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A Short Story Podcast of
Riveting Fiction and Wildly Creative Nonfiction
Definitely Not the Same Old Story.
Back soon with Season 2
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Season 2 Highlights
Correcting for White People
ESSAY | Andrea Thornton Bolden
Race has been very much on everyone’s mind. This is a powerful essay written by a woman with a unique perspective. Andrea Thornton Bolden wrote in response to what we have seen on the news almost daily, and she coins a term that will definitely make you stop and think, “I’ve never thought of it quite that way before.”
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Ashes in California
MEMOIR | Emlyn Cameron
After his father dies, Emlyn Cameron returns to his hometown in California, which is menaced by COVID-19 and massive wildfires, to unpack their relationship while sorting the contents of his father’s storage unit.
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Adrian’s Affinity
FICTION, DRAMATIZATION | Deya Bhattacharya
Adrian’s Affinity is a lush and lyrical story about a sensitive and intelligent boy with a special affinity — he can attract birds. It’s not a power, because he can’t control it. And it’s not an ability he wants, as it makes others — even his own mother — suspicious of him. Both a bittersweet coming-of-age tale and a haunting mystery, we’re reminded that we are all shaped by beautiful and mysterious forces as we struggle to fit in and understand ourselves.
A Crack Up
MEMOIR | Virginia Evans
Virginia Evans wrote the first draft of her novel in 61 days. Seven days a week, she was at her desk with coffee by 5:00 am. She wrote 98,000 words while working three part-time jobs, with two children at home under age four. Then she defied the odds and managed to secure a literary agent. All of that turned out to be the easy part.
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Caro’s Return
FICTION | Robert Shuster
A writer of thrillers encounters a woman who claims to be the clever central character from his first novel. He plays along for a while, enjoying her witty company and the social boost she gives to his fading renown, but when she demands his involvement in a scheme to steal millions, he starts to wonder if she has, in fact, emerged from his fiction. As the situation becomes increasingly dire, he struggles to outwit her double-crossing skills.
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Through the Hole
FICTION | Robin Luce Martin
Nothing, but nothing, interrupts the daily quests that preoccupy the precious patrons and harried staff of New York City’s Upper East Side shop, Spanking Buttons, until the “Blonde Mace Attack” precipitates a collision and disappearance.
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Rift Zone
FICTION | Sarah Blanchard
When Kilauea Volcano erupts in May 2018, back-to-the-land farmers June and Lani must decide whether to stay and protect their Big Island homestead against everyday threats like feral pigs and potential looters, or evacuate and flee the dangers they cannot control. In the process, they learn where the fault lines are in their own relationship, and whether they can survive a disaster that may be immediate and cataclysmic.
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Red Ferry, Blue Ferry: An Irish Lesson in How You Can’t Get There from Here
MEMOIR | Michael Fallon
Michael Fallon’s visit to Ireland’s Aran Islands is a humorous “you-can’t-get-there-from-here” story. He arrived at the Aran Islands by ferry from Galway. Though everyone spoke English, he could not learn how to return to the mainland to catch his flight home. “There’s no ferry that goes to Galway,” he was told. But how could he take a ferry from Galway to the Aran Islands, but could not take a ferry back? How did the ferry he took from Galway get there in the first place? How would he...
Recent Episodes
Season 1
Tell O’Toole O’Flaherty is Dead
JEFF FLEISCHER
Spending a solitary Christmas Eve after a recent break-up, David Silver stops in a neighborhood bar for a drink. There he encounters a cat and a stranger who asks him to deliver a cryptic message to someone he’s never heard of. This is just the first of many odd things he will experience on a night that becomes increasing...
Finding the Lost River
MICHAEL FALLON
First, cancer endangered Michael Fallon’s life, and then it threatened to take his voice from him. He learns that to survive and recover from cancer, you must find that place in yourself which is the source of inspiration and strength, that deep river of being that — even now — flows through you. This is the uplifti...
Agustine’s Mother
LORENA ORTIZ
Teresa, a young woman living in rural Mexico in the 1930s, is pregnant for the first time and is bound to name her baby according to the tradition of the small town she has grown up in — a tradition that ensures prosperity or poverty for the child. This is the story of a young woman determined to break from tradition so th...
Caught
JESSICA BARKSDALE
Caught is a story about a woman whose life has mostly occurred around her. She has watched things transpire, rather than acting to make them happen. But one day, something happens that upends her life and forces her to make changes and decisions.
