http://drumlitmag.com en The Drum Literary Magazine publishes works by emerging and established writers, read aloud by the authors themselves. https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Prompts/ Dear Listeners, Readers, Writers: After ten active years and two quiet ones, The Drum Literary Magazine has come to an end. This website will remain as an archive of all the wonderful work we published from 2010-2020. If you have any questions, contact me ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Prompts/ Thu, 12 Jan 2023 12:26:58 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Episode 5 of Safe & Sound features a magical bird, a hypnotist and two writers with work perfectly suited to our current crisis. Tune in to meet debut novelist Jennifer Rosner and memoirist Sue William Silverman as they read from their new books and discuss ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Mon, 27 Apr 2020 22:57:56 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Mysterious dreams, red tulips and a suspicious car on a snowy Moscow night—all this can be found in Episode 4 of Safe & Sound. Listen in to meet writers Ann Lewinson and Carrie Callaghan as they introduce their brand-new books. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Wed, 22 Apr 2020 07:45:37 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Liven up your couch-to-kitchen commute with tales of mug shots, animal companions, unexpected heirlooms and facing the worst-case scenario with Emily Dickinson. Tune in to meet memoirist Alia Volz and poet Lesley Wheeler on Episode 3 of Safe & Sound. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Thu, 09 Apr 2020 20:13:18 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Sat, 04 Apr 2020 01:51:15 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Though you may be hunkered down indoors, you can still reach out and connect to fresh voices and new stories. Check out the first episode of our “mini-cast,” Safe & Sound, where you’ll meet memoirist Helen Fremont, poet Jacob Strautmann, a West Virginia ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Mon, 30 Mar 2020 21:30:19 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Prompts/ Friends with new books: Here at The Drum, we're hoping to help folks facing canceled launches, tours, and events by hosting a series of mini-casts we're calling Safe & Sound. We'll feature you on our Facebook page reading one sentence about your book, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Prompts/ Wed, 22 Apr 2020 06:34:00 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Elizabeth Knapp reads her poems "Capital I," "Is That a Gun in Your Pocket" and "Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain Wrestling with the Angel" and speaks with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur about topics ranging from American politics to her ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_77-dot-_Spring_2020/ Tue, 11 Feb 2020 23:48:32 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_76-dot-_Fall_2019/ "Yvonne" by Ciera Burch is the 2019 One City One Story all-city read selection for the city of Boston. One City One Story is an annual project of the Boston Book Festival, which prints and distributes 20,000 copies of the selected story for free ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_76-dot-_Fall_2019/ Fri, 27 Sep 2019 16:55:07 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ Thu, 09 May 2019 18:02:50 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:02:37 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ Maya Detwiller's short story "Toads" explores the pains and rewards of adolescence through a child's habit of collecting toads. A giant supervising and creating miniature worlds, the story's narrator finds herself looking for a place--a place to ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ Fri, 19 Apr 2019 11:59:14 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ Nickole Brown reads her poems "Wild Thing" and "Against Despair: The Kid Goat" and speaks with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur about topics ranging from her inspiration for her work, to her Kentucky upbringing, to the first poem that resonated ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_75-dot-_Spring_2019/ Wed, 03 Apr 2019 12:05:04 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ S.D. Jones' short story "The Ideal Reasoner" gives a comic and touching twist to relationship trouble, as a Shelockian AI creates upheaval in a marriage--only to bring about a surprising resolution. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ Thu, 07 Feb 2019 12:44:17 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ "I don't have much time," says Dickie, the narrator of Bradford Philen's "What's Heavy". Dickie is a high-school kid, but he doesn't have much time--before his father's kidneys give out, before the coming hurricane hits, before Ophelia, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ Wed, 06 Feb 2019 14:31:58 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ Frankie is a pet rat. And in Kaia Preus' story "Next Life," he is dying. As Zoe tries to soften his last moments, she tries, too, to find balance in her relationships with two men. Tenderness towards Frankie becomes her litmus test, but also the ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ Fri, 15 Feb 2019 17:22:48 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ The Great Confusion has occurred, and in its aftermath, Bea is looking for her daughter. Her husband has gone missing, too. Kari Lund-Teigen's "Keep in Touch" vividly evokes a dystopian world, as well as the lengths to which its inhabitants will ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ Fri, 08 Feb 2019 12:17:44 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ Three boys make an unpleasant discovery while playing in a local park. Through one boy's narration, Heather Cripps' "Devil's Drop" tells the story of the children's vulnerability and the poignant ways in which they search for reassurance. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_74-dot-_Winter_2019/ Tue, 05 Feb 2019 15:12:39 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_73-dot-_January_2019/ What better way to start off 2019 on The Drum than to fill our January issue with poems by January Gill O'Neil. O'Neil speaks with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur after reading aloud two poems from her new book Rewilding. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_73-dot-_January_2019/ Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:12:45 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_72-dot-_December_2018/ When a robber encounters a hungry Golden Retriever while breaking into a house, the encounter evokes a poignant monologue about how to treat a dog and how not to stock a refrigerator. And Andrea Johnston's "Feeding Champion" is about much more than ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_72-dot-_December_2018/ Fri, 11 Jan 2019 17:20:33 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_72-dot-_December_2018/ In 1970, the narrator and his several brothers drive off in a Duster to defend their mother's honor. The fact that most of them are high plays some role in the confusion that ensues. Alec Solomita's "Squirrel" is a tale of sibling allegiances and ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_72-dot-_December_2018/ Fri, 14 Dec 2018 19:28:22 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_72-dot-_December_2018/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_72-dot-_December_2018/ Fri, 07 Dec 2018 13:02:04 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_71-dot-_November_2018/ ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_71-dot-_November_2018/ Wed, 21 Nov 2018 06:55:04 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_71-dot-_November_2018/ What is held, what holds you, in water or in air? Marsha McDonald's story "s w i m" raises and explores these questions through the story of a girl taught to swim by her uncle. Learning much more than that about her body's resilience, the narrator ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_71-dot-_November_2018/ Mon, 12 Nov 2018 11:58:25 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_71-dot-_November_2018/ A group of high-school boys tests each other and themselves with the game of knuckles. From the pain of knuckles, to the release of getting high, to the sweet pleasure of a Charleston Chew, these boys feel everything, and try to pretend they can choose what ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_71-dot-_November_2018/ Mon, 05 Nov 2018 16:14:38 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_70-dot-_October_2018/ Erin Hoover's poems "What Is The Sisterhood to Me" and "If You Are Confused About Whether a Girl Can Consent" speak to the issues of our current news-cycle and to the timeless issues of power and selfhood. In an accompanying interview with ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_70-dot-_October_2018/ Fri, 26 Oct 2018 14:19:59 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_70-dot-_October_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_70-dot-_October_2018/ Thu, 18 Oct 2018 21:40:57 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_70-dot-_October_2018/ 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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_70-dot-_October_2018/ Fri, 05 Oct 2018 11:56:10 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ A swamp is home to an imagined panther named "Fen" in Kate Lassell's eponymous story. Narrated by a precocious kid named Judith, the story follows a father and daughter fighting to preserve a threatened marsh--and working to sustain their small family ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ Wed, 26 Sep 2018 18:08:58 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ A thing as ordinary as a mailbox becomes the focus of all of one man's passions in Phil Shreck's eponymous story. Russell tilts not at windmills but at his mailboxes, old and new, and at a deep-seated sense of inadequacy. Shreck reads his darkly funny story ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ Wed, 19 Sep 2018 18:31:35 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ Shane Seely reads his poems "Just Now a Goose" and "Two Stories Up" and speaks with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur about his process, his first favorite poem, and how he likes to write by "leaning out over his skis". ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ Wed, 12 Sep 2018 19:46:51 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_69-dot-_September_2018/ Thu, 06 Sep 2018 12:39:09 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_68-dot-_March_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_68-dot-_March_2018/ Wed, 21 Mar 2018 18:59:23 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_67-dot-_February_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_67-dot-_February_2018/ Mon, 19 Feb 2018 17:50:53 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_67-dot-_February_2018/ Frederick Speers' poems "Deerskull," "Interlude Blues," and "Star Jasmine" are not your usual love poems. Featuring loss, death, and decay, they explore the darker side of love. In his interview with Kirun Kapur, Speers talks ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_67-dot-_February_2018/ Fri, 16 Feb 2018 12:24:26 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ "XOX" begins with a fake-leather belt and concludes with thoughts on the sincerity of greetings and the limits of our reaching out to those in trouble. In both this poem and in "Teach Us to Number Our Days," Leslie Williams works within ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ Fri, 16 Feb 2018 12:24:51 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ The anger and frustration of girls is at the core of Brandi Reissenweber's short story "Where We Found the Girls". As, one by one, four girls in a community are discovered in strange and mysterious circumstances, the townspeople must confront what ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ Tue, 23 Jan 2018 10:07:45 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ Mon, 08 Jan 2018 08:43:02 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ A woman, her two sons, her ex, and a deer. Add to this the knife the ex is using to gut the animal and you have a family crisis of compelling drama. Cindy House's "Dear Deer" doesn't skimp on the suspense but finds humor too in this confrontation ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_66-dot-_January_2018/ Tue, 02 Jan 2018 11:11:03 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_65-dot-_November_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_65-dot-_November_2017/ Mon, 04 Dec 2017 14:28:01 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_65-dot-_November_2017/ Our partners the Boston Book Festival chose Daphne Kalotay’s “Relativity” as the selection for the 2017 One City One Story project. The story appeared in print--for the first time--in free booklets available throughout Boston. But you can listen to Daphne ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_65-dot-_November_2017/ Mon, 04 Dec 2017 14:21:37 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:57:38 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ How fearless can you be? How fearless can you afford to be? In the "Parking Garage Late at Night" of Val Maloof's flash fiction, one woman's fear and imagination twine together as she faces danger. Maloof explores how the story the woman tells herself ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ Fri, 28 Jul 2017 01:50:39 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ In Josh Sheridan's complicated story "Faith," a woman negotiates the hypocrisy and exploitation of a small religious group. Whether you see the group as a cult or a religion, and whether you see the woman as a heretic or a believer will depend on ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ Fri, 28 Jul 2017 02:07:11 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ A Nigerian woman's domination by her new husband forms the narrative of Hannah Onoguwe's "The Housewife" as, step by step, Aramide faces more and more restrictions--on what she can wear, whom she can visit, and finally where she can go. But confined ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_64-dot-_August_2017/ Fri, 28 Jul 2017 02:15:56 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_63-dot-_December_2016/ There is a woman raking lizards down from a tree. There is a family to care for. There are errands to run. Our narrator wages war against the lizards who return each day, undefeated, but she fights other things, too, in a much more complicated battle. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_63-dot-_December_2016/ Fri, 16 Dec 2016 15:39:31 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_63-dot-_December_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_63-dot-_December_2016/ Fri, 16 Dec 2016 15:37:02 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_63-dot-_December_2016/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_63-dot-_December_2016/ Tue, 26 Sep 2017 13:18:03 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_62-dot-_September_2016/ "Five Wishes" unfolds in as many episodes, each one telling a linked variation on a tale of a boy, his mother and father, a stream, a shovel, and a piece of purple quartz. Taken together, these episodes are like facets on a stone, revealing new insights ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_62-dot-_September_2016/ Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:45:33 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_62-dot-_September_2016/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_62-dot-_September_2016/ Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:45:56 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_62-dot-_September_2016/ A train makes the perfect setting for this story about a woman in limbo--between jobs, between countries and cultures, between homes. Aine Greaney's "The Man on the Train" turns a conversation with a stranger into a study of belonging, as Lorna, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_62-dot-_September_2016/ Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:45:00 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ Mon, 25 Jul 2016 02:57:48 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ In this subtle and tense story, James English sets us down among the complicated relationships within a family and a neighborhood and lets us watch a betrayal unfold. It's a variation of the tale of a stranger coming to town--only the stranger is already there, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ Mon, 25 Jul 2016 02:43:24 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ Fri, 16 Feb 2018 12:25:47 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ 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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_61-dot-_July_2016/ Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:49:26 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ A group of children and their slightly inattentive parents are the time-honored ingredients for narrative mischief. In KL Pereira's "The Children's House," the mischief involves the slipping and sliding boundaries between one space and another, one ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ Wed, 06 Apr 2016 11:09:12 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ Wed, 06 Apr 2016 10:56:55 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ Wed, 06 Apr 2016 10:48:42 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ The accidental meeting of former lovers shapes Daniel Higgins' "Some Plastic City Beyond." Told mostly through dialogue, the story offers us the careful cadences of two people negotiating old wounds and new discoveries. