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Happy Hour
Thursday, October 18, 2018
A tattoo on a woman's body becomes the locus of a complex interaction between power and passivity in Kate Wisel's short story "Happy Hour". Within a relationship marked with bruises and broken bones, the tattoo raises questions of independence and escape. [...] more
Two Poems and an Interview
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Football and a bong are the ostensible subjects of Austin Segrest's two poems "Wingback" and "The Big Bong". Segrest's poetry is both playful and serious here, classically grounded and utterly contemporary. After reading the poems, he speaks with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur about his sources of ideas, his approach to writing, and his current non-poetry obsession: tennis. [...] more
FEBRUARY FLASH MIXTAPE
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Since February is the shortest month, we think it's the perfect time for the shortest of stories. And so, we bring you that icon of long-ago pop culture, now modified for the post-cassette era: the mixtape. In one track, we've compiled six short pieces from The Drum's archives, from writers Matt Bell , Ron MacLean , Michelle Seaton , Cumi Ikeda , Allison Williams , and Nathan Poole . These are tales of snakes and tidepools, butchers and fish, identity and danger. [...] more
Fairyland
Monday, December 4, 2017
A young couple, a little girl, and a seaside carnival come together in this short piece by Lisa Piazza. They come together and they come apart, while the mother who narrates the piece ponders the funhouse-mirror quality of the new land she finds herself in after divorce. [...] more
Riptide
Friday, December 16, 2016
The narrator of Jo-Ann Bekker's "Riptide" insists we can believe her. 'Believe me when I tell you,' she says, many times. The story asks us whether we can trust this tale of infidelity, and whether even the woman telling us the story is certain of anything beyond the strong pull of desire. [...] more
Three Poems
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Major Jackson reads three poems from his latest collection Roll Deep : "Cries and Whispers," "Mighty Pawns," and "Cordoba: Mezquita". The Drum 's Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur introduces the poems. [...] more
Dispatch: Saskatchewan
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
A road trip across Canada settles in and on Saskatchewan as Kyla Haninhgton speaks of the pull of that province's open spaces, the tug even of its place names, its evocation of belonging. [...] more
Dispatch: Dummerston
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
From a clearing in southern Vermont, Alison McGhee talks about the invention of a life, summoned from an idea and fashioned from the woods, the river rocks, and in the tiny house that rises up on the land. [...] more
What Matters
Monday, June 8, 2015
A hospital fundraiser is the scene of a chance meeting in Linda Cutting's "What Matters". Ailments small and large spark a lighthearted flirtation that leads a man and a woman to connect. [...] more
Bluebird
Monday, June 8, 2015
In "Bluebird," Louise Houghton explores the fraught relationship between two siblings, a younger sister and her older brother. This is sibling rivalry rendered with nuance and yielding to the author's curiosity and insight, set in the specifics of an English childhood. [...] more
Cold Winter
Monday, June 8, 2015
We can arm ourselves against cold and snow, but how do we defend against a family member's death? Stephen Dorneman's "Cold Winter" evokes the talismanic power of all our winter equipment and hints at precisely where it can fail to protect us. [...] more
Things in Boxes
Monday, June 8, 2015
When she and her partner pack up to move, a woman discovers she has brought to her new home more than just the objects she has boxed. Stacey Resnikoff's "Things in Boxes" is a tidy contemplation of what we own, what we collect, and what we discover as we move on. [...] more
Cover Story
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
A child's complicated response to complicated power--her own and that of her parents--underlies the critical moment Tracy Hahn-Burkett narrates in her short story "Cover Story". Hahn-Burkett's fiction is a terse investigation of the violence in self-assertion. [...] more
Me And My Orion
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Ethan Gilsdorf finds perspective and a sense of belonging in the night sky. His essay "Me And My Orion" recalls the stars in that constellation and links him, and us, to the vast movements and the stillness above us. [...] more
two poems
Monday, November 3, 2014
Carrie Green reads her poems "Cochina Rock" and "Test Drive" and answers Kirun Kapur's questions on a variety of topics--including the origins of her work, the experience of writing about historical subjects, and her non-poetry obsession (which features nests). [...] more
MuseFlash 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
The careful parsing of a phone message leads to a blossoming but perplexing romance. Caitlyn Kinsella's "It's Me" finds humor and poignancy in the intricacies of interaction. [...] more
Drone
Monday, July 21, 2014
"You must never make the mistake of believing that readers just want to be passive recipients of whatever it is you want to say." So says James Arthur in his conversation with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur. His poem "Drone" engages readers--and listeners--in thought-provoking exploration of power and threat. [...] more
