We talk with Lindsey Danis about her experience being workshopped on our podcast, the changes she's implemented, and whether she wanted to reach through the screen and shake us for not getting it.

We also answer Lindsey's questions and talk about how much self-deprecation can work on the page (versus in real life) and how to create (and why you should try to create) an emotional and aesthetic range.

Want to volunteer as tribute? Submit your page for consideration by sending it to [email protected] as a Word document (yes, we know! The opposite of querying: we WANT an attachment). Please put "First Pages Podcast" in the subject line.

For your reference, here is Lindsay's first page, which we went over in episode fourteen:

My Life Without You by Lindsey Danis

It’s the last day of the first week of school and the air has this incredible warmth, like summer’s just a tease. I unzip my navy-blue mechanic’s jacket, which I’ve been warned is not sanctioned as school uniform. I’m meeting my best friend Birdie at our sanctuary, the appropriately named Haven Diner. The Square feels like home and I breathe in its smell of incense, sweat, and garbage, happy to be here.

Harvard Square is about a mile from my parents’ house (correction: my father’s house) and it’s ground zero for any street punk/riot grrrl/alternative kid in the Boston area. Street artists, protesters, musicians, writers—everyone who cares about arts, culture, and activism hangs out here, learning from and inspiring one another.

The Square as we all call it shares nothing but a name with that Ivy League school. You would think it would be totally pretentious, just like the university barricaded behind 27 iron gates, but it’s the opposite. Harvard students cut across to go from dorm to class and back again, but the Square belongs to everyone. University janitors eat their packed sandwiches and rub shoulders with teen runaways, retail store clerks take smoke breaks, homeless folks play chess outside the coffee shop. Even the diehard Cambridge hippies pause and take in the scene on their way to poetry readings or theater performances.

Worlds blend and cultures mix, especially when you’re waiting outside Haven for a seat. Popular girls from my old school who would never smile at me in the hallways call out my name to ask how summer was. At my new school I may be the weirdo, but whatever I am is all right here in the Square. There’s no judgment.