Category Archives: Authors

Lifed: Past Tense, Present Continuous | Shay DeGrandis

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Lifed: Past Tense, Present Continuous was read as part of Miss Spoken’s July 2016 show, Road Trip. You can find Shay at the three-minute mark.  After being forcibly removed from my job of 19 years I need a change: a career change, obviously, though that’s been decided for me, but also a shift in perspective, in priorities—in the way I live my life in general. Is there anything meaningful I want to do? Because helping kids through art school, draining […]

Categories: Miss Spoken, Shay DeGrandis

Devastatingly Normal | Patrick French

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Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters were about to make their third encore of the evening at the TD Garden in Boston. At that point, they’d been wailing away at our eardrums for a little under three hours; a relentless onslaught of punk rock-metal, roaring guitars, thunderous drums and Dave’s screeching voice. “We don’t play fucking one hour shows.” he’d said at the beginning of the show. “We don’t play fucking two hour shows. We don’t play fucking three hour […]

Categories: Patrick French, Story Club Cleveland

On Zombies and Other Monsters | Joshua Daum

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Hello, I’m Abel Township Runner 5. My friends just call me “5,” and, assuming that none of you are zombies, mad scientists, or the mind-controlled drones of an evil corporation, you can feel free to do the same. You may or may not have any idea what I’m talking about. For those of you who don’t, I’m referring to Zombies, Run!, a fantastic app that I highly recommend. It’s a zombie apocalypse-themed fitness app. It’s also a really clever piece […]

Categories: Joshua Daum, Story Club Cleveland

He Woke the Beast | Catharine Savage

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He Woke the Beast was first performed on May 29th, 2016 as part of The Arrow Cracks with The Neo-Futurists.  Brian put his hand on my thigh and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen to you again.” I wanted to take his hand off my leg and slap him in the face with it repeatedly, while saying, “Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself.” Brian and I were both studying abroad in Morocco for the semester. […]

Categories: Catharine Savage, The Arrow at the Neo-Futurists

Inner Adjustments | Christina Brandon

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Inner Adjustments was read as part of Miss Spoken’s May 2016 show, Birth Control. You can find Christina at the 40:56 mark. The decision to get an IUD was almost spur-of-the moment. I wasn’t thinking about it when I went to see my gynecologist for my annual checkup: I was thinking about birth control pills. I’d been taking the pill on and off for about 10 years, which started making me nervous when I hit 30. I’d become inconsistent about taking them, and paranoid […]

Categories: Christina Brandon, Miss Spoken

How Did I Happen? | Ida Cuttler

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I found my mom’s old diaries in our attic the other day and I read them all. Cover to cover. This was pretty scandalous. I want to point out that my mom isn’t dead or anything. My mom was downstairs doing the dishes. I was just committing a severe breach of trust. Would I be angry if the tables were turned, and my mother was reading my diaries? Hell yeah. Did this stop me? Nope. I decided that it was […]

Categories: Ida Cuttler, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind

Cruise Control | Adrian Gonzales

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The muffler could be heard from down the street and I knew he was here. It was a little past midnight when I snuck out of my house. Matthew picks me up in his jet-black 1965 Mustang Convertible. I snap on my seatbelt, ready for our next adventure, and he asks me, “Do you cruise?” Cruise? I had to take a second to think, Hmmm…do I “cruise”? Matt was 27 and I was 17 because I don’t know, daddy issues, but […]

Categories: Adrian Noel Gonzales, Story Club North Side

Good Girls Are | Britt Julious

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I hope Nicole is okay. I hope the weight of being this age at this time doesn’t crush her. I hope her life is easy (much easier than mine) and that she is ascending. Because me, her doppelgänger, was descending, and quickly. “You look really familiar,” people tell me when I’m in public. The longer I live within city limits, the more often I hear this. Whereas at first I assumed it was something white people said to black people […]

Categories: Britt Julious, Story Club North Side

The Apple Bottom Falls Far From the Tree | Ginnie Redmond

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I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri with my mom, dad, three brothers, and two sisters. My parents wanted nothing less than the Midwestern dream for their Irish-Catholic brood: quarterbacks and prom kings for sons, dance team captains and homecoming queens for daughters. They dreamed of future lawyers, soccer moms, grandchildren galore. And who’s to blame them? Who wouldn’t want what’s best for their kids? Unfortunately for my mom, I didn’t fit into her idea of Midwest perfection. While my […]

Categories: Ginnie Redmond, Story Club North Side