The reading went quite well. We had a full house, which was a relief. I was afraid no one would come and besides our friends, there were even people that we didn’t know there. We sold copies of the anthology!

Matt McHugh and M. M. De Voe were both very good readers and hearing their stories out loud added a lot to both.

Best of all, Matt hooked set up his mic and recorded the evening. I present to you my story, The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland.

For me, one of the most annoying things is that I’ve been recording so much lately that I’ve developed some bad live reading habits. I’ve trained myself to listen for minor stumbles — things that no one would notice live, but which are unacceptable in recorded form — and to pause, then restart the line, which is totally wrong when reading live. In any case, it should be interesting for you to hear the difference between me reading live after hearing me read for recordings.

If you’ve got nothing else going on, swing down to the KGB bar at 85 E. 4th Street at 7:00 tonight to hear short stories read by Matt McHugh, M. M. De Voe and me.

Here’s a teaser of the one I’ll be reading tonight, which appears in the new anthology, The Best of The First Line: Editors’ Picks 2002-2006.

I was born Rosa Carlotta Silvana Grisanti, but in the mid-Eighties, I legally changed my name to Eve. As you have guessed in your letter, after the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland, my dear friends Dr. Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes suggested that my safest course of action would be to distance myself from my family.

But I get ahead of my story; I have not Dr. Watson’s gift for explaining Mr. Holmes’s methods, and I fear your wish that I relay the particulars of this strange case may be met with inadequate measures.

On the twelfth of October, 1887, I was being taken by the steamship Friesland from our home on the Venetian isle of Murano to Africa; there to meet my betrothed, Hans Boerwinkle, a man several years my senior with whom my father had very recently made arrangements. Living as we do now, in the nineteen-twenties, it is difficult to remember what a sheltered life we girls led forty years ago, but at the time it seemed natural that my brother, Orazio Rinaldo Paride Grisanti, escorted me as chaperone.

Did I mention it’s a bar? Fiction and drinks, can you ask for a better combo?

I’ll be joining M.M. DeVoe and Matt McHugh as we read stories from The First Line at KGB

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary, the literary magazine “The First Line” — where all stories in an issue begin with same opening line — presents an evening with some of its favorite writers. Three authors will read select work from the new anthology, “The Best of The First Line: Editors’ Picks 2002-2006,” and share some insights on writing for this unique quarterly.

Pass the word and come hear us on July 24th at 7pm.

Every sale makes me happy, but some sales really tickle me. This is one is a very happy thing.

My first three sales were to The First Line so I have a very soft spot for them. The magazine has a simple premise. The first line of a story is so important, but if you asked Mark Twain to write a story starting with, “Call me Ishmael,” you would not get Moby Dick. Every story in an issue of the First Line has the same opening line and the stories differ wildly.

So, when the editors contacted me and said that they’d like to use my story, “The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland,” in their anthology The Best of the First Line I was thrilled. My contributor copy just arrived in the mail. It’s a handsome thing. I’ve just started reading the stories and so far they are good across a wide spectrum of styles.