Cattle auctions, pastures, and an old horse. These make up the world of Janisse Ray's essay "Cheyenne", about an old horse taken in by Ray's family. Ray's piece explores the nature of love, the connections between love and pity, and the discovery of grace. [...] more

The repetitive work of a tree-planting camp, the complexity of the forest, and above all, the sounds of that world--these are the subjects of Geoff Martin's essay "Burning Silence". Tasked with tending a loud generator, Martin contemplates how noise and stillness fuel our creativity. [...] more

Two men work to remove a heavy cast-iron tub from a bathroom. They are both middle-aged; one is a teacher, a writer. In Guy Thorvaldsen's essay "Horny For Construction," working with your hands is full of lessons--about rewards and process, but also about what Thorvaldsen calls "small disagreements with the universe". [...] more

The Wednesday Fiasco is how Eva Dunsky refers to the sudden end of an adolescent relationship. "But That's Not The Way It Feels" is a wry account of a break-up, tinged with the melancholy wisdom of Jim Croce and youthful perspective. [...] more

Every summer since 1900, the National Hobo Convention takes place in Britt, Iowa, a tiny town whose two train lines have made it the center of hobo memory for generations. Virginia Marshall's Dispatch from the Convention captures the voices of hobos gathered to name their king and queen, and speaks of the idea of freedom and the reality of borders as they define the hobo way of life. [...] more

Mustang Wanted is one of a small group of young men who hang by their bare hands from the tops of skyscrapers. Without ropes. Laura Jones' essay "Death Fears Him" delves into this subculture, exploring the dangerous and fascinating intersection of risk and fame. [...] more

Alysia Abbott's essay tells the story of romantic risk--the risk of letting someone go in the hope and belief not only that it's the right thing to do, but also that it may be the only way to hold on. A Cat Power song, a striped shirt, and a Ukrainian restaurant all play a role in this tale of love. [...] more

In her essay "In Texas," Christi Craig recalls her teenaged self facing a dilemma of faith and family. Should she admit to her grandmother that she cannot speak in tongues, or should she pretend she can so as not to reveal her distance from the religion that has always bound them together? Looking back, Craig examines the connections that have endured. [...] more

Mark Vanhoenacker reads excerpts from his recent book SKYFARING. In a seamless fusion of history, politics, geography, meteorology, family, and physics, the book asks us to reimagine what we--as pilots and as passengers--are actually doing when we enter the world between departure and discovery. www. skyfaring. com [...] more

Cumi Ikeda's essay explores identity and race through the lyrical rhythms of poetry. The essay asks us to contemplate how we see one another and how we see ourselves--how we exist through and beyond categories. [...] more

To hear Melanie Senn tell it, she is not a good drummer. But what matters more than her musical and percussive talent is her skill in telling the story of how she took to the drums--at first as a way to connect to her musician husband, and then as a way to experience delight. In "The Art of Drumming Badly," Senn shares her joy in learning something new and in learning not to care about inhibitions and expectations. [...] more

When family crises buffeted author Catherine Elcik with grief and stress, she found solace in the unlikeliest of places: Doctor Who . Or perhaps not so unlikely. For from this television program about time-shifting and agelessness and loss and endurance, Elcik learned powerful lessons about coping with the thieveries of illness and death. In this beautiful essay, Elcik offers wisdom to all of us--Whovians or not. [...] more

There are those who prepare for Thanksgiving weeks in advance. And there are those, like Steve Macone, who do their shopping the day before this major American holiday. His essay "Who's Walking Who," first audio-published in our October 2011 issue, finds Macone at the Somerville, Massachusetts Market Basket on Thanksgiving Wednesday. Hilarity--and insight--ensue. [...] more

Travel is supposed to be so broadening, in the words of Sinclair Lewis. But anyone embarking on a Thanksgiving-motivated journey knows that travel can be aggravating, maddening, and bewildering too. In an essay first audio-published in The Drum in July 2013, Jane Hamilton recounts a trip with her husband when the combined forces of the TSA and a Ziploc bag threatened to undo them. [...] more

In this expanded version of her Dispatch piece from our September issue, Kyla Hanington writes of a road trip across Canada with her husband and children. As she moves eastward with her family, Hanington is driven by hope and curiosity, wondering if their eventual destination of Saskatchewan will yield what she seeks. "Saskatchewan" was recorded in Dispatch style, with ambient noise. [...] more