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The Peacock
HARRISON BLACKMAN
In “The Peacock,” a producer for the podcast “Detective Radio” travels to his hometown of San Diego to research an episode about the US Navy. Along the way, he confronts grief, reconnects with an old flame, and stumbles into a military conspiracy that threatens his life and all that he loves.
...Silver and Gold: A Hollywood Story
JEFF FLEISCHER
Dash Silver and Carol Gold were Hollywood stars in the 1950s, lovers on screen and off. Decades after their relationship ends, Carol receives an envelope with a surprising request from Dash – will she honor it or not? As she considers her options, she recalls their Tinseltown past and the surprising reason she’s had n...
A Cry in the Night
NATALIE SIERRA
In Hollywood in 1929, a young actress working as a telephone switchboard operator receives a terrifying call — a woman screaming for help, silenced by a sudden gunshot. When the police investigation leads nowhere, she jumps into action to try to learn the identity and the fate of the mysterious screaming woman.
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Driving the Section Line
SARAH K. LENZ
This touching memoir recalls a journey the author took with her father along the rural back roads of central Nebraska, visiting the significant landmarks of his life in what he called his “nostalgia tour.” He reflects on his life as a failed farmer, and she remembers flashes of alcohol-fueled abuse. But an unex...
Trash Can Blues
JERRY VIS
In the early-1950s, against his wishes, Jerry Vis’s father sent him to a strict Adventist boarding school in Virginia. In this humorous memoir, he recalls a school that was definitely not to his liking or fitting his character, where he was dubbed Jerry “Vice.” He remembers one particular Dean who doled out outland...
Hawkesmoor: A Novel of Vampire and Faerie
ANNE MERINO
British vampire Robin Dashwood has been hiding from his past in New York City. He’s poured himself into his work as a history professor at NYU. Since his painful transition into a vampire, he has avoided the place of his 18th-century human birth, Hawkesmoor Castle, in Yorkshire, England. However, a twist of fate return...
Rafael, Titicaca, and How My Son Got His Name
ROBERTO LOIEDERMAN
Some name their first child for a relative, some for a prominent person. Some choose a name that’s in vogue. Roberto Loiederman named his first child for an unforgettable cocaine dealer he met while crossing Lake Titicaca. This is a story of wanderlust, a passionate love affair, and the most unusual way Roberto’s ...
There is Something I Must Tell You
MICHAEL FALLON
When Michael Fallon was diagnosed with stage four cancer of the throat, he burst into tears and wondered how he could possibly tell his wife the devastating news. This was followed by uncomprehending rage and radiation treatments in the belly of a massive, whirring machine that focused a beam of invisible light on his tumor...
Hideaway Lounge
WILLIAM TORPHY
This is the story of Margaret and Bernie’s long marriage, told through a series of nostalgic flashbacks to Hollywood of the 1950s. As they near the end of their long lives, the couple hatches a surprising plan, and one fateful night they return to the Sunset Inn, where they first met sixty years earlier.
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Bar Kafka
FRANCIS DUFFY
“Bar Kafka” is the gripping story of Joe Nickerson’s adventures after serving in Vietnam. We travel with him from Vietnam to Japan, and after he arrives home, from Los Angeles to New Jersey. Captivated by a stalwart, seductive, and enigmatic woman, he ultimately returns to Japan… which leads to a most u...
Sandhill Cranes
ANNA PRAWDZIK HULL
Hector, a young man from Albuquerque, is one semester away from getting a degree from the University of New Mexico. His mother, who was recently deported from the U.S., is sick and needs urgent care in Oaxaca, Mexico. To help her, Hector gets a job working for a secretive character, a man named Johnny G, whose dangerous...
Summer of the River Bottom Dragon
JENNIFER O’NEILL PICKERING
This eloquent and poignant short story, about redemption and forgiveness, begins when a horseshoe-shaped belt buckle tumbles out of an old photo album into Sarah’s lap. She recalls that there was nothing lucky about that particular keepsake, and relives the momentous events of one particular summer that ...
MacFarland’s Unreasonable Expectations
SEAN MURRAY
What do a box-car riding, washed up sax player, a Tijuana cop, a Scandinavian diplomat, a gorgeous high diver, and a race horse ready for the glue factory, have in common? They all turn up in Sean Murray’s highly entertaining short story.
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Wine Tasting
ANNILEE NEWTON
Annilee Newton answered a Craigslist job post with a photo of herself drinking wine — a bold move that will eventually lead to her becoming a professional wine taster. This amusing memoir takes us along on Annilee’s journey to learn the intricate art of wine tasting. We travel with her to Mississippi, France, and Texas....