Jobless | Jamie Amy Ann
“Jobless” was originally showcased at Story Club Minneapolis. Click ‘Read More’ to watch a video of Jamie performing her story.
Category Archives: Shows
My Own Prison | Grant Zemont
It was the last months of my senior year in college, 1994. I was so ready to leave N.I.U. and actually start my real life. On my last trip home before graduation, I met my dad at his favorite bar. Unbeknownst to me, that was the night he decided to impart to me his wisdom of the ages– the three things I needed to know before I entered the working world. Never trust HR. They are not there to help […]
The Extraordinary Evan Kite | Maura Clement
Much of life is determined by chance, much by choice. By chance, I forgot to check into my flight to Seattle last weekend. So, I was in the last group of passengers allowed to board the plane, which severely limited my choice of seats. If you’ve ever flown on Southwest Airlines, you know that when you check-in online 24 hours before your flight, you are given a number—1 through 60 in the A, B, or C group. That number and […]
Addiction | Marya Hornbacher
I got so good at pool I had my own cue. It was a gift from a guy whose name I kept forgetting, maybe Peter, maybe Mike, a guy I’d agreed to marry during a Christmas Eve drunk. It was a candy-apple-red cue, had its own case, broke beautifully, cracked into the cue ball, scattered the tight rack of twelve colored balls like a spray of smashed glass. It was 1999, and I kept a bottle of Maker’s Mark at […]
Life is a Cabaret… of Funfetti | Kendra Stevens
The folly of youth is like Funfetti cake: sweet and fun-seeming, with pastel pink and blue and green chunks of whatsits, only serving to break your teeth and hasten the onset of childhood diabetes. It’s the same folly that, coupled with three Bud Lights, will make you think you can jump a CTA turnstile with no repercussions. My second year in Chicago, my roommate, Amber, our friend, Dan, and I went to see Fosse at the Oriental Theatre. We were […]
Rhinestone | J.H. Palmer
Recently a prospective employer told me that the job I was interviewing for had received 350 applications in response to the posting. I considered what this meant: my chances of getting offered the job were one in 350, or .2 percent, as in two tenths of one percent. Harvard University currently has an acceptance rate of 5.9 percent, or 30 times the acceptance rate of the entry level job I was interviewing for. So, it’s come to this: I’m preparing […]
Beginnings | Lauren Sivak
Beginnings. To begin. To do something. Start something. Activate. Embark. Impulse. Get going. Go into. Beginnings. The unknown. Unfamiliar. Uncertainty. Beginnings. Something you are doing for the first time. Something, after which, you will never be the same.
Making New Friends at Camp | Jennifer Peepas
When I was nine, my parents sent me to sleep-away camp for two weeks. It took me only one week to bring the place to its knees. Now the prospect of sleep-away camp was awesome, because when you are a painfully awkward, try-hard bag of weird with no friends and mean stupid brothers, summer camp is basically your one hope for positive human interaction during the summer. Possibly, just possibly, there will be a cool counselor who will teach you […]
Things You Can and Cannot Learn from The Feynman Lectures on Physics | Aubrey Henretty
I’m having this problem. It’s kind of embarrassing. Like I’ve been withdrawing from people and doubting my life choices. I don’t know what you do when you have a problem like this. Some people consult a religious text or a self-help book. Maybe some poetry, if it’s that kind of problem. But right now, I need something practical — hypothesized, tested, retested. I need something that can accurately predict the future to within three significant digits. What I need, clearly, […]