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

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

Eson Kim ponders the language of spices and scents that passes between her and her mother as Kim tries to learn her mother's recipes. Kim evokes the power of the ingredients to summon memories and connection, and contemplates the poignant difficulty of mastering what her mother knows. [...] more

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

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

De Leon writes movingly about her grandfather's seeking forgiveness from the woman he abandoned in Guatemala. In "Lucky Woman," Luisa, De Leon's grandmother, meets him upon his return, passing defiant judgment upon him. [...] more

A mother's wartime theories, two daughters' misunderstandings, and the issue of sexual control as it's wielded by a mother and a father: combat and choice resonate here in Carol Sandel's "Birth Control". [...] more

Joanna Rakoff reads from My Salinger Year and Edan Lepucki reads from California at Brookline Booksmith. Listen in as these two writers read from their work and answer questions about driving through LA during a blackout that seems to presage apocalypse, about the experience of working in J. D. Salinger's agency, and about the shift from novel to memoir, third-person to first. [...] more

The balky knobs on a Czech stove, the quirky signage on a Prague building, or the smile of a stranger on a train: these are the starting points for Allison Williams' essay about decoding the mysteries of life abroad. But more than geographical foreignness, Williams writes of the potential estrangement from one's partner and from certain crucial parts of one's identity. In "Courtesies," she explores how we navigate as we try to turn the right way. [...] more

"Are you an animal lover? " is the innocent question that precipitates the soul-searching rendered comically here by Colleen Houlihan. Squirrels, a video store, and a healthy amount of risk-taking and imagination feature in Houlihan's essay, in which an encounter with an unusual customer leads the writer into new and potentially taboo territory. [...] more

A woman, a spider, and a small space. These are the elements of Barrington Smith-Seetachit's essay "Sunday Afternoon With Buddha and Spider. " With comic flair, Smith-Seetachit leads us through a high-intensity meditation on fear, power, and mercy. [...] more

Chris Wiewiora's essay "Sleeping Over" explores the many complications of exactly that, when the people in question are teenagers, and one of them is presided over by his father. Trust, the truth, and independence are just some of the issues at stake not just in the event but in the messages surrounding it. [...] more

Annie Dawid's "Dome Life" describes a life under a figurative dome, on the margins of conventional society. Set in the world of pot-growers in 1970's Mendocino County, Dawid's essay tracks a descent into drugs and violence, and other dangers hiding in plain sight. [...] more

In "What We Are Given," Jean Ryan recounts the experience of taking in her mother-in-law despite the older woman's condemnation of Ryan's and her partner's sexuality. Ryan's essay asks us to consider the limits of obligation, and offers a moving exploration of the challenges of allegiance and commitment. [...] more

Josh MacIvor-Andersen writes lyrically about his brother, who has made it to his thirtieth birthday in spite of a persistent craving for risk. MacIvor-Andersen's essay "Bedford Forrest Birthday--Unexpected" contemplates the seduction of danger, the power of risk to imbue our experience with seemingly greater value. The essay asks the question: do we need danger in order to validate our survival? [...] more

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

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

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

Mitali Perkins' essay "Writing Race in Novels" is both a collection of practical advice on a matter of writing craft, and a philosophical analysis of how our treatment of identity--our own or that of others--reveals how we approach otherness. Though this essay is directed towards writers, it bears thought-provoking ideas for non-writers as well. [...] more

Sabine Heinlein's essay "Pomp and Circumstance" traces the challenges and successes in the life of a young blind man negotiating life in New York. Heinlein gives us a vivid sense of the world as this young man experiences it, as she follows him through certain key milestones. A version of the essay first appeared in the American Literary Review where it was awarded the 2011 non-fiction award. [...] more

Aine Greaney's "Sanctuary" is an eloquent meditation on the people and places that give us comfort, often in unexpected ways. With her mother's death as starting point, Greaney explores the notion of the individual in place and time, the connections that link us to history and to the present. [...] more

Ron MacLean's essay examines how stories connect us, and how the imagination becomes a powerful force in the creation of empathy. Citing writers Rabindranath Tagore, Ian McEwan, Tim O'Brien, and Marilynne Robinson, among others, MacLean reminds us that empathy is not just a desired effect of fiction, but a social and cultural need. In "Is Fiction Empathy's Best Hope? " MacLean offers us the hope and the promise of literature. [...] more

