Sunday Stories: “The Storyteller as Mentor”

Pen

The Storyteller as Mentor
(September 2002 to January 2003, Northern Ireland)
by Timothy DeLizza

In the fall after I graduated college, I flew from Brooklyn to Northern Ireland to apprentice under an established Irish storyteller who I’ll call Martha. After paying for my plane ticket, I had something like $1,000 in my bank account—and while Martha had agreed to cover room and board, the apprenticeship was not going to increase that number.

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Sunday Stories: “PCS Season”

Highway

PCS Season
by Ilana Garon

I moved to Clarksville, Tennessee from New York City in July 2017, just six months into the Trump presidency. My soon-to-be husband Tim, an Army Major, had been assigned to the 101st Airborne Division of Band of Brothers-fame, now stationed out of Fort Campbell—a sprawling, industrial-looking 50,000-person garrison made up of old bunkers and concrete administrative buildings that straddles the state line between Tennessee and Kentucky. 

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Sunday Stories: “The Onion”

onion

The Onion
by Sacha Bissonnette

When Charles finished his volunteering at the library, he arrived home at exactly 5:16 pm. He knew it was exactly 5:16 pm because he checked his watch at the precise moment when he exited his car, walked up the driveway, and twisted the doorknob to enter his house. The first thing he saw when he came in was a large, singular onion sitting on his dining room table.

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Sunday Stories: “All Matter & Chemistry”

Chemistry bottles

All Matter & Chemistry
by Holly Pelesky

Adam #5 had no clue about Adams #1-#4. It wasn’t something easy to blurt out, I didn’t know how to bring it up. To my friends, my Adam proclivity (or some would say fetish) was a funny anecdote, something we could joke about as if it didn’t matter, something coincidental, harmless, humorous. But then again, none of them were named Adam. 

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Sunday Stories: “Company”

Letters

Company
by Ronna Wineberg

Elaine sat in front of the computer, typing answers to the questions on the Silver Singles website. She was sixty-seven years old, divorced after a long marriage, looking for a man, a companion. Experimenting, really, to see what an online dating search would be like.

She had to give her history of relationships—married, separated, divorced, single, never married. She felt as if she was often considering the history of something. At the doctor’s office, she recited the history of medications, diseases. On Amazon, she scrolled to check the history of her purchases. At the repair shop, she told the mechanic the history of her car’s problems. She was often amassing information from the past and using it to create a future.

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Sunday Stories: “Man of God”

Whale tail

Man of God
by Vivian Lawry

You never heard of the Rev. Mr. Moses Abraham Davidson? He once preached from the mouth of a stuffed whale—but more of that later. 

He rode to his calling in a pony cart, pulling a small wooden wagon in which rode a Chester White hog he called Hamlet. He taught Hamlet—the most civilized of barnyard animals—to fetch, sit, and stay. Hamlet ambled with the Rev on walks and lived in the back room of his house. They were accompanied by a white Great Dane named Baskerville.

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Sunday Stories: “Potassium”

shipping container

Potassium
by Arianna Reiche

I always think I’m too tired to go. Even as I’m telling myself I’ll skip this one, even as I turn my phone onto its face to suffocate the light, even as I wrap myself in my duvet, the one that smells like teenage me, curve my spine, and try to re-settle into the abyss of sleep – there my feet are, hitting the carpet. There I am, standing. I’m getting my coat.

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