Poems Read by Gov. Patrick and Former Police Comm. Ed Davis
Monday, May 5, 2014
It's not every day you hear a former Police Commissioner reciting a poem by heart--or hear a Governor intoning someone else's persuasive rhetoric. But at a foundraiser in March for last weekend's Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick performed a powerful recitation of Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" and former Police Commissioner Ed Davis recited Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Wreck of the Hesperus" almost entirely by heart. [...] more
excerpt from The Fifty-First State
Monday, April 28, 2014
A handful of sentences form the opening chapter of Lisa Borders' novel The Fifty-First State , setting her characters on an inexorable course towards tragedy and connection, and sending her readers into a world of lush detail and intensely-felt emotion. Hallie and Josh Corson share a father but little else—until a grisly highway accident at the novel's outset leaves them both without parents. Forced to come together on the family's struggling tomato farm, Josh and Hallie grow in ways they never expected, and discover that even in death’s wake, lives can change for the better. [...] more
poems
Monday, March 24, 2014
Zombies, weapons, and terrors of a darker, more pervasive sort: these are the subjects of Jill McDonough's poems "Horrors All Around" and "Also, Homemade Flamethrowers". What are the threats, McDonough's work asks, and do they come from within or beyond us? McDonough offers answers, too, in her interview with Kirun Kapur. [...] more
Poem
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
"At Hundred Islands National Park, I Count Only One Island" is The Drum's inaugural poem, by Aimee Nezhukumathatil. Nezhukumathatil reads the poem and then answers questions from Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur, about the poem's origins, her non-writing obsessions, and more. [...] more
excerpt from The Other Room
Monday, February 24, 2014
A pink mitten and a balky boiler are some of the poignant details of this scene from Kim Triedman's novel The Other Room. The loss of a child registers through the eerie combination of the normal and the uncanny, adding up to mounting pressure on the husband and wife who have survived. [...] more
Sea Monster Blues
Monday, December 23, 2013
Existential angst takes a darkly humorous turn in Ryan Britt's short story about a man and a monster on a beach. "Sea Monster Blues" offers a variation on the Jekyll and Hyde tale, the drama compressed to one summer afternoon amid the sunscreen and the paperbacks. [...] more
Going as a Ghost
Monday, November 25, 2013
Halloween provides a touching backdrop for Erik Doughty's flash fiction piece about the emotional aftermath in a family dealing with loss. "Going as a Ghost" offers a bittersweet look at how we "go as" those who are gone. Doughty's piece is a featured selection from The Drum's Flash Fiction Open Mic held at last month's Boston Book Festival. [...] more
Before the Fall
Monday, November 25, 2013
A chair held aloft at a Jewish wedding is the perch from which the narrator of Leah Berkowitz' "Before the Fall" observes a key moment in her life in poignant and vivid detail. The mundane, the good, and the worrisome are all before her--in what measure, she doesn't yet know. "Before the Fall" is a featured selection from The Drum's Flash Fiction Open Mic held at last month's Boston Book Festival. [...] more
Twelve
Monday, November 18, 2013
Adam Renn Olenn's "Twelve" is paced by the chime of the town bells in this western-ish tale of a man looking for a way to stay out of trouble. Trouble, though, has a way of breaking out around him. "Twelve" is a featured selection from The Drum's Flash Fiction Open Mic held at this year's Boston Book Festival. [...] more
Vodka and Duct Tape
Monday, November 18, 2013
How to fix what's broken--in a person, a relationship, a home? Stephen Dorneman's flash fiction "Vodka and Duct Tape" offers moving and heart-breaking answers to these questions. "Vodka and Duct Tape" is a featured selection from The Drum's Flash Fiction Open Mic held at last month's Boston Book Festival. [...] more
Gabe Bamforth
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Gabe Bamforth was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. He recorded his essay at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Ethan Aronson
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Ethan Aronson was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. He recorded his story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. The story is one of The Drum's four featured pieces from the 2013 YAWP collection. [...] more
Emma Trujillo
Monday, August 5, 2013
Emma Trujillo was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Tara Rahman
Monday, August 5, 2013
Tara Rahman was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Caroline Brink
Monday, August 5, 2013
Caroline Brink was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Sabrina Priestley
Monday, August 5, 2013
Sabrina Priestley was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Amariah Condon
Monday, August 5, 2013
Amariah Condon was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Noah Riley