Ed Bull's "Seed" revisits the shocking events of August 1, 1966 when Charles Whitman shot seventeen people from the University of Texas clock tower. Part essay, part invention, Bull's piece bring us into the events, allowing us to ponder Whitman himself and the nature of his horrible crime and the nature of violence. [...] more

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

On May 19, 2017, GrubStreet hosted Boston's first Write-In. The Drum was on the scene to record some of the many stories told by recent immigrants and refugees. Here are stories by Yanley Francois, Zach Ben-Amots, U-Melgn ‘Mhlaba-Apebo, Dana Lopes, Carolyn De Jesus, Christelle Narcisse, and Aseret Laparra. Write-In audio was recorded by Ilya Methot and Jordan Fischer. [...] more

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

"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

D. J. Lee's essay "Collage" contemplates the difficult intersection between mothers and daughters, dramatized in the placement of photographs in a collage. Lee's essay explores how a two-dimensional image "can express the depth of pain and love between generations. " [...] more

Frequent Drum contributor Steven Brykman strikes a serious tone in his essay "The Box" about a childhood visit to his older brother's residence  in a home for people with autism. Brykman tells a dramatic story of his long-ago encounter with a frightening element of his brother's life, and muses on the nature of shared experience, isolation, and love. [...] more

Jonathan Starke's "Sling and Stone" looks at Michelangelo's David with the eyes of a bodybuilder--and finds poignant mortality in the timeless statue. [...] more

In "Assailing Otherness," Katrina Grigg-Saito confronts the ultimate food taboo and survives to tell the tale.  Grigg-Saito's essay explores the limits different cultures draw around what's approved and what's beyond the pale. Her experience of learning to cook in Laos begins with the desire to get to the heart of a culture and ends with a discovery about her own assumptions and willingness to set them aside. [...] more

Aine Greaney's essay "Green Card" recounts a trip to renew the eponymous card in Lawrence, MA. As her GPS tries to lead her to the INS office, Greaney meditates on the obstacles and miscommunications of the immigrant's experience. She thinks over her years in the United States, her departure from Ireland, and her sense of belonging to those who don't belong. Greaney's essay offers a thoughtful meditation on cultural and personal identity. [...] more

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

Steve Macone's "Who's Walking Who" is a wry and hilarious love letter to his local Market Basket grocery store, with its chaos, its crowds, and the various mysteries of its organizing principles. He spots the foibles of human behavior there--his own and those of others--and identifies the strange beauty of this place "where everything meets and touches". [...] more

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

Vanessa Tardiff's "Brookline Night" was one of our featured stories for the October round of Zip-Code Stories . "Brookline Night" describes just that. A story of a mother and a daughter, Vanessa's piece explores the connection between place and person, and the shifting between the familiar and the strange. To hear more Zip-Code Stories submitted by listeners to WBUR and fans of The Drum , listen to our playlist on Broadcastr , an innovative platform for sharing geo-tagged audio. [...] more

Julie Wheelwright's Esther: The Remarkable True Story of Esther Wheelwright, Puritan Child, Native Daughter and Mother Superior provides a chilling and moving account of Wheelwright's ancestor who was abducted by Native American warriors from her Maine home in the 1600s. In the excerpts she reads aloud for The Drum , Wheelwright tells us about her own search for her ancestor, and recounts Esther's abduction, set in the context of the history and politics of the time. Not for the faint of heart, these excerpts nonetheless offer a vivid look at a [...] more

Alex Johnson's The Hidden Writer (Doubleday 1997) explores the writer's journey from diary to published writings, and the negotiations between private and public work. In her chapter "The Married Muse," Johnson looks at the relationship between Leo and Sonya Tolstoy--as husband and wife, idol and fan, writer and scribe, and muse to muse. [...] more

Amy Yelin's essay "Torn" takes us through a daughter's experience guiding her father through the rituals following her mother's death. Then things get complicated, as Yelin deals with the discovery of her father's secretive relationship with another woman. In exploring that relationship, and the new family dynamic that emerges after its often humorous revelation, Yelin sheds light on the impulses that lead us to reject or welcome one another. [...] more

