Literary Firsts

Heaps of gratitude should be thrown toward our wonderfully talented readers and audience members from Monday night’s reading. What a wonderful way to celebrate the first anniversary of Literary Firsts. If you weren’t able to make it to the reading, you can now watch the videos and pretend you were there. If anyone asks, you loved the free cookies (unless you didn’t–that’s okay too).

Carissa Halston reads from The Mere Weight of Words

April Ranger reads her poetry.

Emily Sweeney reads her essay.

Ethan Gilsdorf reads "Astral Projection, the Silver Cord, and Other Lessons."

Many, many thanks once again to Ethan, Carissa, Emily, and April for reading, to Randolph Pfaff who always captures the events through photography and video, and to the Middlesex who always provide a great venue.

Photo credit: Michael Diskin

Literary Firsts founder and host, Carissa Halston, was recently interviewed for STUFFBoston. She talked about the series, sex, why it’s okay to talk about sex, and why she loves her Hedgehog (named Hedgehog). Check out the interview here and be at the Middlesex Lounge on April 18 when Carissa will be reading from her forthcoming novella, The Mere Weight of Words.

Ethan Gilsdorf is a slice of π.

Ethan Gilsdorf is the Somerville, Massachusetts-based author of the award-winning travel memoir/pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, now in paperback. He also publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories regularly in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor and other magazines and newspapers worldwide. He is a film and book critic for The Boston Globe, his blog “Geek Pride” is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com, he teaches creative writing at Emerson College and Grub Street, and he has been guest on talk radio and spoken at numerous conventions, book festivals and universities. You can follow his adventures (and read more about his book) here.

Ethan is the confessional writer for the April 18 reading.

Carissa Halston is your host.

Carissa Halston is the author of A Girl Named Charlie Lester, the editor of apt, and the founder/host of Literary Firsts. Her debut novel was called “emotionally generous” and “a lovely piece of female confessional” by Kirkus Reviews, as well as a “great read” by Curve. She has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was honorably mentioned in the 2008 New York Book Festival. Her novella, The Mere Weight of Words, will be published in late 2012 by Aqueous Books.

Carissa is the fiction writer for the April 18 reading.

April Ranger is a sucker punch with a smile.

April Ranger represented Boston Cantab at the Individual World Poetry Slam in Berkeley, California in 2009, and performed as a member of the Boston Cantab National Team in 2008 and 2010. Her poetry has been published in Off the Coast. April’s most recent play, Those Still Living, will premiere at the Boston Theatre Marathon in May. She is a regular host and reader at the Cantab Lounge open mic on Wednesdays, and a co-curator of SOOP, a story-telling potluck based out of her home in Jamaica Plain.

April is the poet for the April 18 reading.

Emily Sweeney is a landslide headline.

Emily Sweeney is an award-winning writer and multimedia journalist who works for The Boston Globe. Sweeney is the author of Greatest Hits: A Mob Tour of Boston, and her work has been featured on the Howard Stern Show, New England Cable News, and other media outlets. She currently serves as president of the New England chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and is a frequent guest speaker at colleges, universities, and media conferences. For more information, check out out her website.

Emily is the essayist for the April 18 reading.

Our anniversary is fast approaching. Next month, Aforementioned Productions will be six years old and Literary Firsts will start its second year by featuring Ethan Gilsdorf, Carissa Halston, April Ranger, and Emily Sweeney.

To kick off the celebration, here are a couple of little girls reading by disco light.

Join us, won’t you?

So happy to announce that the April date has been confirmed. We’ll be celebrating the one year anniversary of Literary Firsts on Monday, April 18.

Please join us when Emily Sweeney will be our essayist, April Ranger will be our poet, Carissa Halston will be hosting and reading fiction, and Ethan Gilsdorf will be our confessional reader.

It’s going to be a swell evening and we’re going to buy out the Middlesex Lounge’s stock of chocolate chip cookies. Just wait and see.