Monday, August 5, 2013
Noah Riley was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. He recorded his story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Quddos Rodrigues
Monday, August 5, 2013
Quddos Rodrigues was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. He recorded his story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Christina Wiese
Monday, August 5, 2013
Christina Wiese was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her essay at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Gaelle Rigaud
Monday, August 5, 2013
Gaelle Rigaud was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Arthur Galstian
Monday, August 5, 2013
Arthur Galstian was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. He recorded his story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Emma LeBlanc Perez
Monday, August 5, 2013
Emma LeBlanc Perez was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
John Glasfeld
Monday, August 5, 2013
John Glasfeld was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. He recorded his story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Ashley Lee
Monday, August 5, 2013
Ashley Lee was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. She recorded her story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
Marquis Knight-Jacks
Monday, August 5, 2013
Marquis Knight-Jacks was a 2013 Summer Fellow at Grub Street's 2013 Young Adult Writers Program. He recorded his story at the conclusion of the 2013 program. [...] more
excerpt from Cubop City Blues
Monday, June 24, 2013
With rich language and striking images, the narrator of Pablo Medina's novel Cubop City Blues introduces himself, from the moment of his birth. His mother's infidelity, his aunts' various devotions, his father's cuckolding, and the rhythms and voices of this creative and created version of New York City--all of them come powerfully to life in this vivid excerpt. [...] more
LAURIE JACOBS The Call
Monday, May 20, 2013
Laurie Jacobs' flash fiction piece "The Call" is a MuseFlash selection from The Drum's Third Annual MuseFlash contest, recorded at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference earlier this month. "The Call" is an early morning phone call that alters the life of Jacobs' college-student narrator. The brevity of the piece belies its dense emotional impact and its moving tone. [...] more
WENDY DARWIN WAKEMAN Identity Theft
Monday, May 20, 2013
Wendy Wakeman's "Identity Theft" was a selection from The Drum's Third Annual MuseFlash contest at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference earlier this month. Financial dire straits and the pressures of college and work form the setting for the piece, in which a ten dollar bill and a grandmother's handwriting come together to alter the narrator's life. [...] more
MARCIA DOUGLAS Boy With a Watergun in his Schoolbag
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
In Marcia Douglas' "Boy With a Watergun in His Schoolbag", a boy finds power and poetry in something so basic as the multiplication tables. The number seven becomes the source of discovery of his own greatness and of his identity in the face of the confining world of school and a teacher with a ruler in her hand.
"Boy With a Watergun in His Schoolbag" was The Drum's selection from our Third Annual MuseFlash contest, recorded at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference earlier this month. [...] more
KELLY ROBERTSON The Characteristics of Dirt
Monday, May 20, 2013
Kelly Robertson's "The Characteristics of Dirt" is one of The Drum's selections from our Third Annual MuseFlash contest, recorded at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference earlier this month. Robertson's piece takes an intriguing and almost eerie look at a woman with an intense need to dig. This short work brings the listener in close, focusing on vivid sensory details of the loam the character sifts through. [...] more
ELLEN FREEMAN ROTH Going's Tough in a Storm, But Don't Mention It
Monday, March 18, 2013
Before winter leaves us behind completely, and while memories of the latest snowstorms are still fresh in our minds, we offer Ellen Freeman Roth's tale of a predicament many snowbound drivers fear. In "Going's Tough In a Storm, But Don't Mention It," Freeman Roth recounts her car-bound adventure with liquids, frozen and otherwise. [...] more
STEVE ADAMS The Fish
Monday, March 11, 2013
Steve Adams's "The Fish" opens as a woman realizes her husband has killed his entire herd of cattle. This brief and powerful story goes on to sketch an entire marriage strained by the hard life of the land. It offers a poignant look at loss as well as the tenuous promise of a new beginning. "The Fish" was originally published in Glimmer Train . [...] more
PAGAN KENNEDY How to Get High On Compost
Monday, February 25, 2013
New York Times columnist Pagan Kennedy takes a whiff of her backyard compost pile and examines the science of terroir . In the seemingly lowly M. vaccae, she finds a rich scientific history and a personal memory--all tied to the soil beneath her feet. [...] more
VIJEE VENKATRAMAN Improbable Cargo
Monday, February 18, 2013
"Improbable Cargo" follows the "frozen-water trade" connecting India and the northeastern United States--from a personal perspective. Vijee Venkatraman muses on her life at each end of this journey of blocks of ice across oceans, and on how something as transient as ice could create a bond that lasted centuries. A version of this essay appeared in the Harvard Book Store's essay collection Paige Leaves . [...] more
