The downstairs performance space at Union Hall, an intimate room with a bar in the back, is a very special place to hear writers reading. It was my first time down there and I can’t wait to see other performers there.

The room really does feel like the basement of a union hall in a small city somewhere. The Brooklyn Writer’s Space presented three excellent writers:

Sharon Guskin read a harrowing scene set on a train during the Second World War in Europe.

Honor Molloy read an uproarious, hallucinatory walk through the street of Dublin during Christmas.

Wendy Ponte read a story about a Portuguese immigrant family’s ill fated arrival on Ellis Island.

With green Christmas lights twinkling and the dark, vintage feeling of the room, it was an atmospheric night of fiction. The food, by the way, was very tasty. We ordered a platter of the mini-burgers Union Hall is famous for and some really good potstickers.

The special holiday edition of the Union Hall Spelling and Grammar Bee, hosted by David Witt, is on December 20th at 8 p.m.