Issue 25. June 2012
Turn of the Century
download"The world will end soon." So says the protagonist of Jen Bergmark's "Turn of the Century." An old rock and roller who views himself as a has-been, the singer is fascinated by Nostradamus and by predictions that the millennium will send us all into chaos. He looks ahead to New Year's of 2000 as the confirmation of the ending he has experienced in his career and his life. But when a young concert promoter recognizes him at an LA flea market, his life, like the century, takes a different turn. (44:08)
Zip-Code Stories
downloadThe narrator of Kim Savage's "The Fells" tells the chiling story of her abduction from this remote part of Winchester, Massachusetts (01890). Describing a routine fells run turned dangerous, the story hints at the complicated relationships between the abductor, the intended victim, and the girl who took her place. "The Fells" is the featured Zip-Code Story for June 2012, as part of The Drum's project with WBUR's Radio Boston. (3:42)
Excerpt from Helen Keller in Love
downloadRosie Sultan reads from her novel Helen Keller in Love (Viking 2012), specifically, the episode in which Keller first meets Peter Fagan, the man she was to fall in love with. The excerpt offers a vivid sense of Keller's world, in which messages are communicated by signs in her palm, and sounds are felt through vibration. (23:42)
Excerpt from Day After Night
downloadAnita Diamant's novel Day After Night tells the story of four women among the two hundred prisoners of the Atlit internment camp, a prison for “illegal” immigrants run by the British military near the Mediterranean coast south of Haifa. Diamant reads the Prologue and "Waiting" from Part One, focusing in on Tedi, a young Dutch woman prisoner trying to make sense of life in Barracks C. When a train brings new arrivals to the camp, Tedi must resist the urge to remember her home and her lost life, lest the memories overwhelm her. (18:46)
STORIES ON THE STREET Prospero from The Tempest
downloadThe Drum's Stories on the Street project brings Shakespeare to Coney Island. This place of temporary pleasures was a fitting location for Sara Fetherolf to record visitors reading Prospero's well-known speech from The Tempest. This recording may be the only time that "our revels now are ended" is captured with the ambient sounds of a roller-coaster. To read along from Shakespeare's text, click Project Gutenberg here. (1:40)
2012 MuseFlash Contest: Flash Fiction and Non-Fiction
Announcing the winners of our Third MuseFlash Contest, recorded during Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference May 5-6.Paula ChuPatrcia SollnerR.J. TaylorCollin TobinBetty YeeMuseFlash invites writers to read their 500-word pieces aloud in The Drum's recording room at the Muse conference. The Drum staff selected the best from a very strong group of submissions. Thank you to all the writers who participated in this year's event.