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_60-dot-_April_2016/ Wed, 06 Apr 2016 10:49:42 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_2016/ An earthquake shakes the narrator's world just as she is shocked by news of a friend's death. But it's in the violence done to the natural order that she registers her loss. Tending for a rabbit, the narrator of Katie DePasquale's "What The Spirit Rabbits ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_2016/ Tue, 12 Jan 2016 15:19:45 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_2016/ Fri, 16 Feb 2018 12:26:23 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_2016/ Sermonette and Tom meet at a concert. Tom is at the mic. Sermonette is watching. They go on to skirmish and flirt, resisting the monsters of Jane Flett's title even as those monsters grow within them. The narrative seethes with passion and inventive language ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_2016/ Tue, 12 Jan 2016 15:13:12 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_2016/ S. E. Clark's "Foxes" places us in an unsettling world part fairy tale, part parable, in which the innocent and the sinister battle in the lives of children. Clark's spare prose tells the tale of a small community preyed upon in subtle ways by the ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_59-dot-_January_2016/ Tue, 12 Jan 2016 13:40:44 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ Whether you have your Thanksgiving in a restaurant or at an extended family table, for better or for worse, you can't escape the food. Thanksgiving is our most Proustian holiday, when scents of one relative's marshmallowed yams or another's oregano-dressed ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ Thu, 19 Nov 2015 16:14:02 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ Serotonin notwithstanding, Thanksgiving makes us hungry. Despite the torpor of the holiday, we become agitated, restless. Maria Mutch's "Appetites" immerses us in the restless and agitated world of a journey like so many on Thanksgiving: a trip to ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ Thu, 19 Nov 2015 16:05:32 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ 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, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ Thu, 19 Nov 2015 15:57:34 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ 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, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_58-dot-_November_2015/ Thu, 19 Nov 2015 15:53:53 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ Wed, 07 Oct 2015 18:22:11 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ A Brooklyn family wrestles with challenges in which the mundane swiftly becomes momentous. One child's impish use of a dried legume, another's need for order; a father's return from Iraq, a mother's rush to the emergency room: events and experiences combine ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ Fri, 09 Oct 2015 09:05:28 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ A lesson in fly fishing focuses the relationship between an Irish father and son. Looking for ways to connect, a son sees his own value weighed against everything else his father holds more beautiful. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ Wed, 07 Oct 2015 15:42:20 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ Jennifer De Leon's "Home Movie" is the Boston Book Festival's 2015 selection for the One City One Story project. "Home Movie" follows Eduardo and his wife Linda on the day he records their life in America for their family in Guatemala, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_57-dot-_October_2015/ Wed, 07 Oct 2015 16:04:12 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_2015/ At the festival of Profitis Elias in Papingo, Greece, Henriette Lazaridis describes the celebration in the church square, and the always mournful revelry so apt for this summer's political upheaval. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_2015/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 16:23:36 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_2015/ From the Shishu Vihar orphanage in Telangana, Rishi Reddi recounts her visits to the children during the holiday of Rhakhi Bandan--and to one boy in particular whom she and her daughter prepare to welcome to their family. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_2015/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 16:19:36 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_2015/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 16:04:18 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_56-dot-_September_2015/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 16:00:52 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ A young woman teaching English to her Romanian students is repaid with profound lessons of her own--in language and in the nuances of love, hope, and expectation. Interspersed with Romanian words and phrases, Lenore Myka's "Lessons in Romanian" slides ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:46:05 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:42:04 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ A young woman sees lessons in survival and violence handed down on a frozen Canadian lake. Ron MacLean's "How to Club A Fish" offers a vivid portrait of one family's dynamics in the world of a cramped cabin. