Craft on Draft is a reading series devoted to great fiction—and the mechanics behind it. Three authors read and discuss their work, plus that of one lucky audience member. So grab a drink, a page of your own writing, and come craft your own draft.
There’s a new kid on the block and she looks like she’s here to stay. Craft on Draft, Boston’s latest entry into the reading series world, kicked off its 2014 season with a stirring and refreshing look behind the scenes of the novelist’s vision. On Tuesday, April 8th, the standing-room-only crowd at Trident Booksellers & Cafe was treated to an informative and raucously entertaining evening of insights and confessions by three Boston novelists.
First Pages: Before and After brought together Lisa Borders, Henriette Lazaridis Power, and Stephanie Gayle to share their missteps, second thoughts, and successes on their way to their published first pages.
Lisa Borders, a Grub Street instructor, presented several alternate forays into her novel, The Fifty-First State, before reading the version that appeared in print, letting the audience in on the reasoning behind her choices. Henriette Lazaridis Power, also an instructor at Grub, read from her debut novel, The Clover House, offering disparate views on introducing her main character and that character’s relationship to her mother. Stephanie Gayle, a Novel Incubator graduate, read from her first novel, My Summer of Southern Discomfort, wowing the crowd with her rendition of “There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly,” as well as providing a look at the artistic choices she made beginning her novel.
Audience members were asked to submit their own ‘first pages’ and some twenty writers did. Craft on Draft judges Rob Wilstein and Kelly Ford selected Bill Prindle’s entry from among the many wonderful submissions, and it was read aloud by MC Jack Ferris. Bill, a member of the incoming Novel Incubator class of 2015, was presented with a Grub Street pint glass that was swiftly filled with the beer of his choice.
MC Jennie Ford closed the evening with an appeal to the audience for financial support of Novel Incubator’s Scholarship Fund, to which the appreciative crowd responded generously. The three author speakers graciously signed copies of their books and fielded questions from their reader fans.
The Boston reading series community has a new kid, and judging from the warm and enthusiastic reception at the Trident, we’ll all get to watch her grow up in the years to come.