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto's memoir Hiroshima in the Morning weaves together her personal experience during a research sojourn in that city with her growing understanding of the complex political, social, and cultural issues that surround the nuclear bombing and its aftermath. She reads here from three sections of the book, examining the stresses on her marriage as she undergoes this months-long separation from her family, her relationship with her aging mother, and her own changing sense of self. Her writing examines the challenge of memory--what happens when it fails us, and when we fail it by choosing [...] more

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

"What is it like to be the daughter of a Nazi? " That is the question Christiane Alsop sets out to answer in her essay "Presumed Guilty". Reflecting on her father's tales of his accounts during wartime Germany, contemplating her at-times strained relationship with her father over the years, and her own reactions to the ebb and flow of power, Christiane is torn by the equal tugs of resignation and revelation. Revelation wins out, as she conveys the moral, ethical, and personal challenges of living with that difficult question. [...] more

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

Susan Orlean has just completed a cultural biography of the dog actor Rin Tin Tin. In the excerpt she recorded for The Drum , she writes about a visit to Paris' Cimetiere des Chiens, the special cemetery for dogs. Looking for Rin Tin Tin's grave, Orlean ponders the history of the pet-person relationship, and explores the human need to memorialize what we love even as we know we can't hold onto it. [...] more

Miriam Novogrodsky writes about growing up an outsider in Montpelier, Vermont, and the year her father's winter obsession turned to economical meat-eating and the creative use of the compost pile. This is a tale of chest freezers, prairie bonnets, and snowshoe picnics with unusual sandwiches. [...] more

Steven Brykman's essay "You Know How It Is" puts a comical spin on Jewish identity, Hasidic fashion, and the perils of running errands when your girlfriend finds you annoying. [...] more

Katrina Grigg-Saito's essay "The Original Feminist" provides a tender portrait of her grandmother Mimi who did it all--worked as a hairdresser, raised five children, tailored stylish clothes, and advocated for education--in the pre-Civil-Rights South. [...] more

CD Collins' essay "The Vigilantes of Vance" is a portrait of her candy-eating, derringer-toting, fast-driving mother, and a drily funny story of the woman's power to enthrall those around her. [...] more

Bret Anthony Johnston closes his reading at the November 15 Four Stories event by announcing he will be plagiarizing Jamaica Kincaid's famous story "Girl". Here is his short piece "Boy". [...] more

Bret Anthony Johnston starts off his reading at the November 15 Four Stories /Drum event with "Porn Star," his entry for a dictionary of dirty words. [...] more

Reading at the November 15 Four Stories event, Ethan Gilsdorf begins with a boy facing a woodchuck, and leads us through a humorous and complex contemplation of the nature of play, cruelty, and kindness, in his essay "Just To See If I Could". [...] more

Elyssa East’s first book, Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town , interlaces the true story of a grisly murder with the strange history of a wilderness ghost town and explores the possibility that certain landscapes wield their own unique power. She reads here from the prologue of the book, "The Prophetic Pictures. " [...] more

A feisty grandmother, Yiddish nicknames, and a hospital stay come together in Deborah Milstein's "A Yiddish Vocabulary. " Milstein's essay offers a reverie on Jewish heritage and on the words that bind family together. [...] more

In his essay “Tickle or Torture,” Vestal McIntyre recounts his Wednesday-night teasings as the youngest of seven in an Idaho town. While his parents are attending Bible study, McIntyre is poked, prodded, tickled, and tortured by his siblings, although all he really desires is to be left alone. [...] more

In his essay “Loving the Momster,” Ethan Gilsdorf recounts his childhood after his mother’s 1997 death, specifically the childhood after his mother suffered an aneurism in 1978. Gilsdorf revisits his mother’s mercurial moods and changed attitude, and his own altered childhood, through emails from a childhood friend who only knew Gilsdorf’s mother after her aneurism. Despite the fragmented nature of his mother’s life, Gilsdorf is able to find and preserve a sense of her identity. [...] more

Michelle Hoover’s essay “Our Litter Bertha” recounts her discovery of her great-grandmother's journal, the document which she later used to inspire her novel, The Quickening . Hoover ponders the stories of her Midwestern family found in diaries and letters. She contemplates her upbringing and the consequences of her relocation from Iowa to Boston. The essay is a vivid study of the connection between identity and place. [...] more

In “Gotta Move the Cow,” Deborah Blicher recounts her work as a patient registration receptionist in a remote African hospital. The essay excerpt paints a vivid picture of a rural community as western medicine tries to help a desperate mother and her sick son. [...] more