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ Sun, 28 Jun 2015 10:35:50 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ Beth Woodcome Platow reads her poem “When to Leap” and talks with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur about Ginsburg’s "Howl", being direct and her obsession with design. In a gripping, unadorned voice, her poem explores the instincts of both body and ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_55-dot-_July_2015/ Sun, 28 Jun 2015 12:09:50 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_2015/ Mon, 08 Jun 2015 12:04:43 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_2015/ Wed, 10 Jun 2015 09:42:47 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_2015/ Mon, 08 Jun 2015 11:53:35 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_54-dot-_June_2015/ Mon, 08 Jun 2015 11:48:51 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_2015/ Brian Burt reads his poem "Ars Poetica" and discusses its origin and themes with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur. Burt talks about the registers of poetic language, the tradition of the ars poetica, Rilke, and his passion for bicycles and cycling. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_2015/ Wed, 01 Apr 2015 16:01:39 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_2015/ In "Gretchen Was Abducted," a woman recalls with wry humor the night she was taken in error from a slumber party. Gilmore Tamny's short story offers a dispassionate exploration of haplessness and desperation, adventure and survival. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_2015/ Wed, 01 Apr 2015 16:11:03 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_2015/ ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_2015/ Wed, 01 Apr 2015 16:05:05 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_53-dot-_April_2015/ Wed, 01 Apr 2015 16:08:59 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_52-dot-_October_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_52-dot-_October_2014/ Mon, 10 Nov 2014 15:02:25 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_52-dot-_October_2014/ Jennifer Haigh's "Sublimation" is the Boston Book Festival's choice for this year's One City One Story, a project to promote reading and to create community around a shared reading experience. "Sublimation" first appeared in the Spring ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_52-dot-_October_2014/ Wed, 22 Oct 2014 17:00:38 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ 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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ Sat, 02 Aug 2014 14:03:39 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ In Stephen Dorneman's "Country-Line Dancing in Bridgeport, CT," a aloof widower finds himself in bemused participation during an evening's unexpected dance. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ Sat, 02 Aug 2014 13:56:21 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ In "A Thousand Cuts," Calvin Hennick turns a young boy's haircut into a taut revelation about the chaos of his mother's life, hinting at the history of this small family and intimating its perhaps ominous future. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 21:33:33 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_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. ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ Sat, 02 Aug 2014 13:55:32 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ 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". ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_51-dot-_August_2014/ Sat, 02 Aug 2014 13:55:03 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_2014/ 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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_2014/ Tue, 29 Jul 2014 22:12:08 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_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 ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_2014/ Mon, 21 Jul 2014 09:37:40 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_2014/ A husband's disappearance while taking the babysitter home precipitates the crisis in this excerpt from Cathi Hanauer's novel Gone. Eve Adams embarks on a first day of her new normal, fending off inquiries from children surly and clueless, and navigating the ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_2014/ Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:44:20 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_2014/ A boy's silence, a sister's bicycle and a "misaligned world with skewed meanings". Gregory Spatz' "Brace" immerses us in the consciousness of a narrator thinking about ruin and loss as he remembers a childhood aphasia, a freewheeling car, ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_50-dot-_July_2014/ Tue, 08 Jul 2014 19:23:56 EST https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_49-dot-_June_2014/ Susan Rich reads her poems "Tricks a Girl Can Do" and "Cloud Pharmacy"--and speaks with Poetry Editor Kirun Kapur about ekphrastic poetry, her discovery of photographer Hannah Maynard, and the pleasures of bicycling while reciting Elizabeth ... https://drumlitmag.com/sounds/f/Issue_49-dot-_June_2014/ Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:18:01 EST