There are a lot of firsts in life. Hopefully we continue to experience them no matter how old we get. 

My very first public reading was in Provincetown, MA. It was Women’s Week, and I said yes to being on an erotica panel. So my first reading was from an erotic short story. 

I hadn’t realised until we sat down that beside me on that panel was my boss, the esteemed writer, Radclyffe. 

A sex story, sitting next to an author who’d written more books than I will ever dream about writing. In front of a standing room only group of women. 

It was a hell of a way to jump in. (My second reading was in the basement of a sex shop in London. Sitting on a heart shaped couch with a string of dildoes hanging behind me. It was still less scary in every way than my first one.) 

Nine years later, and I’m heading back to Women’s Week in Ptown this October. It’s nostalgic, and I’m a different person than I was nearly a decade ago. There will definitely be firsts, though my true first there will always be special. 

Do you have a special first?