JOANNE BARKER How To Be Naked
Monday, December 17, 2012
The frailty of the human body and the strength that emerges from one woman's self-scrutiny are the subjects of Joanne Barker's "How To Be Naked". A swimming-pool locker room sets the scene for this unflinching assessment of nakedness in many forms. [...] more
BEN LURIE Looking Forward
Monday, December 17, 2012
Ben Lurie's "Looking Forward" tells the story of a young man dealing with the loss of his memory. An encounter with someone from his past--a stranger to him now--gives him an ominous sense of who he was and who he might become. [...] more
LISA KORZENIOWSKI The Summer of Nathan Nicky
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Lisa Korzeniowski's "The Summer of Nathan Nicky" watches two young sisters watching a boy--a shirtless boy mowing a lawn next door. As the narrator ogles the boy, she engages in a curious seduction, displaying herself as desirable. This brief story paints a vivid picture of adolescent sexuality and the sensuality of the gaze. [...] more
KAMELA JORDAN Fried Locusts
Monday, May 21, 2012
Kamela Jordan's "Fried Locusts" evokes a childhood spent in Thailand and a child's world of discovery, rivalrly, and allegiance. Jordan's essay hints at the ways in which the distinction between the exotic and the familiar blurs and shifts. Through a tale of children catching locusts to eat, she raises interesting questions about the nature of home. [...] more
JAMES CLAFFEY Placenta
Monday, March 26, 2012
"Placenta" completes the trio of flash fiction pieces from Irish writer James Claffey for The Drum . Here, a son watches as his parents react to a miscarriage. Themes of pain and nourishment run through this narrative which concludes with a strange communion between mother and child. To hear the other two flash fiction pieces by James Claffey, click here . [...] more
JAMES O'BRIEN Penned Up
Monday, March 5, 2012
James O'Brien's "Penned Up" tells a soldier's story. In a laconic tone that still hints at the pain of his experience, the narrator describes the heat, the smells, and the tragedy of his tour in Iraq. "Penned Up" is about detachment and loyalty, isolation and belonging, and expectations met and withheld. [...] more
JAMES CLAFFEY A Hoor of a Day
Monday, February 20, 2012
James Claffey returns to The Drum with the second of three short pieces. This one, "A Hoor of a Day," finds the narrator confronting his Da in his coffin. Even from his box, the man has the power to intrude on his son's thoughts and his memories, the father's phrases and aphorisms serving as an unsettling coda to his life. [...] more
EMMA FORREST excerpts from Your Voice in My Head
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Emma Forrest's memoir Your Voice in My Head chronicles her descent into darkness and her relationship with the therapist who helped her find her way back out. In the Prologue and the excerpt of Chapter Four that she reads here for The Drum , Forrest writes movingly of being a teenaged girl with a dangerous fixation on Millais' painting of Ophelia. She writes with restraint of powerful emotions, and describes her younger self's disturbing desire for annihilation with intensity and insight. [...] more
David
Monday, May 23, 2011
In Nina Badzin's short story "David," a post-delivery hospital room is the setting for a skirmish between husband and wife as they debate their new son's name. The decision is rife with social, cultural, and religious implications, seeming to set husband and wife apart even as it brings mother and child together. [...] more
JULIETTE FAY excerpt from Deep Down True
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Juliette Fay's novel Deep Down True follows Dana Stellgarten as she finds her feet after a divorce. In this excerpt, Dana encounters an unusual--and unusually-colored--addition to her usual array of daily parenting challenges. [...] more
JONATHAN PAPERNICK First Night
Monday, April 18, 2011
Jonathan Papernick's essay "First Night" imagines his parents' wedding night and contemplates the marriage and eventual divorce that grew from that first evening. The essay is a brief but poignant snapshot of a young couple stepping into a new life. [...] more
BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS Snow and Lemons
Monday, March 28, 2011
Bruce Holland Rogers' short story "Snow and Lemons" follows Tibor as he tries to lend purpose to his retirement. His two goals--to bring pride to Hungary's younger generation, and to make his neighbor smile--prove to be more challenging than even he might have expected. A Budapest snowstorm is the backdrop for this story about an older man's persistence and his inspired adaptation to the routines of his life. [...] more
JESSICA YEN Coming Up For Air
Monday, March 21, 2011
Jessica Yen's essay "Coming Up For Air" gives us a glimpse of an intriguing social ritual among a group of Beijing men, and looks further outward to notions of community and family both in China and in the US. [...] more
FAITH SALIE Four Stories Introduction
Monday, November 22, 2010
Faith Salie welcomes the crowd at Cambridge's Enormous Room to the November 15 Four Stories event in collaboration with The Drum, goes over the ground rules--and opines on The Great Gatsby , pageants, and catheters. [...] more