Last night, our kickoff event at the Strand was red-letter. We laughed (at Amy Warren’s masterful channeling of Dorothy Parker), we cried (at Wallace Shawn’s interpretation of Denis Johnson’s “Car-Crash While Hitchhiking”), and we marveled at the winner of our Strand-Paris Review tote-bag design contest (submitted by Houston’s Roque Strew). Did all the free wine have anything to do with these emotional reactions? We prefer to believe it was due to the overwhelming talent!