Local writers, poets and musicians will have a chance to showcase their work this Friday thanks to the Lower Alabama Arts Coalition.

Organizer Anthony Sanders said that he came up with the Coffee House Open Mic Night idea with his wife one night because they knew of bigger cities that do the same thing.

“Larger towns and cities typically have something like this, like Pensacola, Mobile, Dothan,” Sanders said. “You can usually find a place where they have availability for folks to go in from the community and share something with other people, be that through music, song, poetry, a dramatic reading or anything like that. We thought that it would be good to bring this to our small area.”

The open mic night will be open to the general public and Sanders encourages anyone who wants to share to get on the stage.

“We are not assigning spots per se,” Sanders said. “But it is a good idea for us to know a little ahead of time if you are going to present something, just so we can allot enough time for everyone to read. If someone is there and they are moved by the muse and want to get on stage, then they can. We are planning to let everyone have five minutes of performing, just so we don’t have people up there for 45 minutes straight.”

Sanders said that the arts in general are very valuable and this event will be able to spotlight people who are involved in them.

“Too often, things associated with the arts seem exclusive,” Sanders said. “So providing an opportunity at a venue through which the general public can engage with the folks that do this sort of thing more often, lets them tap into a creativity that may have been hidden for a while.”

He hopes that this event will discover talent in Covington County that may have been hidden.

“We know we already have talent in the area,” Sanders said. “We know where some of it is at, but we don’t know where all of it is. Hopefully there will be some new talent that comes out of this thing.”

If all goes well, Sanders hopes to make this a quarterly event.

“We will see how it goes,” Sanders said. “We have gotten a pretty good response from the community about it. We have a Facebook page of people that are connecting with the LAAC and about it has grown to about 50 people and several of them are planning to read. We have also had several people connected with the college that have expressed interest, as well as people who are not connected with the LAAC at all. This is an opportunity from folks across the spectrum to get together and join in the arts.”

The Coffee House Open Mic Night is free to the public, but guests are allowed to bring their own bottle of wine and enjoy it during the show for a $10 corking fee.

The Coffee House Open Mic Night will begin at 7 p.m., on Fri., March 22.