Category Archives: Shows

How the Hibernation of One Led to the Insomnia of Another | KC Esper

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I work as a marketing writer for a financial firm that provides factoring services to small businesses. It doesn’t sound too interesting because it’s not; regardless, I keep convincing myself that my job equips me with a ton of skills that I’m sure will help me with whatever I end up doing in the future. The nice thing about working a very right-brained position in a very left-brained industry is that my coworkers allow me certain liberties during my shifts, […]

Categories: KC Esper, Story Club Cleveland

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Lion-Hearted | Joy Ellison

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Editors note: Names have been changed to protect the safety of the people of At-Tuwani. When I returned home after three years working in Palestine, people told me that I was brave. I wished they would stop. In Palestine, I wasn’t brave so much as confused. The Israeli military occupation of Palestine is baffling. Palestinian homes are demolished for not having building permits, even though it is well known that the Israeli army refuses to issue permits. Pregnant Palestinian women […]

Categories: Joy Ellison, Story Club South Side

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Same and Different: The Never-Ending Story of Chanukah | Sandor Schuman

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Listen to a version of Sandor’s story told live here. I am usually introduced as Sandy, but my given name is Sandor. Sandor is derived from Alexander – I am named after Alexander the Great. You might ask, why was a nice Jewish boy like me named after Alexander the Great? When Alexander the Great conquered Judea, the Jews were anxious. It was typical in those days that the conquering army would insist, “We won because our gods are better […]

Categories: Sandor Schuman, Sharing the Fire: The Northeast Storytelling Conference

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Finer Things | Stephanie Douglass

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The doorbell shouldn’t have been ringing. When you are a fat kid, and you have a half-day of school, you go home, you put in Salt’n Pepa’s Blacks’ Magic, and you re-read Danielle Steel’s Fine Things for the fourth time. This is life, and it is glorious. But then the doorbell rings. And your mother rushes back to your room. Through gritted teeth, she tells you to, “Put your hair in a ponytail and go to the door.” Because even […]

Categories: Stephanie Douglass, Story Club South Side

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The Trip | Josephine Woodall

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  As cool as I think Jack Kerouac is, there is no way he would have been able to make it across America on that budget, that dream, and those degenerates he called friends in 2010. It’s bullshit but, because of him, I tried it. Between desperately wanting to be part of the beatniks and believing the notion that driving across the country was cheaper than flying, which, SURPRISE, it isn’t, I, along with three of my best friends from […]

Categories: Josephine Woodall, Story Club Cleveland

Postcard from Acapulco | James Sweeney

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I can count on one hand the times I’ve lived, I mean really truly lived, with passion and ferociousness and all that stuff. However, after further consideration, I am forced to admit that four of those times I was drunk. When I am sober, which is fairly often, there is nary a hint of primordial fight in me. Nor flight for that matter. You see, I am evolved from a rare strain of homo sapiens whose particular defense mechanism against […]

Categories: James Sweeney, Story Club South Side

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