Story
The Locked Door
Joel Allegretti
The door to the room next to my bedroom when I was growing up was always locked. It was the only door in the house that locked from the outside. Not once did I see Mom or Dad—or anyone else—open it. I must have been six ...
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Podcasts
Episode 5 – Chavisa Woods
Chavisa Woods
Chavisa Woods in conversation with Bernard Meisler.
Chavisa Woods is a New York-based literary fiction author, and poet. She is the author of three books. The first, Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind, (2009) is bot...
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Story
Alphanumerica
Robert C. Hardin
The streets were numbered forward and the avenues backward, so that you began at H and walked until you reached the first letter. Then the next avenue, like the first street, began a forward count from one to two and so on....
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Podcasts
Episode 4 – Darius James
Darius James
Darius James in conversation with Bernard Meisler.
Darius James (aka Dr. Snakeskin) is the author of That's Blaxploitation, a history of Black exploitation cinema, and the renowned cult classic Negrophobia, a raunchy ...
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Story
Fourth of July in Gotham City
Maria Koby
I had a tradition of celebrating the Independence Day with a twist. It’d start as the typical celebration - hot dogs, BBQ meat skewers and corn with cheap lager and wine at a friend's backyard or rooftop, discussing how ma...
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Story
The King’s Hashish – 1971
Tsaurah Litzky
You pack twenty bricks of black hashish from Lebanon in an empty air canister as part of your scuba diving equipment. We call it the King’s Hashish because every brick is stamped with a gold crown. You ship your diving equ...
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Story
Number 109
David Huberman
I would never admit to being interested in sexual conquests for the sake of showing off. But I was indeed part of the First Wave of 'wide eyed men’ of the James Bond Generation, who desired wickedly beautiful and sexy wom...
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Story
Drunken Turkey
Marc Olmsted
We got along and loved each other the way people do who share an interest in drugs and alcohol and sex. We loved each other in an animal way.
We never got married but were together a total of 7 years until it finally f...
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Story
The Auctioneer
Bernard Meisler
My wife showed me the back of a circular, junk mail. There was an ad for an auction the next day. A police auction, items confiscated from felons. Jewelry, artwork, gold coins and such. It was at the community center, right ...
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Story
Smiling Jimmy
Vincent Zangrillo
Gregory Corso loved Mark. Mark loved Jeannie. Jeannie loved Danny who was a high school sweetheart from “Paly High” in Palo Alto. Danny loved Smiling Jimmy. Just want to let you know that Jimmy is dead at the end of this...
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Story
Radio Activity Kills
bart plantenga & Paloma Jet
Excerpt number 3 from Radio Activity Kills, by bart plantenga & paloma jet
DJ Kees flees Amsterdam under mysterious circumstances with teen daughter, Alouette. A new life in the USA leads to an obligatory hitchhiking road...
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Story
Screw
Marc Olmsted
It was the end of the 80s into 1990 and very hard for us to find a good rock n roll dance club in San Francisco. Everything was disco electronica and it all sounded the same with that amyl nitrate bass beat. The more inter...
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Classics
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
Harlan Ellison
Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported—hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern. The body hung ...
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