed would be built on compromises that would make neither of them happy.

Flashing forward to the message Bento got from her first love after so much time had passed, they wound up in bed together again.

“When I told [my therapist] I felt like I had gotten my life back, and he asked ‘which life,’ I didn’t answer,” Bento said. “Because there are as many lives as there are beds. Thank you.” 

Even with all five writers responding to the same prompt, the diversity of creativity Bento mentioned was on clear display as each writer took the audience on completely separate journeys.