There is something exciting about a first draft – anarchic, scrappy, full of life, flawed. There is something in a first draft that a second does not. Our lives are full of misery, but what about the thrill of being here together, in this terrible time, knowing that life will not be so terrible once the next draft comes? – Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

Please join us at the bottom of a glass in celebration of Samantha McCulloch’s Lagoon: the first title of Kunstverein Publishing’s new series First Drafts. The launch will take place at lakeside distillery ’t Nieuwe Diep (Flevopark 13a, 1095 KE Amsterdam) on Wednesday June 29, from 6pm. McCulloch will give a reading from the book at 6:30 sharp and will take the form of a guided walk around the lake, through the bushes and in the grass.

Part prose poem, part reflection on the relations between writing and place, Lagoontells the story of the slow undoing of an idyll. In it the narrator walks for hours during long summer nights, gazing through the windows that line the streets. In between, she reflects on how she might write about the shifting space of the lagoon, where she spent summer holidays with her family years ago. In adolescence, the narrator watches quietly as her mother, father and sister go about building their holiday home. But she can sense something is awry, she just does not fully understand what.

It’s the perfect pocket sized book to grab before leaving town to various bodies of water, at just €18 (members enjoy a 50% discount).