As to my first time, please follow link, where, coincidentally, Carolyn offered more details in December 2003, as did our erstwhile editor Don Barton Johnson:
A. Bouazza
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of NABOKV-L, English
Sent: dinsdag 23 april 2013 18:03
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] BIRTHDAY: How I first discovered VN
Sounds lovely (the balloons especially). I first discovered Pnin when I was 13 years old - and so it goes!
Carolyn
[EDNOTE. How about everyone else? What was your first encounter with VN? For me, it was discovering a copy of Lolita in 1970, at age twelve, on another family's bookshelves while babysitting their children. And that was that. -- SES]
From: "NABOKV-L, English" <nabokv-l@HOLYCROSS.EDU>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tue, April 16, 2013 11:05:43 AM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] ANNC: Invitation to a Birthday
Dear List,
As in years past, we will celebrate VN's birthday on April 23, one week from today, with a whirlwind of bon mots, toasts, roasts, boasts, "mosts," and jokes.
We especially welcome favorite passages, visual tributes, parodies, sightings, trivia contests, personal anecdotes of the "how I discovered VN" variety, party games, and little-known Nabokoviana. In general, how would you like to celebrate the fact that a writer named Vladimir Nabokov once lived and now lives on in that reflected sky?
Please send your contributions at any time during the next week with "BIRTHDAY" in the subject heading. I'll save them until the actual day and then release them one balloon at a time.
Yours,
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.