Carrie Plitt

The first time I vomited from running was the first time I ran the 400 metres. It was my freshman year of high school, at an indoor track meet against our rivals, Ipswich. Like most high school sports events in Massachusetts, a small state dominated by nerdy east-coast democrats, the meet was a minor and somewhat ramshackle affair. There were about five legitimate spectators – all parents – and the gun kept misfiring.

Growing up in America, I spent a good amount of my time reading British literature. Roald Dahl, E. Nesbit and Phillip Pullman were constant companions through my childhood, later replaced by Keats, Eliot and Austen. Though I was fascinated by Britain, I didn’t know much else about it – there were The Beatles, of course, and English muffins and a two-week family trip to London when I was sixteen during which I fondly remember watching Big Brother and experiencing my first tube strike.