First Lines: November 2022

This month we’ve got a guide to youth sports, a doomed ship, orcas, and much more. To submit a first line, email booklifeeditor@booklife.com.

Acting Up: Winning in Business and Life Using Down-Home Wisdom

Dianne Duvall

“Simone swung her treasured katana with smooth precision, cutting down one opponent after another.”

W. Royce Adams

“Call me Old.”

Mathis Bailey

“Butter marked Pierre’s black apron as he flirted with two hot men.”

T.G. Brown

“Forgiveness reveals itself in many forms, this was not one of them.”

Karen Martin

“I should have assumed with parents known to the world as Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, I would be different.“

Gregory Kopp

“Eugénie de Montijo, Empress of France, was trembling as she stood transfixed looking out the windows of the Emperor’s Salon.”

Barbara Wilson

“On my own I would never have decided, especially on a filthy wet afternoon in early February, to take the train to Southeast London and to dash through the rain to a college lecture hall to hear a topic like ‘Stella Terwicker and the Medieval Mystery.’”

J.D. Beedle

“If my chest were a cannon and my heart the hot lead ball, I’d still shoot.”

Marie-Paule Mahoney

“One Orca dives deep into the sea while another leaps out into the air under the twinkling stars.”

Leslie Kain

“Gavin would always remember that weekend as the turning point, when day turned to night and the earth erupted, cleaving brothers apart.”

Linda Collison

“The doomed ship is set to sail at 10:00 a.m. and I am to be aboard.”

Tim Cook

“To avoid hyperbole I should preface that the analogy of sports to war is one that always grinds my gears.”