“You’re pretty strong for a girl.” In retrospect, I believe it was those six brief but toxic words that sounded the death knell for the beautiful, flowing locks of sandy brown hair I sported as an eight-year-old. They were uttered to me at the St. Croix Valley YMCA summer day camp after an archery lesson left a blunt-tipped arrow embedded firmly in a hay bale, unyielding as Excalibur to the pre-adolescent grasp of my fellow campers. In an uncharacteristically bold […]
It’s Thursday night in Lititz, Pennsylvania and Woody Clarke wants to see my pubic hair. I can tell because in the last hour he’s said some variation of “c’mon, show me your bush” at least three times, and my unwillingness to show him what I’ve got under there must be wearing him down because this last time, between sinking the 9 ball and the 13, he just pointed at my crotch and whispered, “She’s on fire! Let me see it.” […]
Taylor Tower’s story was recorded live at Story Club Minneapolis. Taylor Tower is a storyteller and teacher based in Minneapolis by way of Montreal. Her writing has been featured on CBC’s WireTap with Jonathan Goldstein and Roman Mars’ Public Radio Remix, as well as on nerve.com and elsewhere. She was thrilled and honored to participate in The Moth MainStage in September 2014, where the audience went wild, just like her mom said they would. She has taught storytelling workshops to students of all ages through […]
One night, about ten months ago, I got an email from a friend in Vermont, with the subject line “Is this you!?”
The first time I ever masturbated, I buried my underwear in the backyard. Yes. You heard me correctly. I was eleven the first time “dirty love juice” had ever come out of my … no. No. I couldn’t even say it. Good Catholics did not do this. They did not masturbate. They did not say the word penis outside of a doctor’s office. That shit was vulgar. And at that very moment, as I lay in bed soaked in fluids, […]
“Jobless” was originally showcased at Story Club Minneapolis. Click ‘Read More’ to watch a video of Jamie performing her story.
