My favorite story

 During our trip to Grønland I presented a story by the fire.

The story is based on the story 'de vluchteling' (the refugee) by Dutch author J.Sharpe (Joris).

The story starts off with a girl running away from city guards. She runs for a while and manages to hide in an alley. After that she says to herself that she has to go back home to see someone special. 
At that point the story cuts to a flashback of when she was saved by this man, the prince. She was in a bar and got bothered by one of the customers there. The prince and two of his guards come in at that time. The guards arrest the man and the prince brings the girl home.

At this point the story cuts back to the present. The girl comes home. She calls out for the prince, but no response. She does it again. Still no response, but she can see him sitting in the chair. So she walks up to him and then mockingly says 'I forgot I had you gagged' before removing the gag. The prince gets angry with the girl and tells how she will pay for what she has done.

She then tells the prince her plan. Exchange his life for that of her imprisonment family. 

This plan doesn't work out though, bit her family getting executed and the girl slicing the prince's throat before trying to escape.

I unfortunately do not remember whether she made it out alive or not since it has been a while since I read this story.

I met Joris at a convention about 6 years ago. I enjoy reading books and I also like buying books. Both for reading them, but also for the looks of them. I can really go out of my way to collect books from the same edition just because they look better. Problem is, I enjoy reading English a lot more than Dutch. Joris writes in Dutch (though in the past years some of his books have been translated to a couple of languages including English). So I was unsure whether I wanted to buy a book from him or not. The stories sounded interesting and he was really passionate about it as well.
With him he also had a short story collection which was a lot less expensive. I bought it, he signed it for me and I loved all the weird stories in it. Since then I've always bought books from him at different events and have them all signed by him.
I really enjoy the amounts of twists he puts in his stories. They are often weird mindfucks that still fit within his stories.

the feedback from the others students after telling the story was that they liked the amount I used my body. I look people in the eyes, I use my body to visualize what happens (for example sneaking).
I also give characters their own voices and put pauses in the story at key moments to build up suspense.